Strange Magic

Chapter Two

The tour around the museum ended up being much more interesting than Belle had initially thought it would be. As she and Mr. Gold made their way through the second floor, Mr. Gold not only pointed out areas Belle would need to keep a close eye on as the night guard, but he also talked at length about certain artifacts on display. And while the subject matters were rarely of interest to Belle, she did rather enjoy the way Mr. Gold would light up upon explaining some historical event to her. It almost made him seem like a different person than the irritable man he had been earlier.

"And here we have the World War 2 exhibit." Mr. Gold announced as he led Belle down to a room on the first floor that was just past the main lobby.

Belle stepped past Mr. Gold and glanced around. Like the other exhibits, this one was full of display cases and plastic dummy soldiers. However, there were also dozens of old papers neatly framed on the back wall of the room.

"What are those?" Belle asked curiously and pointed to the papers.

Mr. Gold followed her gaze and smiled when he saw the frames. "Ah, those? Those are letters from soldiers that fought in the war." He explained and then smirked. "However, if you look closely at them, you'll see something else . . ." He trailed off, his smirk growing wider.

Belle cocked her head to the side and placed her hands on her hips. She raised an eyebrow. "And what would that be?" She asked.

"Jefferson's common sense." Mr. Gold responded, all snark. He waved a hand, gesturing to the room around them. "I'm pretty sure he lost it here earlier this week. It was when he first started going on and on about that bloody dagger. Said he'd seen something ghostly in here."

Gold turned his head, pretending to let his gaze sweep over the various historical artifacts. In reality, however, he was watching Belle from out of the corner of his eye and Belle knew it. The only problem was she wasn't sure if he was testing her or just teasing. Most likely testing. People tended to do that quite a bit with Belle. They wanted to see if she was just as ghost-crazy as her brother.

Well, I suppose I'll just have to put his mind at ease. Belle thought and went over to Gold.

"Don't worry," she told her boss with a wink. "If I see any headless specters floating around in here, I'll be sure to let them know that this museum is a no-haunt zone."

To her surprise, Gold laughed.

"Aye, you do that." He said, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.

He moved on, heading back out of the room to show off another area of the museum. Belle was about to follow him when something from out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.

What the—?

Belle frowned and turned back around, her gaze searching. For a moment there, she could've sworn that she had seen something cross the room. Something shadowy. The mere thought made Belle's skin crawl.

"Quit it." She told herself sternly. "You're too old to believe in ghosts."

Without another backyard glance, she turned and left the room to go find Gold. Before long, she found him in the lobby at the front desk. He was sitting down, looking over something at the computer.

"What are you looking at?" Belle asked him.

Gold didn't bother to look up at her. "The cameras." He said. "I'm setting up an app up on this computer so that you'll be able to check the security cams from both the main lobby and the security office upstairs—"

Before he could finish speaking there was a loud thud from the second floor. It was swiftly followed by the sound of shattering glass and the museum's wailing burglar alarm.