Page 3 of Best Hex Ever
When he’d first unpacked his work boxes in this office, he’d found a photo of Alice and him from their first trip to see the northern lights in Norway years ago. They looked happy in the picture, but he didn’t feel the same pangs in his chest when helooked at her face anymore.
There was still anger, and there would be for some time, but it had dulled around the edges. Any love Scott had felt for Alice faded in his years abroad and hadn’t returned with his arrival home. It certainly helped that she’d gone off to live with what’s-his-face in the United States. At least he didn’t have to worry about bumping into her at any of their old haunts.
Without a second thought, he’d crumpled the photo and thrown it in the bin. Good riddance.
—
Scott checked the time, realizing he’d been daydreaming for longer than he’d thought and it was time to go and meet Eric. Into his rucksack he threw his laptop, a few snack bars—Eric tended to get cranky if he hadn’t eaten enough—and a book on the mythology and traditions of pre-Islamic North Africa; just some light reading for the train journey.
He locked his office door with a large iron key that looked like it belonged in a medieval monastery.
His phone beeped with a text from Eric saying:See you at the boathouse, prepare to get your ass kicked.
We’re rowing in a double today, you moron, Scott replied.
He hurried through the atrium, noticing in his peripheral vision that a couple of women were not so slyly trying to take a picture of him. It was possible they recognized him from the September page of the “Curators Against Cancer” naked calendar he’d done last year, though thankfully that had sold out pretty quickly and now he didn’t need to flush with embarrassment every time he passed the gift shop.
It made him a little uncomfortable, but he tried not to let it bother him. Scott had always been averse to attention, ever since he was a kid. Of course, it had come from a different place back then. There had been a lot of “Where are you from originally?” questions when he was at school, from teachers and other kids. It was thatoriginallythat annoyed him. Partly because of the thinly veiled othering, but also because he didn’t even know.
Scott had been adopted when he was ten years old. Before that, it was all short-term foster homes and the group home that he’d stayed at in between. His memories from the time beforehe moved in with his amazing mums was a bit of a blur. No, that was a lie. He remembered it all; sometimes it was just easier to forget.
Once, Scott had considered doing one of those spit-and-send heritage tests, but then Eric, who worked for a big-money tech firm, had shaken his head and suggested that Scott’s information might be used for things he wouldn’t necessarily approve of, so he’d dropped the matter.
Scott waved at the ticket sellers as he made his way around the east side of the Great Court, the glass roof letting in the last of the afternoon sunlight, bathing the atrium in a buttery glow.
“Ah, Dr. Mason, just the man I was hoping to bump into.” It was Dr. MacDougall, the museum’s head curator. A short, stout Black woman with a crop of salt-and-pepper hair, she always seemed to be dressed in an effortlessly chic suit with a chunky necklace.
“Dr. MacDougall,” Scott said, smiling.
“You look like you’re hurrying off somewhere.”
“Ah yes, sorry. On the way to the boathouse.”
“Well, I won’t keep you, but I do have good news. Your proposal for a global tour of the Symbols of Protection exhibition? The board loved it.”
Blood thrummed in Scott’s ears. He wanted to jump up and down but he also wanted to go and hide in a cupboard. This was a huge deal—career-changing.
“Really? You’re serious?”
“As the plague.” She laughed and patted his arm. “But we can celebrate in a few weeks, at the internal launch.”
“Agreed. I’ll buy you a martini.”
“It’s an open bar, Scott, but I’ll hold you to that. And I know it’s a quick turnaround, but as you said in your pitch, the majority of the artifacts for this one have just been sitting untouchedin our archives. It’s time they saw the light.” She gave Scott a toothy smile and patted him on the arm before saying goodbye.
He couldn’t believe it. They wanted his exhibition to go on a global tour. When Dr. MacDougall had first hired Scott as a curator nearly a year ago, he’d just been thrilled to be here. But then he’d been sent the full list of the artifacts in the archives.
It was when he’d spotted the medieval Norwegian troll cross pendant, and a few minutes later found a cornicello dating back to the 1500s made from pure amber, that he’d known he had something remarkable on his hands. All these objects, most of them stolen by the British Museum in the past few centuries, had been stored in near-perfect condition in the archives, ignored because of their perceived lack of value. They weren’t expensive or all that rare; they were amulets and dried herbs glazed in resin and small statues to gods and goddesses that people would have carved themselves and kept in their homes. But to Scott, these small lucky trinkets were his lifeline.
Scott had always wanted to believe in magic. In a universe where if you wished hard enough, and if you did all the rituals in the right order at the right time, things would go the way you hoped. He’d found a book on ancient world mythology in the school library when he was still living in the group home. He could still picture each page, even now.
It’d had a whole chapter on lucky charms from around the world. He’d read that if you kept an acorn in your pocket—as long as it was one you’d found on the ground and hadn’t plucked directly from a tree—it would offer you good luck. Scott had kept an acorn in his pocket for weeks, rubbing it with his fingers until it shone. And when he’d found out he was being fostered with the Marini family, he’d thought it was proof that his luck really had turned. And it was all because of the acorn.
But the Marini family hadn’t wanted to keep him, and soback to the group home Scott went. He’d tried again, with the ankh symbol, with juniper berries, with a wishbone, a clover, a horseshoe, a jade pendant, and a copper penny. None of them had worked. No one had wanted him. It wasn’t until years later, when Scott had entirely given up on lucky charms, that he was adopted by his mums. On the car ride home with them, after they’d stopped for an ice cream at the park, Scott had noticed a small ladybird sitting on his finger, and he had wondered for a moment if perhaps lucky charms worked after all.
All these years later, Scott had found hundreds of these charms, amulets, and talismans hidden away in the archives, and he wanted to share them with the world. The Symbols of Protection exhibition was going to begin its tour at the British Museum, and then, hopefully, it would tour the world. And the brilliant part was, as it continued on its tour, the charms and amulets would be dropped off, and exchanged for others, as they were returned to their home countries to be kept and displayed by their own museums and cultures. It was a new era for the British Museum, one that was trying—at least in some small way—to apologize for its past. And Scott would be a part of this; his exhibition would be a part of it. He couldn’t wait to tell Eric.
Scott fell in behind a large tour group and it took longer than expected to extricate himself. He was going to be late and Eric was going to try to shove him in the river as punishment.
