Another day, another litany of classes and note-taking that he hoped he could read later, and Lewis was once again climbing the steps into the doors of Moulton House.
Things looked very different today from the way they'd been so far. A group of men in splattered cover-alls were just taking down the last bits of tape and scaffolding. A pile of drop cloths lay in the corner, waiting for someone to cart it away. The doors to Exhibit Hall G were closed.
"Lewis!" Mr. Gilroy came sailing out of his office hallway with a huge grin on his face. "You're just in time. They've just finished painting and moving a few of Mr. Schlimme's pieces in there. You can at least sweep the floor, anyway--and see what a difference the paint has made!"
Lewis mumbled something noncommittal, and headed toward the janitor closet. Once he had donned his uniform and grabbed a cart, he headed for Exhibit Hall G.
The blast of color hit him as soon as he crossed the threshold. The walls had been covered with a brilliant shade of aquamarine, and this contrasted starkly with the free-standing walls painted each one a different color.
Lewis noticed a few of the art pieces looked familiar--he must have seen them yesterday during the impromptu web search. In one of them, a handful of figurines posed against a backdrop that looked like some grand hall, but only six inches high. In another, winged fairies and mischievous elves danced around a table set with tea things.
Looking at them on a screen was one thing--seeing them in person was quite another experience. Lewis stared at a sculpture of a woman laying in bed, her hair splayed across the pillow and her eyes shut against the world. The longer he watched, the more he fancied he could almost see her breathing...
"What are you doing here?" snapped a voice, and Lewis nearly pitched forward out of fright.
A man stared down at him, with a broad chest, very little neck, and a whole lot of pent-up anger in his shaggy, dark face.
Lewis threw up his hands, and fought to get the words out. "I didn't--I mean, I'm su-su-supposed to be here! Don't hurt me!" Where was Gilroy? Why were there people in a closed exhibit hall, to say nothing of how murderous this particular man looked!
"Adolf! Stop menacing the boy!" called a thickly-accented voice, and the burly man halted.
Krasimir Schlimme descended upon the scene, pulling Adolf to the side.
Lewis stood rooted to the spot as Schlimme berated his subordinate.
"He's allowed to be here, Adolf--he's on the staff at the museum."
Adolf let out a loud sniff. "He's young," he rumbled. "Too young to be an employee."
How would he know? Lewis thought to himself.
Schlimme chuckled. "You're right, he's a student attending the school. But do you see his uniform?" The tall foreigner pointed, and Adolf's eyes traveled from Lewis's sneakers to the top of his head in a methodical fashion that sent chills radiating through the lad's whole body. "That uniform," continued Schlimme, "means that he is working while he's here. His job is to clean the floors and the glass on the display cases. Nothing more, nothing less." The eccentric collector finally turned to address Lewis. "Very sorry about that. Adolf is my bodyguard, when he isn't running security for my exhibits while they're on display. He's the one who's going to be watching the exhibit hall during my time here. Don't mind him. So long as you stick to your prescribed duties, we should have no problems." His gaze swiveled to Adolf, and his eyes narrowed. "Are we clear?"
Adolf ducked his head, tucking his chin against his chest. "Yes, sir."
"Now!" Krasimir Schlimme straightened and clicked the heels of his shoes together again. "I want everything to be perfect for the exhibit's opening tomorrow, so you had better make sure to clean the whole room top to bottom, and do nothing else, Lewis!"
That warning was spoken in a lighter tone, but there seemed to be something sinister lurking behind it that Lewis could feel, like the wet slap of slime on his skin, but couldn't quite place.
"Yes, sir," he mumbled, and made his way to the far corner of the room. There wasn't much to sweep, but at least the renovators had left some vestiges of drywall dust and random screws and penny-nails scattered about.
The whole time he swept, Lewis could feel Adolf watching him. It was doubtless over the security cameras, and also he kept reminding himself that Mr. Schlimme had vouched for him, so Lewis hoped Adolf wouldn't dare trying anything to draw his employers ire... But at the same time, it was all very much unsettling! Would this job always be this stressful? If that were true, Lewis didn't think he could manage to last the rest of the semester.
There was one moment, however strange it may have seemed, when Lewis actually managed to forget about Adolf and Krasimir Schlimme's strange behavior and cryptic warnings. In fact, he actually felt safe for the first time since walking into Moulton House.
