Then, someone knocked on my door. I quickly let the wardrobe down. Tried to cover the experiment on the dresser with the cloth, and I managed to zap myself in the forehead with an electrical spark hiding the things in the drawers instead. Still looked suspicious, though.
It was Leslie, who had walked from Archive City.
—I haven’t seen you in a few days and I was beginning to worry— she said in my doorstep, her hands holding an umbrella—, is everything alright?
—Yes, sorry— I said, with my fingers touching my eyebrow—.
—Good, then you can explain to me why you’ve half of and eyebrow copper-plated.
I went back to the mirror and saw she was right, on the point where the spark had zapped me, and which was the same place I’d touched, it was reflecting light in a copper tone. Right now, on a small line above my left eyebrow, I had plated myself. I felt idiotic. In my distraction, Leslie had walked in and sat on the bed, waiting for me to stop freaking out of what was I going to do.
—Do you want to tell me what’s on your mind? — she asked, looking at the mirror and the displaced wardrobe— Because there’s a missing testimony back at the Archives and this rooms looks like it had been bombed.
I just blurted all out. The experiment, the testimony, the hidden place on the wall. On the moment I said the last thing, nonetheless, her eyes widened and arched her eyebrows. Crossed her ankles and waited for me to stop before standing up. She took a deep breath, shook her head, and walked to the opening where the wardrobe was, and now was a door.
—You might have stumbled in the secret of the Athenidas— walked back to me and made a book appear in her hand—. I remembered reading it here…
The small book was a copy of “Modern Treasures”, which now I managed to piece, had been written by Paolo Ortiz himself. I also had one of the same editions, but had been sent to my family home. It talked about the last 40 years of unsolved mysteries, sculptures, hidden chests, treasures maps, and others. The most famous one was the Arcane Collection, a large number of art pieces and historical artefacts which had been lost around 1893.
—I don’t recall anything about the Athenidas in that book— I said, frowning—. Though there was a footnote on the Roberts Family Fortune…
—The Athenida’s have a bad reputation of spawning almost everywhere, specially since they are the definition on “Old Money”. Older than the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the old man even loaned money to some folk called Nathaniel Morgan in the late-17th century.
—Morgan as in the banker?
—The one and the same— she added, while looking at the book—. However…they are very good to keep their name out of the written record. They are the Arcane Collection owners, and we’ve been wondering for years where they hid it…
We walked to the hidden door, which was locked. It wasn’t a magically sealed door, so, while Leslie stumbled onto herself to try and opening it with a hairpin, I, again, snapped my fingers. It was a room a bit larger than a linen closet, with a ladder going up to an attic that wasn’t on the floorplans, no matter how much I looked in the book. She didn’t wait for anything, simply dusted the cobwebs from the steps and went up, with me on toe.
—And you think it is inside Featherhill? —I said, going up.
—Not really sure what to think. But if this is practically untouched since the Athenidas were here, perhaps there is a tracing of some sort.
The attic was a large room with creaky floorboards and an inch of dust over every single thing. Even things inside things had dust on them. Mostly, the objects up there were inside wooden crates labelled “Athenida & Co.”, which wasn’t a surprise. Nonetheless, they were also marked with initials of whom they belonged to, and the years, probably, in which they’ve came to the house. About twenty or so crates, an armchair, a dusty bookshelf with no books.
There were also a couple of electric lamps not connected to anything else. For curiosity, I tried to turn one on, and it did, shinning a shimmering amber light on all the forgotten stuff. We spend a couple of minutes in silence, going through the boxes that weren’t sealed.
I had no quarrel with rummaging a little on this unknown place, but opening the nailed-shut crates wasn’t a thing I would pride myself doing. Though a couple of my archaeologist friend keep calling themselves “ancient grave-robbers”, I don’t concur with that assessment. But, after seeing a bag with silver dollars, I slipped a few of them into my pocket, perhaps I should reconsider it. I’m essentially a robber, without the perks of academia.
