Page 68 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museu
A hidden camera. It’s stuck up by a Velcro pad, and I rip it off and peer into the lens. Is it still recording now? Is someone from Berrington Developments watching us rightnow? Watching our reaction to their hideous post in real time?
I deliberately throw ithardonto the floor to smash it up, and then I climb down and stamp the heel of my winter boot onto it, satisfied with the sound of breaking plastic and the cracks that cover the surface when I pick it up again.
‘Someone’s installed a hidden camera,’ I announce like they haven’t just watched me throw it, stamp on it, and kill it dead, dead, dead.
Because it’s not ‘someone’, is it? Some random person hasn’t come in and secretly installed a hidden camera without anyone knowing, and then shared the footage with Berrington Developments. There’s only one person who could’ve done this.
One person I trusted, when everyone else in this room told me not to.
‘I’m sorry, Lissa.’ Marnie gives me a hug as the others all echo her sentiment.
No one needs to say his name.
I feel numb as I put the broken camera behind the counter and then lean on my elbows and drop my head down.
Why would Warren do this? Everything had felt so perfect lately. I hadnodoubt that he was fully on our side until the cryptic warning from his mother yesterday. And now this. He’s the only person who could have installed that camera. He must have been filming us all along. He must have known from the very beginning who was responsible for the ‘escaped exhibits’, and what? Pretended he didn’t and bided his time until he could share the footage and make the biggest impact? Cause the biggest amount of harm? I feel violated by the fact someone’s been watching me without my knowledge, and the thought of corporate suits sitting around in the Berrington office and spying on us makes my skin crawl.
I look up at the others. ‘I’m so sorry. I trusted him. I trusted himoveryou, all of you. Everyone told me that something didn’t add up, that something about his reason for being here wasn’t quite right, and I got caught up in his eyes, and his smile, and the sense of companionship he gave me. I feel so stupid.’
They all reassure me that no one could’ve seenthiscoming, but I’m the one who let him in. I’m the one who shared everything with him, who opened myself up to him and truly believed that his intentions were good.
Was he nothing but a corporate plant all along? Sent here to secretly watch us and report insider information back to the company? And there was me, dishing that information out on a nice big dinner plate, like a numpty.
‘What are we going to do?’ Cleo asks. ‘Post a rebuttal?’
‘We could claim they’ve faked the footage?’ Franca suggests. ‘Say they’ve used AI to generate it or something – people would be more inclined to trust us than some slimy property developer.’
‘Yeah, exactly, we’ve just got to refute it,’ Marnie adds. ‘People will always believe the good guys.’
Arewe the good guys? Wehavemisled people. We’ve pretended exhibits were moving when they weren’t. We’ve used the interest to further boost our own popularity. We’ve played up to what was being talked about to increase visitor numbers and benefitted from the increased takings.Weall know that the information on the wishes was solely to enable us to grant them, but in this world of scammers and fraudsters trying to get your personal information in any way possible, is anyone ever going to believe that?
The only thing I’m certain of is that it’s time to be honest. ‘No. No more lies. We’ll come clean. Tell people exactly why we did it. The only way to fight accusations like these is with absolute truth. I’ve made enough mistakes with trusting people who clearly had ulterior motives lately, and I don’t want tobeone of them. I’ll write something today, figure out how to explain it, tell people about Berrington Developments and their underhanded tactics and intimidation, but right now, I want to curl up in a hole and never come out.’
I can feel the malaise settling over me like a heavy winter blanket. It was all for nothing, wasn’t it? Everything that’s happened since September has been a sham. The extra visitors make no difference, the gift shop, the excited kids finding escaped exhibits, the wishes we’ve granted, the map postcards, the new logo. Every single thing has been for nothing.
We haven’t saved the museum… and I haven’t fallen in love.
* * *
I have no idea what to write.
When I volunteered for this earlier, it seemed so simple, but now I’m alone, standing at the front desk with the cursor blinking at me from the blank page on my laptop.
It’s been a quiet day. The others went to open their shops, and Mickey stayed until I sent her away at lunchtime, but visitors have been few and far between. I suspect the only ones who have come are people who haven’t read social media yet, unlike me. I’ve been torturing myself by reading the comments on Berrington Developments’ article all day, despite knowing the cardinal rule of the internet is to never read the comments.
Between that, I’ve been skulking around and checking every nook and cranny for possible other hidden devices. From their video, it seems like they only had one angle, but you can never be too careful when you’ve invited a corporate stooge into your life and trusted his every false word.
I don’t expect Warren will ever be brave enough to show his face around here again, and yet I can’t keep my eyes off the door. I keep watching,hoping… no, not hoping… Waiting, maybe. Thinking hemightcome in. There might be some perfectly reasonable explanation for all this.
Half of me expects him to appear, and half of me is still shocked when there’s a soft knock on the museum door and I look up from the laptop screen to see him push it open, come in, close it and turn the sign over to closed behind him.
I look at the clock on the wall and I’m surprised it’s reached 4.55p.m. already. Today has been the draggiest day in the history of draggy days, and I have to appreciate his timing. He must have waited until this exact moment – right before closing time so we’d have some privacy, but before I’d had the chance to lock him out.
‘Hi,’ he murmurs. At least he has the decency to look ashamed. Very, very ashamed.
I go to say the same but the word gets stuck in my throat and all that comes out is a hoarse gurgle. I’m telling myself that at least something here mattered enough that he’d come back and try to offer an explanation, and even though I don’t really want to hear it, I’m desperate to hear it.
He’s wearing a suit again, and his shiny shoes squeak on the black and white flooring, and I can’t help the pang of seeing him looking as miserable as he did three months ago.
