Page 67 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museu
She nods for the chauffeur to close it before I have a chance to respond, and I stand there in silence and watch as they pull away, and then I traipse back towards the museum, feeling both hopeful and defeated.
The company is rattled, but they’re also not backing off, and all the doubts that I’ve overcome about Warren are swirling back around with a vengeance. Were those the words of a mother trying to prevent a beloved son making what she believes is a mistake… or were they the words of a mother who knows him a hell of a lot better than I do?
22
Uh-oh.
Usually, seeing my friends gathered together would be a good thing, but seeing them all waiting outside the museum door as I walk to work the next morning, it looks like there’s a dark cloud gathered above them.
Mickey, Marnie, Cleo, and Franca are all waiting for me as I climb the steps. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Please tell me you’ve checked social media this morning?’ Mickey says.
‘I barely have enough time in the mornings to eat breakfast and get in before 9a.m., I never check it until after I’m here.’ I look between the four worried faces. ‘Why?’
‘Berrington Developments are fighting back.’ Mickey sounds grim.
‘Okay.’ I try not to let worry burble up as I get my keys out and let us all in. ‘If they’ve posted something about the museum, then good, the publicshouldknow that they’re trying to take over the building and turf me out. People love this museum now. Support will be on our side. None of you have seen Warren, have you?’
When I got back to the museum yesterday afternoon, eager to get the full lowdown from Warren, he’d left, without telling Mickey where he was going. He didn’t answer the text I sent him last night, his car isn’t in the car park yet this morning, and his uncharacteristic silence has set off a sense of foreboding that I’ve been trying to stamp down.
Instead of answering, no one says a word. As I shrug my coat off and drop my bag behind the desk, Mickey simply places her phone on the desk in front of me, and then comes round to put an arm around my shoulders and give me a hug.
And that pit of dread I’ve been trying to ignore since yesterday, coupled with Warren’s suspiciously timed disappearance, grows from a seed to a rugby ball. Tentatively I open her phone screen and look at the page she’s left it on.
It’s the Ever After Street Facebook page, and we’ve been tagged in a post that’s gone up on our timeline so all our followers can see it. MUSEUM OF MARAUDERS is written in capital letters at the beginning, and the poster is… Berrington Developments.
What? I can barely believe what I’m seeing and quickly read the text underneath.
Our company have recently got into business with a little fairytale museum some of you may recognise as the ‘Museum of Magic’ on Ever After Street where owner Lissa Carisbrooke and her crew claim there are magical wishing wells and exhibits that come to life at night and go out for adventures around the area. However, Berrington Developments are relieved to uncover a fraud that’s being run at Colours of the Wind museum. Those ‘moving exhibits’ are a hoax, every last one of them. Nothing but a money-making marketing ploy run by the street itself, designed to fool your children and take money from your pockets. The wishing well that really grants wishes? Information harvesting – taking your children’s names, addresses, and other personal information for marketing purposes, under the guise of making your little ones believe their wishes will come true. Not quite the ‘child-friendly day out’ they’d have you believe!
‘No. No, no, no. “Information harvesting” is exactly the term Warren used on the very first day. This couldn’t have come from him. He wouldn’t have…’
Mickey’s arm tightens around my shoulders. ‘It gets worse, Liss.’
‘How can it possibly get—’ I stop myself. I don’t need to ask how it can possibly get any worse, because I scroll further down the page and come to a video. The thumbnail is a black and white photo of us in the museum lobby with the word EXPOSED written across it in big red letters. My fingers are shaking as I press the play symbol.
It takes a moment to work out what I’m seeing. It’s camera footage filming… the lobby? It’s in night vision, and everything’s blank for a few seconds, and then Bram with my model of Remy under his arm comes into view, holding a door open, and Darcy wheels Sleeping Beauty’s spinning wheel out. The frame freezes and ‘LIARS’ gets stamped across it in those big red letters. Then it switches to a different time. There’s me, running across the back end of the lobby with the Magic Carpet in my arms. It must’ve been the night of the stakeout when I was sneaking it to the customer bathroom. Another freezeframe and ‘FRAUD’ is stamped across the screen. When the video unfreezes, it’s Mickey, Sadie, and me, with Cogsworth and Lumière on their way to The Wonderland Teapot. There’s another clip of me, Marnie, and Cleo carrying the witch’s legs out on the night we placed them under the bookshop walls. The video ends with a still of all of us in the lobby, granting wishes, and the words ‘sending unsolicited promotional mail from information gathered via the wishing well’ roll across the screen, and then it finishes with the museum logo that Warren drew, but instead of ‘museum of fairytales’ written around the edge, they’ve replaced the wording with ‘museum of fraudsters’.
There’s more writing but tears are blurring my eyes so much that I can barely read it.
Berrington Developments recently acquired this fraudulent museum and we’re pleased to announce we will shortly put an end to these underhanded practices once and for all, with demolition commencing in March, and an exciting new cinema and entertainment complex on track to open the following year and bring a much-needed modernisation to Ever After Street. Get in touch and share your stories if you too have been fooled by this so-called ‘museum of magic’, and help us to continue protecting the public interests, and putting honesty and integrity at the very top of our priority lists.
‘This isallover social media,’ Marnie says gently. ‘I wouldn’t mind betting that they’ve hired a publicist to publicise it as much as humanly possible.’
‘We’ve all been tagged too,’ Cleo adds. ‘Every shop on Ever After Street has, so all our followers will see it too. They’re really trying to take us all down with them.’
‘The house of cards will fall on you, she said.’ I think of Mrs Berrington’s visit yesterday. ‘This is what she meant. They knew what we’ve been up to and they were ready to expose it. And I said I wouldn’t back down. If I’d been more agreeable, this wouldn’t have happened.’
Is this why she came? Nothing to do with wanting to see what Warren was excited about, but as a precursor tothis? A way of testing the waters, seeing if we were going to go quietly, and when she found out we weren’t, the company released this.
‘I’m sorry I’ve got all of you involved too. Everyone’s been tarred by my stupid battle.’
‘It’s not stupid, Liss,’ Franca says. ‘None of us were going to let Colours of the Wind go without a fight, come what may. Andwestarted it. You weren’t even involved at the beginning.’
‘No, but I’ve let it continue. I’ve let us all get caught in the act… I’ve let a camera film us… Wait…’ I play the video again. ‘This is allinsidethe lobby. How can someone get this? Mrs Berrington must’ve installed a hidden camera when she was here yesterday.’ Even as I say it, I know I’m wrong. This is footage that was filmed weeks ago, from way up high. I go to the supply cupboard and haul out my stepladder, and then grab Mickey’s phone and replay the video, trying to identify where it’s been filmed from.
It’s a high corner, above the door, from a viewpoint that captures most of the lobby. I drag the ladder into a rough position and clamber up it with one eye on the phone, and at the top, disguised by a nook in the wood panelling, there’s an unobtrusive, thin black box with a lens in the centre of it.
