Free Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury

Gallery, second floor. Those stairs there at the back hall.”
    I froze. “How did you know?”
    “Steady stream of curiosity seekers since that mayhem over at the Park two nights ago.”
    I thanked him, declined his offer to show me the way, and hurried through the archway toward the exhibits. I felt his eyes follow me as I paced the long hall, lined with more marble statuary. I took the indicated stair as quickly as I could and found a sign pointing out the direction of the Egypt rooms. I traveled another corridor, this one lined with tapestries, before reaching my destination. As it was early, I found the room still and quiet. The light was dim despite the morning sunshine I’d left behind. The windows were small and set high near the ceiling. On my last visit, our guide had told us that this curious feature was a caution to protect the artifacts displayed from direct sunlight. But the placement and infrequency of the windows, and the resulting perpetual shadow, only made the setting feel all the more like the tombs and caves the objects had been taken from.
    Sarcophagi flanked the perimeter, like soldiers standing vigil over the contents of the room. Their eyes, some painted on stone, a few on gold or silver, seemed to follow me, daring me to disturb the collection of pots and jars arranged in glass cabinets. Near the extreme end of the room, a living shape hunched over the open case of a mummy, carefully brushing dust from its surface with the tip of a feather. A candle blazed from behind a glassed lantern on a cart beside him.
    “Pardon me?” I said.
    The figure unbent itself from the work. He was tall and surprisingly young. And familiar. When his eyes met mine, I realized where I’d seen him before and started.
    “Yes?” he asked, eying me curiously.
    It was the young man from the party. The one who’d so painstakingly cataloged the findings on the body that night. The one Showalter had embarrassed. He stared at me with those deep brown eyes, and the effect was even more unnerving than that produced by the painted ones on the sarcophagi, though for altogether different reasons.
    “Nine o’clock already?” His voice echoed around the empty room.
    No recognition in his eyes or his voice. He viewed me solely as an interruption.
    I swallowed. “Yes. I was hoping you could help me.”
    “I’d meant to finish this before opening,” he said, annoyed, returning to his work.
    “But this is an urgent matter . . .”
    He applied the feather’s tip to the sunken eye sockets on the wrapped corpse. “What could be so urgent—,” he began before turning to face me again. “Come to ask about that curse business, have you?”
    “That’s not why I’m here,” I said.
    “Then out with it, if you please.” He gestured toward the body. “I’ve work to do.”
    I nodded appreciatively at the mummy he was dusting, wondering if he feared it might wander off before he finished. “I need help identifying something.”
    “And what is this something?” he asked, placing the feather on a cart laden with the lantern and an assortment of other tools.
    “Are you an expert?” I asked.
    He hesitated, then finally nodded, drawing himself up a little taller. “Enough.”
    He couldn’t be more than a few years older than me. “Forgive me, sir, you seem so young, and you are, well . . . dusting , after all.”
    He bristled. “I’ve been a student of the artifacts of Egypt for some years, and I’ll have you know that we cannot trust the care of these specimens”—he gestured toward the body he’d been dusting—“to any scab who might know how to wield a rag and mop.”
    Having thoroughly offended him and wasted time in doing so, I hesitated no further. “Very well,” I said, reaching into my handbag and pulling from it the iron dog’s head.
    I held it out to him. He took it in his gloved hands and over to his cart, where he pulled a magnifying glass from the tray.
    “Where did you get this?”
    “At a party