In the Museums of the Night
“Well, I don’t know if you’ll believe me either,” Tawny says, nudging over a plate of biscotti. “It is pretty outlandish.”
Billy happily takes a cookie to dip in his hot chocolate. “I’m best friends with a talking tiger. It would take a lot to surprise me, I think.”
Tawny makes a noise of disagreement, but just sips his coffee. “It’s a bit unbelievable. But, then, I suppose you do have experience with. Well.”
“Odd things?” Billy supplies, crunching on his cookie.
“I was going to say…things that seem normal and commonplace,” Tawny says, and then considers the rest of his sentence, “but then, under certain circumstances…aren’t.”
Billy grins and nods at the tiger. “I do have some experience with that, yup. What circumstances are we talking about here? Did someone say a magic word?”
“Um,” Tawny says, shaking his head slightly. “Where to begin? It’s – well, something magical is happening, certainly, although I wasn’t clear on what exactly.”
Billy frowns. “Is it something I need to be worried about? Is it something I need to get help for? Or something I can handle on my own?”
“I don’t think it’s necessarily even a problem,” Tawny says, and Billy relaxes enough to go back to his drink. “It’s just that, at night, the museum…comes alive.”
“I thought it was mostly busy during the day?” Billy says, tucking his chin against his hands thoughtfully. “Isn’t that why you wanted to work there?”
“Yes, but,” Tawny says, turning to not quite meet Billy’s eyes. “Well, it’s not…people. Or, at least, it’s not visitors.”
“Well, who is it then?” Billy says, suddenly confused, and agitated, especially when Tawny continues to refuse to meet his gaze. “It isn’t Black Adam, is it?”
“No, no, it’s no one dangerous,” Tawny says, although he considers that for a moment before he lets it lie. “No, it’s…the museum itself. Or, rather, the artifacts in the museum. They come to life. Speak. Move around. All on their own.”
“At night,” Billy confirms, looking shocked.
“Every night,” Tawny agrees, looking just as shocked.
“Start at the beginning,” Billy says, leaning in, wide-eyed.
Tawny nods enthusiastically, and then clears his throat, settling into the story. “Well, I had agreed to give my feedback on a diorama – do you remember how one of my colleagues was putting together a diorama of the jungles of India?”
Billy nods emphatically. “Oh, yes, she wanted to ask you how close tigers might roam towards people’s houses. You had a little scale ruler.”
“That precisely,” Tawny says, mimicking diorama pieces with his hands moving from one spot to another. “So I stayed after work to help her with it, telling her some stories of my home, and helping her pick trees and flowers that looked most familiar to me.”
“That’s nice,” Billy says, sounding a little confused, but nodding again anyway.
“It was! It was lovely!” Tawny says, holding his hands together like he’s cupping a figurine, “and I held up this tiger, I was complimenting how realistic it looked, and she joked that it was based on me – and then she looked at her watch and snatched the figure out of my hands, and said, ‘well, that’s all for today.’”
“And then what, she left?” Billy asks, breaking a biscotto into little pieces, nervously.
“She was in such a hurry to!” Tawny has a worried look on his face, now. “I said that I had no pressing place to be, and she needn’t rush on my account, but that I was happy to pick up tomorrow, and I reached out to adjust the tiger, and she slapped my hand away!”
“And then?” Billy says, breathlessly.
“And then the tiger reared up and tried to bite my hand!” Tawny says, throwing his hands up in imitated shock, which Billy mimics unconsciously. “And she said, as if she’d known this would happen, ‘oh no, we stayed too late!’”
“Was it bigger than you?” Billy asks, hands clenched on the side of the table, “how did you fight it off?”
“That was the strangest thing!” Tawny says, leaning back and drinking his coffee again. “She clapped her hands over her mouth of course, and apologized, said how she hadn’t meant me to see it – but the tigers in the diorama were all roaming around. Incredibly lifelike, but no change in size. As if they were tiny kittens prowling their own dens. The simple glass walls were enough to keep them penned in. High enough, as if this had happened before.”
“Had it happened before?” Billy asks, in rapt attention, food and drink forgotten.
“It had!” Tawny agrees, and shakes his head. “It does, every night, apparently! No one knows how, and the management won’t speak about it, but she told me her creations would, at sunset, begin to prowl and move about on their own. She hadn’t told anyone, but apparently everyone who stays past closing knows about this!”
“Everyone?” Billy gasps, “how many miniature tigers are there? Do you think it has anything to do with you?”
“I thought so!” Tawny says, holding up his hands in uncertainty. “I didn’t know, at first, it wasn’t just the tigers – especially since, walking her out of the building, we narrowly escaped a full sized tiger in another room. But in going back – no, it wasn’t just tigers at all. Humans of all shapes and sizes, from the scale of those tigers to indistinguishable from you, all roamed the building. Many of them spoke to me!”
Billy stares for a beat. Makes a noise of confusion. Turns back to his hot chocolate, just for something to do. “What did they say?”
“Oh, they were very polite, not to worry,” Tawny says, waving a hand. “Many of them tried to explain that this happens every night, and they’re all used to it now. I have to admit, I was curious, too curious for my own good – but I stayed the night. I saw all sorts of wonderful things, spoke to people from every time and place, and, I must admit, learned a lot I didn’t know was missing from my guided tours, and which I may incorporate from time to time, if there’s interest. And it was interesting.”
“It sounds interesting,” Billy agrees, with an intent expression, consideration as he examines Tawny. “Maybe I could visit some time.”
“We would have to be careful – I might even recommend Captain Marvel join me instead – but I think, well, it certainly was an experience I would hate to have missed,” Tawny says, tapping his chin. “Only, the thing is, when I tried to bring it up – well, my colleague informed me that everyone knows, only I did try to speak to some staff about shoring up safety procedures, and well. They simply didn’t believe me.”
“What? Why not?” Billy asks, incensed, if still mesmerized by the tale.
“They said I had fanciful notions!” Tawny says, throwing his hands up. “They said I wanted everything to be more magical than it was, simply because I was a talking tiger!”
“I would think,” Billy says, with a knowing nod, “that being a talking tiger would make you more trustworthy on the subject, not less.”
“You would think a talking tiger speaking to them in the first place,” says Tawny, shaking his head, “might make them more open to the suggestion of unusual happenings.”
