Page 8 of Monsters in the Museum

Nora pondered the question, even though Mandy meant it to be rhetorical. She raked her gaze down the weapon and discovered slight wear marks on the handle. They must have been the points where the wielder put their hands when fighting. Gingerly, Nora lay one of her gloved hands on the thick shaft over one of the indentations. Her hand fit perfectly in the wear mark, and a shiver ran up her spine. She instantly envisioned somebody carrying this weapon into battle—a Greek hoplite in traditional armor, standing tall and sporting a helmet topped with a dramatic red plume. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up at the beauty of the sight—laced with an odd sensation that she couldn’t place.

Mandy’s cheery voice interrupted her vision. “Well, at least crafting it completely of bronze made it resistant to corrosion. Wood decomposes so quickly and all that. We should be able to learn a lot from this.”

Nora nodded her agreement as she opened her toolkit to get to work.

Nora looked up as the door slammed, finding that she was alone—the last one at the office again. She looked back down at her untidy desk and considered shoving all the papers in her battered bag and heading home.

The clock indicated that it was well past rush hour, and the next bus home wouldn’t be arriving for another forty minutes. Nora sighed and crossed her legs on her desk chair, not bothering to sit normally now that she was alone. Absentmindedly, she tapped on her laptop until the screen brightened, pulling up her inbox.

Her eyebrows shot up when she looked at the first email. The subject line read, Meet me for coffee? and the sender was [email protected]. She squinted at the address for a long second before her mind conjured the image of a business card shoved into the bottom of her purse: Dr. Adam Scott from Northwestern.

Upon a quick skim through the email, she found it was indeed from the man she had encountered on Tuesday, and he was asking her if she would like to meet to discuss their possible collaboration further. He named a café not far from the lakefront as well as a time—tomorrow afternoon. Nora’s eyebrows crept higher at his suggestion of a work meeting over the weekend. He must be desperate for her expertise on whatever his project was.

She was about to type out a reply, putting him off, and even considered just shutting her laptop and ignoring him altogether when the email signature below his name caught her eye.

Professor of Literature and Ancient Languages

A professor of ancient languages sounded like just what Nora needed to help decipher the inscription on the sword, and if he couldn’t do the job himself, then he might know somebody who could.

She tapped a response, agreeing to the meeting before moving on to the rest of her inbox. She hadn’t finished reading the departmental memo that was next in her queue before Adam’s reply popped into her inbox, telling her he was eager for their meeting.

She paused in surprise for a moment at his quick reply at this time on a Friday night, but she pushed the thought from her head in favor of considering what she should pick up for dinner from the Indian deli down the street on her way home.

Nora found the French café that Adam directed her to and pushed open the door. She found the corner of her lips pulling up at the sight that greeted her.

This was her type of place.

Small circular tables filled the cozy space, and the lamps lit the room with a warm glow that contrasted nicely with the muted gray colors of the fall day outside. The air was filled with the warm aromas of baking pastry and—thank goodness—coffee.

Her eyes roved over the tables, searching for an empty place to sit, and found that Adam had already arrived, catching sight of his dark curls as he leaned over the table before him. Papers scattered every available inch of the surface, and steam from a mug fogged his glasses as he took a sip. Nora momentarily watched his lips caress the edge of his large earthenware mug before shaking herself and picking her way across the room. Something odd had come over her recently. As she approached, he had to take off his glasses to wipe them clean of condensation.

When Nora’s shadow fell over his papers, he looked up and beamed, revealing a striking set of dimples.

“You came!” he said, jumping to his feet to shake Nora’s hand before shuffling his papers into a neat stack to make room for her to sit.

As Nora slid into her seat, she watched Adam perch himself on the low bistro-style chair once more, being forced to fold up his long legs in a way that brought to mind vague images of a baby giraffe.

“What were you working on?” Nora inclined her head towards the stack of papers that Adam was now pushing into a beat-up leather bag.

“These? Oh, just grading some papers,” Adam said as he snapped his bag shut. “One of the less fun parts of being a professor.”

“At Northwestern, right? My sister went there, graduated five years ago. Majored in broadcasting.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t have had her in my classes then,” responded Adam with a shake of his head. “I only started teaching there a few years ago.”

“That’s probably for the best. She is a superbly disruptive student.”

“It’s ok,” Adam chuckled, the sound musical. “I’m used to disruptive students in my class. I’ve been told I’m rather… long-winded in my discussions of the classic works. My students don’t always appreciate it. I doubt a broadcasting major would be very interested in my class anyway. Is she a reporter?”

Nora’s chest swelled with pride, as it always did when she got to brag about her sister’s career. “Yeah, on weekends, on one of the local channels. She just got the job last year, and she’s still excited about it. People tried to tell her she wouldn’t be able to make it on TV because she has prosthetic legs, but I’m pretty sure that just made her want to do it more.”

“She sounds charming.”

Nora snorted. “She’s a handful is what she is. I have vivid memories of Irina chasing her around the house, telling stories of Russian witches that would come out and eat her in the night if she didn’t hold still.”

Adam chuckled. “And Irina is?”

“Our foster mother.”