It happened along the back wall of the exhibit hall, next to a large crate that stood eight feet tall and ten feet long. It hadn't been opened yet, and Lewis dimly wondered what could be inside--but by the time he left, you could say that the immediate vicinity of the crate had been well and truly polished, since Lewis kept finding himself wandering back to it time and again. What was the mysterious attraction to this crate? He could hear Krasimir Schlimme talking loudly as someone pried it open (Adolf, perhaps?) but Lewis shrugged and headed out into the evening with the conclusion that he would have to see what was in that crate when he came back in the next day.
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Lewis's third day at Moulton House began much sooner than he expected. He had only just left the Science Lab, his first class on the schedule, when someone called his name.
"Lewis Grant?" The woman who spoke stood an inch or so shorter than he was, and her round features gave the impression of openness and gentility. She was simply dressed, in a basic top and skirt in the school colors, and she led a little beige lab on a leash. Her dark-blonde hair gracefully curved around her face.
Lewis made his way over to her with a frown. "That's me," he replied slowly. "What's this about?" His eye fell on her official-looking name badge, and he balked. "I haven't done something wrong, have I?"
With a light chuckle, she explained, "Your teachers have been notified that you will not be attending today--instead, you'll be reporting to Moulton House right away. They're opening the new exhibit just after lunch, and Mr. Gilroy needs your help."
To emphasize her point, the little dog let out an insistent yap.
Lewis chuckled and reached a hand out. "May I?" he asked the woman.
She grinned wider and said, "Sure. His name's Keats, by the way, and I'm Melanie Porter, one of the student teachers... in training, that is."
Lewis rubbed Keats on the head, and the little puppy's tail wagged so hard he wriggled himself away from Lewis's hand and had to crawl back under there.
Finally, he stood up and sighed. "Well I suppose if Mr. Gilroy needs me at Moulton, I should probably go there."
Melanie chuckled. "All right; see you around, Lewis. Come on, Keats." She tugged on the leash, and the wriggly little puppy happily trotted after her.
Lewis crossed the quadrangle and ascended the steps. No one came to meet him in the front hall, so he headed back to the janitor's closet to get into his uniform.
Just as he entered, he all but tripped over the trash cart rolling toward him.
"Oops!" somebody said.
Lewis regained his balance and stepped to the side, frowning in confusion at the young girl wearing a janitor's jumpsuit.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Danielle," she introduced herself. "Sorry for running into you just then. I was in such a rush, I didn't expect anyone else to be here."
Lewis's brain fizzled as he tried to make sense of what was happening. "But... I thought I had this assignment."
Danielle swept her dark hair over the backstrap on her Moulton House cap to keep it out of the way. "I think you still do. I just had my orientation first thing this morning, and Mr. Gilroy told me that I'd be tasked with cleaning most areas except Exhibit Hall G. He said that one's a special assignment, so that's why he put in a request for another student." Her blue eyes blinked slowly as she studied the shaggy-haired lad before her. "Are you the one who gets to clean Hall G?"
Lewis finished loading the equipment on his cart and bobbed his head in confirmation. "As far as I know, yes." Perhaps he might talk with Mr. Gilroy, and ask him about the personnel change.
Exhibit Hall G had undergone yet another change since the day before. The colorful shelves were now full of sculptures and ornate pieces of framed and boxed art of all different sorts. Tiny damsels in fantastic dresses, spry miniature princes with unkempt hair and garish tunics laying on small hillsides and gazing at wispy cotton clouds suspended overhead--each six-inch tableau displayed a level of detail Lewis had never seen before. Even the paintings seemed more real than average, the faces painted in relief somehow seeming more three-dimensional than Lewis ever thought possible with paint on a canvas.
Krasimir Schlimme was certainly an adept artist. Lewis counted a handful of times when he could actually tell what materials Schlimme used in the construction of his art, but most of the time, it truly seemed like the dresses and accessories were legitimately miniature in their construction, rather than just substituted from other items, to mimic the effect. The different textures and colors of hair Schlimme had achieved was also impressive; even the pieces that had the hair painted over so many times it lay absolutely thick with it, still Lewis could see that the hair seemed to hang like it was firmly attached to the skull of the figurine. The wings on some of the fairies, too--they were a lot finer than any material Lewis had seen, but the symmetry seemed almost machine-level quality. The subtle color choices almost confused the eye, much like moth or butterfly wings, and yet, when taken together, it made absolute sense for the look of the sculpture. The wings themselves were as diverse as the figurines they were attached to, giving an extra level of personality to the lifeless works of art.
"Well?" Krasimir Schlimme's voice broke through the haze of overstimulated fascination clinging to Lewis. He flinched like a guilty pickpocket and stared at the imposing artist, finding himself wondering how hands so thick and shoulders so broad would be capable of such delicate work as to carve the facial features of these pieces.
