Supernatural Short Story - A Curious Curator Coincidence

About this story:

When Christine Williams arrives to curate the legendary Burbash Collection, she expects a quiet job cataloguing antiques — not a chorus of talking objects, a butler who hides more than he reveals, or a collector whose thoughts echo louder than any artifact. As Christine’s psychic gift awakens inside the labyrinthine mansion, she uncovers a supernatural mystery tied to a forgotten diploma, a vanished daughter, and a truth buried deep within the collection itself. “The Curator’s Gift” is a supernatural short story about psychic abilities, magical antiques, and the family secrets that refuse to stay silent.

 

Christine brushed her mousy brown hair in the window of the door. She adjusted her collar and her cuffs. Then she looked for a doorbell, but the large wolf’s head knocker was the only method for announcing her presence. The clang-clang-clang echoed hollowly inside the door, drowning out the wolf’s thoughts.

“Ms. Williams.” The door attendant (as well, Christine would learn later, as butler and waiter and maître d) ushered her inside.

Antiques filled the large circular entrance way. A tiffany chandelier hung in the center of the ceiling, the frosted glass discs catching and scattering the light. A chaise lounge rested on a Persian rug. Christine had to stop herself from openly gawking at the diverse pieces, from a solid mahogany desk, littered with ivory figurines to the grotesque elephant’s foot umbrella stand in the doorway. If these were the everyday pieces of the house, what would the Burbash collection look like? As the new curator of said collection, she had better start behaving as if priceless antiques were her forte.

She trailed her fingers along a chaise lounge as she passed, forgetting herself for a moment.

“Keep your dirty fingers to yourself.”

Christine snatched her fingers away from the piece of furniture.

“Dr. Burbash has been called away unexpectedly,” the butler said, leading her down a long narrow hall. “He has asked that you acquaint yourself will the collection until his return.” Christine caught an indecipherable thought from the butler. She sometimes wished people were as easy to read as the inanimate objects.

‘You won’t keep me out for long,’ she thought towards the man’s back.

The two of them stopped in front of a large set of doors. With a nod he turned to leave.

“What’s your name?” Christine blurted out.

“There’s a bell in the hall if you should need me,” was the answer.

This time a wisp of thought slipped through. “Ok, George,” Christine whispered as she watched the man return down the hall and around a corner.

Taking a deep breath Christine opened the door into the collection hall.

And what a hall it was! An entire football game, spectators and all, could have fit inside it. Minus the antiques, of course. A winding path led around statuary, table displays, and art of all kinds. Christine spent several minutes wandering aimlessly past one jaw-dropping piece after another. She catalogued a bucket-list of desires before she was even a quarter of the way through the room.

During her wandering, Christine came to a small doorway in a nook between two impressive lion statues. She looked around to ensure George had not snuck back in to spy on her and then tiptoed to the doorway. Inside was a small office filled with boxes labelled ‘to be catalogued’ and bags overflowing with bric-a-brac. That could wait. She closed the door and resumed wandering.

After coming to an archway, which led to another room just as impressive, Christine decided it might be time to learn more about the collection. She picked a small teacup, assuming the smaller the piece, the softer the voice.

“If you try picking me up by the handle, I swear I will break out of spite,” a sharp voice pierced her inner ear. “I am not your kids’ plastic toy for tea parties. Do you know who I am?”

Christine snatched her hand away. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She moved on, rubbing her ear even though the pain was inside her brain. The terrain of the display changed. Rugs littered the floor with little room for Christine to walk without stepping on them. Beautiful tapestries hung on the walls. She fingered the weave of one woven of muted blues and greens with bright gold glinting from the fabric.

“Oh, my threads! I can feel them sighing under the strain,” a weak voice whispered to her. “I’m a rug, not a tapestry. I was never meant for this vertical nonsense.”

Christine chuckled. Then she patted the rug. “I’ll let Mr. Burbash know.”

After that, the pieces she touched appeared more understanding. She had ignored her ‘gift’ in the past, but now it was coming in handy.

“It’s too dry in here. I am cracking like a walnut,” complained a wooden trunk. “And why am I filled with pieces from different centuries? Just because they are all walking sticks?”

Christine pulled out one of the canes, a particularly beautiful piece carved to resemble a snake. “How do you think we feel, stuffed inside a stuffy old trunk? Look at me! I am a marvel.”

“That you are,” Christine agreed.

She didn’t know how much of the collection she had managed to acquaint herself with when George found her.

“It is dinner time,” he said in his sonorous voice, making Christine jump and almost knock over a group of Chinese statuary.

“Geez, George, don’t sneak up on me like that.

The butler didn’t show any signs of being surprised when she used his name. Instead, he just nodded to her, bending his upper body in a half-bow.

“I shall wear a bell,” the man replied.

