Chapter Five
Aug 31: "Open the box!"
“Well, here we are again.” Owen frowned, staring glumly into yet another dark, dusty, musty storage room lit by a single dust covered yellow overhead bulb.
Izzy couldn’t blame him. It was their third room of the day, and the fifth one of the week. The museum had turned out to be two floors of dull exhibits, offices and work rooms and two floors of cubicle sized storage rooms, some of which hadn’t seen the light of day in decades.
“I’m sure we’ll find something this time.” Izzy had to fight to keep his voice light. In truth, he’d given up hope on their second day of work, when they’d discovered that Gregoire intended to deal with the files and offices, and expected Owen and Izzy to tackle the storage rooms blind.
“Oh sure, we will. Maybe another collection of squirrel skulls… or a few more mummified rats. We can put together a super exhibit on mammals of the suburbs.” Owen was bitter, and he wasn’t even bothering to hide it anymore.
Izzy rose on his tiptoes to peer over Owen’s shoulder. It didn’t look all that promising, but unlike some of the other rooms they’d been in, this one had shelves, and the shelves were lined with shoebox size containers. He hefted his broom in one hand and a bucket of rags in the other. “Right. Let’s get through it.”
“It’s a lot of boxes.” Owen entered the room and set down his notebook and tablet to pull the first box from the shelf. “This is going to take forever.”
Izzy skimmed the shelves rapidly. “Depends. Don’t know what’s in the boxes. If it’s one artifact per box, it’ll go quick.”
Grunting, Owen tipped the box in his hand toward the light and brushed the dust off it. “It’s labeled.”
“What’s it say?” Izzy crowded up close to his roommate and tried to get a good look. “Is it labelled?”
“Hold your horses.” Owen shook the box, eliciting a muffled thump. “It’s not going to be anything. Maybe a packet of Dear John letters from the Civil War.”
They’d found enough of those types of things to create a dismal exhibit on the futility of war. Not exactly the sort of thing to make donors open their pockets or write big checks.
“Open the box!” Impatience overtook him, and Izzy snatched the box from Owen’s hands and pulled the lid off. He hadn’t been aware of how much hope he’d had, how the organized interior of this room had affected him. It looked like someone with purpose had spent time here, it had held promise that his soul had responded to without his awareness. Not until he saw that bundle of letters wrapped with a faded blue ribbon. “Damn.” He shoved box and lid back at Owen, who took them.
“Yeah.” Owen stared down at the letters, a bitter twist to his lush mouth. “Blue. Bet it’s a Confederate war widow’s collection.” Pink ribbon, red ribbon, plain brown twine, they’d seen it all.
Sighing, Izzy went to the opposite wall and grabbed the first box he saw. “I have to leave in an hour to go trim hedges at the nursing home.” It was a good thing he’d kept the other jobs. He had the feeling that if their searches didn’t come up with something soon Gregoire would have no qualms about firing them.
Gregoire. The man was an enigma. He seemed interested in Izzy. More than once, Izzy had caught him staring… but he was completely impervious to flirting and seemed blind to every overture Izzy had made.
“Better move fast then.” Owen set down the first box and started pulling others from the shelf, stripping the lids off efficiently and revealing the contents. Izzy followed suit with the boxes from his own shelf.
Soon they had two neat lines of boxes ready to be photographed and cataloged. Izzy picked up the notebook and pencil ready to write. Owen adjusted his tablet and zoomed in to photograph the contents of the first box.
Izzy waited. And waited. “What?”
Owen lowered the tablet. “Those letters… look at the postage.”
Izzy picked up the packet gently. Paper this old was fragile. “Egypt?” He sat down, cross-legged on the floor. “World War II, maybe?”
“Maybe…” Owen joined him. “Let’s…” His words trailed off. A single tug released the ribbon. Owen took half the stack of letters and put them on the floor.
“What are we doing?” Izzy held the other half, bemused by Owen’s actions.
“Looking for something that museum patrons would like to see.”
“They’re just letters.” Izzy watched Owen open the first envelope and extract a single sheet of yellow paper, covered with bold strokes of thick black ink, fountain pen no doubt. Definitely more than seventy-five years old.
Unfolding the paper, Owen whistled softly. “1898.” He skimmed the page.
“Egypt in 1898?” Izzy felt a spark of renewed excitement. “Lots of expeditions going on then.” He slid a finger into the first envelope in his stack and withdrew the paper.
“Izzy…”
He glanced up from the spidery script. Owen had sounded… like he had when Izzy gave him his birthday present last February. Cautiously excited. “What is it?”
“This letter is from Harold J. Fordham, Esquire. It’s not to his wife, either. It’s to the museum director, and it’s about donating his collection.”
“Augh.” Izzy dropped the envelope and let his head dip, clenching his fists in his hair. “Another stupid arrowhead collection. Great.” They’d found a whole room full of them, mounted on velvet backgrounds, under glass, dumped in piles in boxes, most unlabeled. Gregoire had declared them all fit only for the gift shop.
“Yeehaw!” Izzy startled as Owen leaned forward, bumping their heads together and stealing a quick kiss. “No.” Owen’s voice shook with his emotion. “He was a scholar… a gentleman. He made six excursions to Cairo.”
“Cairo?” His head snapped up so quickly his neck cracked. “It’s a collection of Egyptian artifacts?”
“I assume so. This letter doesn’t list anything, it’s just an inquiry asking if the museum would be interested in his collection.”
“You think it’s here somewhere?” His heart beat rapidly. They might not have discovered it themselves, but rediscovering it… “If we find it…”
“It would make a great display.” Owen cast a significant glance at the pile of letters.
“Only one way to find out if it’s here.”
“It’s here, I know it is. I can feel it.” The prickle of certainty spurred him on, and Izzy picked up the letter again.
What kind of guy does a mummy take on
a date?
