Chapter Text
Professor Whitehill used the built-in speaker microphone of the bus to speak to the group of twenty students as they left the periferique outside of Paris to stop in the smaller town of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
"All right everybody if you take out your programs, you'll see that before we go into Paris, we'll visit the museé nationale de Archeologique." His English accent was thick in his French pronunciation but it didn't seem to bother him in the slightest and didn't keep him from orating his story to the travel-weary students.
"The museum is situated in an amazing historical palace, every bit as worth the visit as the museum itself. While the French kings have lived here since the 12th century the current edifice was built by Francis the first in renaissance style."
As the man was talking the castle appeared through the windshield and was every bit worthy of the praise it was receiving.
"After the revolution, it was of course in the hands of the state and later in those of Napoleon III. For some reason, he never took residence there but instead housed all France's archaeological treasures there! For which we are of course are grateful today because otherwise there wouldn't be such a magnificent collection there. Though if it had been me, I'd make this my palace!" A couple of students chuckled at the joke and the bus made to park on the large gravel parking lot.
Arthur had been meditatively looking out of the bus window for the long trip from London to Paris and had found the exact battery life on his Walkman. He’d brought only three mixtapes because they had to pack light, but they contained the essentials: Pink Floyd, the clash, the sex pistols… Once his professor shook him out of his trance with the static noise of the speakers, he put them away and gave the man his full attention.
The bus parked on the gravel and gradually the group of students spilt onto the parking lot and wandered about a bit, studying the building as professor Whitehall was going to take care of admissions.
Arthur produced his polaroid camera from his backpack and tried to get a good shot from the looming structure without the stark French sunlight rendering it to a mere black silhouette. He figured he might try again later that day when the sun wasn’t so high in the sky.
After a lot of fiddling around with signed papers that announced the coming of the group at the ticket desk, they were led through the museum.
"Because to Napoleon this was part of a nationalist agenda, you'll only find artefacts here that were found on French soil. Also, we are in luck today." Professor Whitehill hopped up and down on his toes slightly and pressed his fingertips together a gesture he always made when he had exciting news for the class.
"We can have guided access to the room containing the collection of Édouard Piette. These are extremely precious finds ranging from the stone age to the early bronze age. These artefacts don't take to sunlight well so they're kept in a separate room that is usually not accessible for the public. But! Because you are future art historians we can visit with a guide. You see! Your future profession literally opens closed doors."
The room containing the collection of Piette was small and windowless and the special lamps that didn't harm the artefacts cast it in dim light. Around the keyhole there was a cast-iron decoration of the letter F. Strange enough, in the back of the room, there was another door. With a similar lock. The room didn't seem to tie in with the rest of the building’s blueprint and a draft ran from underneath it.
Arthur, like the rest of the group, fell slightly silent in awe of the objects in front of them. The two cases closest to the wall contained mostly bone needles and flint axes. The sheer age of them was so mind-blowing it almost became abstract. But as the group progressed into the room, the objects started to show carvings: Humans, lions, horses. Until his eyes fell on the thighbone of a horse, in it were carved a foal, an adult horse, and a horse skull in a circle. His breath hitched. A circle of life carved into the bone of the very animal whose life it showed. This was conceptual, philosophic! This was art! To think such a sophisticated piece was made by a society that was by most people seen as crude and primitive made his blood rush to his cheeks.
Suddenly he felt like someone was watching him. He turned around to see if one of his classmates was behind him and trying to see into the display as well, but there was no one there. Only that door. Perhaps it was the strange semi-darkness of the room or being surrounded with the evocative pieces but that door suddenly filled him with a strange type of dread. The type of dread you feel in a dream when you know you shouldn’t go somewhere but you know you’re going to because the dream is in charge, not you. In dreams, he always felt like those kinds of locations were dangerous, yet important, significant in some way.
He was snapped out of his reverie by the professor exclaiming loudly "Oh look! I didn't know this object was here! This is called the lady of Brassempuoy a la capuche because people thought it looks like she wears a little cap on her head but my thesis is that it is far more likely that it is stylized hair as one would find on the Greek Kouros. Come look, it also makes place for interesting debates concerning a great mother cult." The whole class grouped around the glass case chattering excitedly. Arthur, however, kept glancing over his shoulder at the door. It was nearing 6 in the evening and the sun was setting outside. The museum was about to close so the guide started to usher the group out of the room. Arthur was at the far back of the group, did he hear something scuffling, no, dragging in the room behind the door? He wasn’t certain over the noise of the students leaving.
Suddenly a loud noise came from behind the door, the wood of which actually creaked dangerously. Both Arthur and the museum guide, the last ones to exit the room jumped at the loud sound.
“What is in that room?” Arthur was bold enough to ask the guide, mostly because he was so extremely startled. She equally breathless assured him with a French accent that had gotten thicker due to the shock “Nothing, it’s an empty room. It must’ve been a draft, it’s a very old building they make a lot of noise sometimes.” Still, she was locking the door as if she was scared of something following them out of there.
by the time they came back outside, it was dark out and people were sitting on the square near the castle chatting and eating food. Feliciano sat next to Arthur and offered him some biscotti from a large paper bag.
"Arthur! You have a Camera with you! Can I take a picture with it? I want to draw the castle when we get back but I forgot mine- I'll need a reference! I'm trying to remember all the details but they make my head spin!" He looked at Arthur with big puppy eyes.
Arthur rose a thick eyebrow at Feliciano. “Isn’t it too dark to capture it now?” He looked at the castle for a bit and it was lit out by some big floodlights. “Though… perhaps it’ll work if you use the light coming from those?” slightly reluctantly He handed his classmate his camera. "Be careful with it." He gave Feliciano a wary look, he knew the other to be a bit of a spaz from time to time. Arthur looked up at the castle… It was absolutely beautiful, the gothic chapel windows glimmering with the last twilight… still, he felt uneasy. He wondered if this was what his favourite Romantic poets meant with the sublime? He’d read about it but he’d never before experienced it like this, to be so fundamentally unsettled by something beautiful.
Feliciano pointed the Camera at the dark shape of the castle and snapped a picture. He shook it and waited for it to develop. He looked at it and frowned, then looked back at the castle, and back to his picture again. He rose the camera to his eye again and snapped a second one. "Ah much better!"
He gave the first shot to Arthur. "I'm so sorry, there's a strange shape on this one, I think it's a bird or something? But it obstructed the chapel window." He pointed at the photo where a strange black husking shape was perched on the roof. "It's still a pretty one, do you want that one?" He put the good picture in his front shirt pocket and handed Arthur the camera back. "I promise not to leech of your photo's too much! I know film is expensive!" Something in his tone said he would, in fact, be begging for photo's the entire trip.
Arthur looked up at the castle and back down at the photo. "Strange." Whatever it was it was gone now. The bus departed and took them to the capital but the dark windows of the castle felt like eyes burning into Arthur’s back.