Krasimir stood with his arms folded, his steel-blue eyes narrowed in a glare. "Aren't you going to clean something?" he challenged Lewis.
The young man nodded, and immediately began collecting whatever dirt he could find with his broom. He passed by a sculpture of winged boy fairies dancing around a wide toadstool and curved around the bright-orange wall at the back, and just when he was making his way around the edge of the room to sweep along back to the door at the front.... he froze.
Where the large crate had stood the day before, there now stood a huge display case depicting something far and away more awesome than a portrait of a farmstead family sharing dinner, or even a six-inch-high circus complete with acrobats, tumblers, tightrope-walkers, a ringmaster, and several clowns.
Make that two somethings. There were two full-sized sculptures in that display case.
One looked like a funky cross between a lion and a golden eagle. It had the body of a lion of course, with the tawny hide and the long, whiplike tail. On the front, instead of claws, curled talons graced its paws, and in place of a lion's head, the creature looked like it had the head of an eagle. That in itself could have been surprising enough to look at, but Krasimir had added a pair of eagle's wings to the lion's shoulders, looking for all the world like they just grew that way naturally. Lewis had to admire the skill of creating such a magical, nonexistent creature in a way that looked totally realistic. Even the transition from fur to feather looked pretty seamless. Between the shoulders where the majestic brown wings were fastened, and the head which was fully an eagle with not a whole lot of lion features, one could hardly make out where the fur ended and the feathers actually began.
A quick glance at the plaque displayed on the wall beside the case told Lewis this creature was known as a gryphon. Schlimme had sculpted the gryphon's fore-talons extended, and the beak positioned open in a silent and eternal screech, and it was easy to see why.
Also encased in the glass cover, over a tacky base that had been decorated to look like the floor of a lush forest, was a horse-like creature the size of a thoroughbred horse, and indeed it looked as though Schlimme had done very well capturing the muscle strain and flared nostrils of an angry horse... except that this particular sculpture also sported a horn at the top of its head, just down from where the forelock hung.
Lewis stared at the horn, wondering what sort of material Schlimme might have used to get the deep, rich, flawless red color of it. Resin, perhaps? But no resin would be without its flaws, not at that size. It gleamed with its own apparent light, much in the manner of a well-cut diamond--ruby, perhaps? But for a horn that size, the uncut gem must have been absolutely massive. And not only that, but if it was truly chiseled from ruby, how much did that mean the statue was worth?
"There you are!" Krasimir Schlimme rounded the side of the mint-green free-standing wall and came to stand behind Lewis. "Ahh, admiring my unicorn and gryphon, are you?"
Lewis nodded. "They're very beautiful, sir," he said with genuine warmth to his voice. The way the unicorn's forelegs were tucked underneath, its head bent down to aim the point of its horn right at the gryphon's eye--two mighty titans of the fantasy world, locked in combat--it gave him chills.
Krasimir even said those words to describe his sculpture. "Two titans of the fantasy world, battling for supremacy," he murmured. "The unicorn, with its purity and wisdom representing the innocence and idealism of the upper class, while the lowly gryphon, with its monstrous combination of two apex predators, representing the lower classes which are not to be discounted due to their size, for they make up for any shortcomings in appearance by an unflappable tenacity and fierce determination! Yes, I'm quite proud of these two, ehrm," he coughed a little as the words caught in his throat somehow, "pieces, more than any other in the rest of the gallery!" he gestured broadly to the rest of the room.
Lewis finally turned away from the unicorn, dimly aware of the sensation running up and down his spine, beaming across the goosebumps covering his arms.
"Sir," he said, "I wanted to ask about that horn you attached to the head of the unicorn sculpture--"
Just as he finished that last word, Schlimme's watch chimed, and he pulled it out to turn it off. "Oh! I'm afraid any questions you have for me are going to have to wait," Schlimme said, suddenly clapping Lewis on the shoulder and painfully gripping the joint at the top of his arm. "For it's time to open these doors to the public!" He leveled his gaze at Lewis with an air that prompted the young student to pay keen attention to his direction.
"See that you are on your best behavior, Mr. Grant," he admonished the student. "Don't bother entertaining people as you encounter them. That's my job," Schlimme laid a hand over his heart. "Your job, young Lewis, is to keep your head down and keep sweeping as I bring the tour groups through the exhibit hall. Have I made myself clear?"
Lewis nodded without a word.
Upon receiving that assurance, Krasimir Schlimme departed for the front hall. "Adolf!" Lewis heard him shout, "Open the doors!"
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