Christine laughed. George did not. With a sigh, she followed the man back through the many rooms of antiques, back to the front hallway and then up the stairs to the second floor. George led her down a long hall, past several closed doors until they came to one that was open.

“Your room.” He gestured inside. “I took the liberty of bringing your bags up. Please meet us in the dining hall in fifteen minutes.”

Christine only had eyes for the massive four-poster bed that stood in the middle of the room. After a minute of staring at the carved wooden posts, the lacy curtains tied at the foot-end of the bed with thick golden cords, she turned to thank George, but he was gone.

Christine crossed the hardwood floor to the huge bed. Avoiding the wood of the posts and the curtains, she fingered the sheets and the blanket. Manufactured within the last ten years, they had not yet found their voice. Christine sighed. Sleeping would have been difficult if she had to listen to her sheets and pillowcase chatter at her all night.

Squatting in front of her suitcase, she chose a comfortable, but stylish, linen dress to wear for dinner. After changing, she cleaned the dust from her face and neck and ran her fingers through her short hair. With a wink at herself, she set off down the hall.

After passing a few doors, Christine went back to her room and started off again. She counted the doors she passed, knowing that if she didn’t, she would never find her room again. At the end of the hall, she took the stairs to the foyer and then wondered where she would find the dining room. There were only two exits from the circular room. Knowing that one of those led to the collection where she had spent her afternoon, Christine set off down the other hall.

She passed a doorway that led to a den and another that looked in on an office, much cleaner than the office she had seen earlier in the day. Finally, she came to the dining room. A massive table, sporting at least three leaves, stretched the length of the room next to floor to ceiling windows which looked out onto the dark. She wondered what the grounds around the house looked like. The seven-foot-high fencing had blocked her view when she arrived.

George was finishing by adding a single place setting at the end of the table.

“Dr. Burbash hasn’t returned?”

George shook his head. Christine looked at the dinnerware George set down. Sterling silver flatware which would be obsessed with etiquette. Wedgewood China terrified of chips. Waterford Crystal, dramatic, complaining about fingerprints. Christine giggled as her imagination ran away with her.

“Where do YOU eat?” Christine asked when she got her facial expression under control.

“In the kitchen, Ma’am.”

“Would you mind if I joined you?”

George looked up from where he was obsessively straightening a knife. His facial expression was impossible to read and what little Christine could read was of no help. “But, of course.” Leaving the place setting, he nodded for Christine to follow him.

Having avoided the thoughts of her utensils for the breadth of her meal, she then convinced George and housekeeper Violet to eat with her. Neither of them was easy to read, but Violet was willing to dish the dirt. Christine learned that the two of them had been with Dr. Burbash since he had bought the house, that the good doctor didn’t like many people and so the turnover among the other staff was an ongoing issue. George eyed Christine as if he had his own thoughts about how long she might last once Dr. Burbash returned. Violet continued, oblivious, suggesting they knew the collection better than anyone other than the doctor.

‘And me,’ thought Christine. She considered telling Violet the complaints she’d heard earlier in the day about too much or not enough dusting going on. George, too, could use some advice on handling the pieces, especially those in the front room. Christine decided she didn’t want to lose her job before she even met the owner and kept her mouth shut.

The friendship between George and Violet was obvious even without her gift. Christine watched their banter and teasing and wished she had close friends that she could confide in. A childhood of constant movement had left her with no one who knew her and without the ability to make new friends. Yet, somehow, she found herself joining in with a few quips of her own.

That night she slept better than she had in a long time.

The next day, after breakfast and with a large mug of coffee to sustain her, Christine made her way back to the small office she had seen the day before. During her shower she had decided that today she would spend some time cataloguing the boxes. That would show the good doctor that she was the right person for the job.

Setting her coffee on the desk, a new-fangled piece from IKEA that didn’t have an opinion on where Christine placed her mug, she opened a box at random. A jumble of papers greeted her. She was about to shove the flaps closed in frustration when a sheet poking from under the top caught her eye. It looked like a map. Intrigued, she took the box to a loveseat and settled in to look through her new-found treasure.

With the tips of her fingers, she took the page by a corner, hoping to minimize contact. “Want to go on a treasure hunt, my dear? Blackbeard’s treasure awaits.”

‘That just can’t be. No, siree,’ thought Christine.

The map agreed. “I’m a fake,” it said.

The next piece she pulled out was a simple diploma. Donald S. Williams had attended, and graduated from, the School of Necromancy. Christine had to read that part again. It wasn’t a simple diploma after all. A school for communication with the dead? She noted the date on the deed – 1807!

The diploma was more worried about appearances than substance. “Do you see my corners?” It asked. “I should be in a frame, behind glass, not tossed in a box like a common grocery list!”