—Doesn’t seem like a treasure to me— I said, after picking up a photo album with a locked put on it—, though these people take privacy to an extreme.
—Maybe you’re right, still I would like to have a look at some of these things— she had a tea set on a tray; complete with a teapot, a creamer and a sugar bowl—.
—Do as you like. I’m going down before I see a bloody spider.
—Oh, not a fan of the little critters? —she said something else, but I didn’t hear since I was going down the ladder.
I never was a fan of those things, something about they way they move makes them unsettling, to say the least. Don’t know exactly why, but seemed to be a family fear. Once an uncle of my mother sent her a mechanical spider, most likely as a prank, and she smashed it to pieces with the heel of her shoe heating it repeatedly. I disposed of the cogs and springs in the basement furnace, so it wouldn’t have any chance to be repaired or reassembled. Still don’t know who was the uncle, since my mother never spoke about her family side, and most of the time was secluded to the idea of sharing. My father was the same way, but Cottingley is not a large place and his family was always close-by, so his plan crumbled to pieces at every attempt; one of his cousins even was a tutor in the Academy.
—You know what I was thinking? —Leslie said, coming down the ladder— I am looking in the wrong place. Featherhill was in England, it said in the book you have. The Athenidas were listed in “The Four Hundred” by the time Arcane was lost.
—What’s “The Four Hundred”?
—It was a list of millionaires and socialites in New York, published in 1893. Mr. Athenida and his wife are in there. Her daughter not, though.
—I imagine she lived in the Tower by then.
After that exchange, and Leslie refusing to let me help her lowering the tray with magic, we sealed the door and put the wardrobe in front of it. Maybe if I, eventually, got comfortable, we could open a few of the crates, but no for now. She took the tea set, gave a glance at my experiment, and went back to the Archives, to talk with Dr. Afal, the head of Research, to test for potential artefacts.
—There has to be a way to know— she said, before leaving—. Oh, if I were you, I would return the testimony tomorrow, before Mx. Bonheur notices it.
She was right, of course she was. I sat in the bed for a while, looking at the ceiling. Then, something clicked in my mind. Silver dollars. I had the last piece of the puzzle. Stood up in a jump, and my vision darkened-out for a moment, an ironic symptom of iron deficiency. When it came back, I went to ensemble the experiment back on top of the dresser.
I dropped one of the silver coins in the bowl, while the others went to a jewellery box inside the dresser, just in case of a replacement was needed. Wires reconnected in the frame of the mirror, between the iron and the reflective surface and to the bowl dipping in the salted water. I placed the yarn on top of them, praying to all the gods that I’ve known, especially the one in charge of the Archives, and for them to have mercy on my soul if something went wrong with the testimony. Still praying in a whisper, I made a spark appear and slowly dropped, as if it were honey, from my finger and onto the contraption.
Immediately I knew something had gone horribly wrong. The yarn began to spin inside the bowl, while flashing in green, red blue, yellow, white, and every colour in the spectrum except the gold I had anticipated. The mirror was no longer reflecting the room, but instead it had a strange image, as if I was trying to see something beyond a waterfall.
The room began to shake from the frenetic movement of the yarn, the wires, and the mirror. I heard footsteps coming from the stairs, but I didn’t really pay attention to them, since my eyes were fixated on the things, in fear they would topple over.
—Blaire? —I heard from outside— Are you alright?
—WHY ARE YOU ASKING!? —another yelled— THROW THE DAMN DOOR DOWN!
There were two flashes of light, almost synchronized. One came from the door, as someone blew the hinges to open it, while the other came from the mirror, as it fell off the dresser and onto the floorboard. I heard yelling, a scream, violin music and the sound of glass breaking. Everything went pitch-white in a fraction of a second. I brace myself for whatever was about to go down, while still holding the book on the history of the house.
I still can’t explain what happened next.
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