April 28th, 1890 — Museum of Magical Miscellany

It had been Georgi’s idea to go to the event this evening, which had come as something of a surprise.  A private event at the museum, some wealthy Frenchman, a friend of Georgi’s, was showing off his collection of ‘native’ artifacts procured from the around the world and he had suggested Madeleine come with him.  Ana had wrinkled her nose and insisted she would rather help the maid sweep the hearthstones than attend herself - and since there was no chance of Ana getting her hands dirty Georgi had settled on Madeleine as a suitable replacement.  But only after she had been forced into an exceptionally tight corset, and her hair was quaffed and set elaborately by Ana’s maid – all with the purpose to ensure that she didn’t ‘disgrace him.’  She had learned quickly that Georgi was a vain man – the only real connection between he and Ana had seemed to be her beauty and his wealth. 

The evening, it transpired, to be little more than an opportunity for Mister Abelard, of Paris, to show off to his friends and most of the artifacts were forgotten by the company in favour of the refreshments which featured fine cigars and good whiskey.

So by the time Madeleine slipped away from Georgi to get back to the gallery there was almost no one there and the dense green velvet curtains, designed to give the room ambience, to feign the appearance of dense jungle, served to screen the few other interested parties from view.  Creating quiet muffled avenues between the exhibits. Mister Abalard had encouraged his guests to touch and explore the items, to go beyond the usual academic voyeurism, he seemed he cared more for the spectacle than the objects themselves. 

One area was full of taxidermy from the Amazon, monkeys and gibbons frozen mid chatters, birds about to take wing and snakes raising up to strike an invisible quarry.  A tray of beautiful butterflies, ornate and spectacular in their presentations were pinned on velvet pillows – as beautiful as they were, there was something tortured about them – or maybe that was just the discomfort of her scalp bleeding through into real life.  On a large plinth surrounded on 3 sides by red curtains stood a jaguar.  The little brass name plate read:


She looked at the creature, and thought about the evening in St. Petersburg a year before, and reached out a pale hand to touch its nose

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