“You mean this antique that’s probably worth more than you are?” Jericho shook his head slowly.
“Fine!” Sam flicked open his Swiss Army knife and sawed the blade around the edges of the door as best he could to loosen the thick layers of sticky, packed dust, but the door still wouldn’t give.
Jericho sighed. “Here. Move.” He grasped the ring with one hand and gave a slight pull, and the door creaked open.
“Holy smokes, Hercules. What are they feeding you?”
Jericho coughed as the dust spiraled up in thick clouds.
“I coulda opened it, you know,” Sam added.
“No, you couldn’t.”
“I was this close.”
“Wrong.” Jericho waved away the last of the dust motes circling in the air. A perilous-looking wooden staircase draped in cobwebs led down into the gloom. “You think those stairs are still any good?”
“Only one way to find out,” Sam said. “Let’s grab some flashlights.”
The wood protested loudly under Sam and Jericho’s sudden weight as the two of them made their way down the old steps into the dark hole, their flashlight beams bouncing across the fragile architecture of cobwebs. They jumped to the bottom, landing on a dirt floor in a large room connected to a long, narrow passageway.
Sam whistled. “The bootleggers would kill for this.”
He and Jericho walked the passageway, which was scribbled and scratched with names: James Beardon. Moses Johnson. Maisie Lafayette and children. My name is Osay. There were several X’s instead of names, and a vast mural whose muted colors were ghosts of their former hues. In it, a slave family entered a promised land of bright sun and leafy trees. High above the sun’s rays, someone had etched the word freedom. The mural had clearly been painted by several different hands over time, each artist adding to the story, but the message was the same.
“Looks like the Transcontinental wasn’t the only railroad Cornelius Rathbone built,” Jericho said, shining a light around the cavernous space.
Sam’s mother used to say that inside everyone was the chance to change the world. It sat like a seed eager to grow into greatness. The professor could have his ghosts. Ordinary people were capable of extraordinary bravery. That was the only magic Sam knew or trusted.
“What are we looking for down here?” Jericho asked.
“Not sure,” Sam answered. His light fell upon a closed door nestled in an alcove. “But this might be a good place to start.” He tried the knob. “Locked.”
From his pocket, Sam again pulled out his Swiss Army knife and stuck the point of it into the keyhole.
“Hold on: Are you breaking in?”
“Ish,” Sam said, wobbling his hand in a more-or-less motion.
Jericho leaned against the brick, shaking his head. “You’re something else.”
“C’mon, Freddy,” Sam goaded, still trying to jimmy the lock. “Is your curiosity button on the fritz?”
“No. Neither is my code-of-ethics button. Maybe you can ask Santa to bring you one of those for Christmas.”
“What if inside this very room is just what we need to save our Diviners exhibit? You think about that?”
Jericho pondered the point, then exhaled loudly. “Fine.”
He pushed off from the wall and turned the doorknob roughly. The door opened easily. “It wasn’t even locked. Just needed some strength,” he said, stooping to get through the low doorway.
“I coulda done that,” Sam said again, following.
Sam and Jericho’s flashlight beams bounced around the dank, cramped, cold room, which had been stuffed with all sorts of oddities—oil paintings, broken furniture, a dressmaker’s form, and even a sarcophagus, which hung open on a broken hinge. Two stacks of crates had been shoved into a corner against a large mural, aged and worn by moisture in spots. This mural wasn’t hopeful like the other ones in the museum; it was a complex nightmare in paint. In a dark, denuded forest of the sort found in fairy tales stood a spindly gray carnival barker of a man wearing a tall hat and a coat of black feathers. His outstretched palm bore a glowing symbol: an eye with a jagged lightning bolt underneath. Behind the gray man lay a long line of frightening specters. They all seemed to be advancing on a young Negro man. The number 144 appeared in the broken sky above.
“What’s it say there?” Jericho asked. Beneath the mural, someone had painted words. He stepped closer, squinting to make them out. “‘Beware… the King of… Crows.’”
“Cheery,” Sam joked, though the disturbing mural gave him the shivers. He thought it might just be the spookiest thing in the entire Creepy Crawly. “Let’s see what we got,” he said, turning away from it. He lifted a piece of grimy, rusted equipment from one of the crates. His shoulders sagged. “Junk. That’s the one thing we’re not short on in this place.”
All the crates were nailed shut except for one, which had been partially broken. Jericho reached in and pulled out a sheaf of yellowed papers.
“Hey, what’s that?” Sam came and stood beside Jericho.
“If I had to guess, I’d say probably none of your business,” Jericho said, glancing down at the page.
“That’s my favorite kind of business.…”
“‘The last will and testament of Cornelius Rathbone, recorded this day, the fourth of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, nine hundred and seventeen,’” Jericho read aloud. “‘I, Cornelius Thaddeus Rathbone, being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath my house and all its worldly belongings to William John Fitzgerald, with the proviso that he must continue our most important work.…’”
“Old Man Rathbone left this place to the professor?” Sam said, incredulous.
Jericho stared at the document. Years ago, he had asked Will how he’d come to run the museum. Will’s story was that he’d bought the dilapidated museum just ahead of the city’s wrecking ball. Cornelius Rathbone’s last will and testament proved that wasn’t true.
But why would Will lie to Jericho about it?
Quickly, Jericho moved on to the second page, a letter.
“What’s that one say?” Sam asked.
“It’s from Cornelius to Will, dated January thirty-first, 1917. ‘Dear William…’” Jericho read aloud.
This letter shall be my last, I fear, for I wait on Death’s doorstep, and soon, He shall bade me enter into that house of eternal rest. For these past many years, I could not forgive you the sin of your ambition for leaving me behind to work with the “great minds” of President Roosevelt’s ridiculous Department of Paranormal—
“Wait, Teddy Roosevelt?” Sam asked.
“Yes, Sam. Theodore Roosevelt. Large man with a big mustache. Was our president for a bit. May I continue?”
“Go on,” Sam grumbled.
It was I, however, who was ridiculous. It is imperative that we put aside our differences and work together in one last endeavor while there is still time. What I previously showed you of Liberty Anne’s prophecies was not all. Toward the end of her days, there followed far more disturbing warnings, dire predictions for the nation. At the time, I feared that her fever, which raged so fiercely, had addled her wits. For this reason, I locked away her final prophecy. I see now that I was remiss to have hidden this unholy correspondence from you. I fear we have underestimated the power of the man in the stovepipe hat.