The quiet murmur of thought and a slight squeak of hinges alerted her to someone’s arrival. Setting the diploma back in the box, she stood as an old man in a white suit, looking a bit like Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Colonel, entered the room.

‘She looks just as I expected.’

Christine twitched at the thought. No human had ever come through so clearly at just the first meeting. The old man sounded just like one of his antiques. Was that was why she heard him so well?

“Dr. Burbash?” she guessed.

The man nodded.

Christine gestured around her. “I thought I should get started on cataloguing.”

Dr. Burbash shook his head and clucked his tongue as he made his careful way towards her. “Don’t lie, Ms. Williams. There’s nothing wrong with admitting you were curious.”

Christin felt the blush rush to her cheeks and goose bumps raise across the back of her neck.

“And I understand your curiosity. My collection is a physical manifestation of my own curiosity.” He gestured toward the door. “Come, let me show you the real stuff.”

Christine knew this would be the test. Was she good enough to curate his private collection?

The doctor led her to a small, delicate, ice-blue bowl with a series of cracks in the finish. Christine didn’t need her special abilities to answer the inherent question.

“A Ru Guayao brush washing bowl.”

“Excellent,” said the doctor.

“May I?”

Dr. Burbash nodded.

Christine gently wrapped her hands around the bowl and lifted it up. Turning the bowl this way and that, to inspect it from all angles, she was listening to what the bowl had to say for itself. She almost laughed out loud at the bowl’s high, squeaky voice. She listened intently.

“No one has dusted me in weeks. Could be worse. My last owner had toddlers.”

“Exquisite,” she said as she set the bowl carefully back down.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the doctor’s reflection in an ancient mirror. For a split second, the doctor disappeared from the mirror, only to reappear instantly. Christine didn’t have time to react.

“What about this piece?” Dr. Burbash held out a pocket watch.

Christine was certain that the man had not been wearing a pocket watch before. Also, she knew she had seen that exact watch near the front door to the hall. She had taken some time to examine the intricacy of the face with hundreds of functions.

“Ah, now that’s a rare one,” Christine said. She held out her hands, and the doctor placed the watch in her palms. A sonorous, professorial voice reminded her that it was the Patek Philippe super complication pocket watch. She repeated this to the doctor.

“You are very good,” Dr. Burbash said. “My daughter would have been one of the few people to know this watch’s history.” The doctor led her down another aisle.

“You have a daughter?” Christine asked. She was trying to appear natural after seeing her future employer teleport.

“Had,” the man corrected. “We’ve been estranged for many years now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“This is another piece that reminds me of her every time I see it.” The doctor stopped in front of another pedestal display. Perched atop it was an elaborately detailed antique doll.

“Tell me about this,” the doctor said.

“Priceless,” Christine commented. “But it still gives me the creeps.”

She laughed but the doctor did not appear amused. Christine cleared her throat.

“Created by Antoine Edmund Rochard. Each of the twenty-four jewels on her painted necklace shows a micro-photograph depicting historic scenes of France.” Christine tried to be casual as she spoke the next sentence. “The last I heard it was in the Barry Art Museum in Norfolk, Virginia.” This time she chose not to touch the doll. Lifelike miniature people who could speak to you were creepier than she had imagined.

Dr. Burbash chuckled. “Money can free just about anything, my dear.”

Christine just managed to stop herself from gasping when she saw a vision of the doctor breaking into the museum to snatch the doll.

They made their meandering way through the hall, the doctor suggesting that she tell him about random pieces they passed. Christine sensed that there was something he was trying to determine about her. Finally, he returned her to the office where they had first met.

“I shall leave you here,” the Doctor suggested. “I’ll send George when lunch is ready.”

Christine nodded. She had been hoping for more thoughts from the doctor, but after the vision of the theft, the doctor was a closed book. “Before you go, Sir.”

The doctor turned back to her.

“I found this diploma when I was looking through this box.” She pulled out the piece which sat on the jumble of paperwork, including the map. “I was wondering if you could tell me about the person whose name is on this.” She searched for the name again. “Donald S. Williams.” She held the page toward him.

Suddenly a wave of thought hit her from the old man, as if a door long closed burst open. Christine staggered back against the onslaught, holding her hands up as if she could stop the barrage. Images of a school, students in long black robes, a giant sailboat thrashing about in a storm, a swaddled child left on a doorstep, and so many more.

“Stop!” Christine moaned, eyes squeezed shut. The sounds and images stopped, and Christine took a deep breath.

“Here.” The doctor took her arm and led her to the couch where she had sat earlier. He sat next to her. “Are you alright?”

Christine didn’t answer. There was only one thought that she held onto from the earlier flood. “You’re my father?”

If you enjoyed this story, you like this:

Ghost Protocol - a paranormal short story