A New Workplace
I never believed in the paranormal. Curses, enchantments, lucky amulets, evil spirits, angels, demons, heaven, and hell–all this meant nothing more than fantasies found between the covers of a book. Fantasies meant to influence weak minds, yet, despite all that, I got the job.
How and Why?
I said all these things, and quite clearly, I might add, in front of the Director. The result? I was utterly ignored, but then again, why did I take on the offer? Maybe because on the paper, the salary, the bonuses, and the benefits looked extremely appealing. I’m not superficial, but I like to live comfortably, and my university degree doesn’t give me too many opportunities. If I’m aiming for a career in this field, I can’t afford to be picky. I must take everything that comes my way, no matter what.
I was officially employed at the Occultism, Witchcraft, and Magical Artefacts History Museum. What a fancy name for a place full of lies and charades.
I let my head fall on the desk loaded with piles of books, manuscripts, parchments, and some of the strangest objects I’ve ever seen, which had to be restored, classified, and only then, prepared for display. There was only one big problem; I knew nothing about the objects in front of me, of which I was, anyway, convinced to the marrow of my bones that they were nothing more than rubbish meant to take money from poor suckers who believed.
I needed coffee, loads and loads of coffee.
I returned from the small staff kitchenette with a steaming cup of coffee in my hand, only to bump my nose into the freshly mounted sign on my office/workshop’s door.
SCARLETT AUBYN
RESTAURATOR AND CLASSIFIER
OF ARTEFACTS AND OCCULT DOCUMENTS
I wanted to rip the sign–together with the door it was glued on–into pieces, and it was only the second week of work. I wondered what the next phase was. Fight with the exhibits? Scream at the visitors? Sleep in a coffin? Or maybe the worst possibility of them all–to believe all this was real.
A soft knock on the door interrupted my descent into the dark abyss of the shadows of despair, and inside the room, stepped a woman. Laura had worked as a guide for this place for over twenty years, and also, she was the only one who welcomed me with a big, warm smile.
In the two weeks since I started working here, I haven’t seen any of the museum employees, except for the day the Director introduced me to the team. A small team formed out of four people, apart from him.
The first one was Matteo, the secretary; an introverted young man, with dark hair and pale skin, rocking a nerdy look, but without much of a presence, who greeted me almost inaudibly without moving his gaze from the floor. By his side stood Gregor, the housekeeper; a grumpy, old Russian man, who’d worked in the museum for almost all his life and from who I couldn’t hear more than a low grunt. Next in line was Silvia from the gift-shop. The young woman was too busy playing with her blonde hair, making loud-bursting bubbles out of chewing gum, and looking at her long, fake nails to pay me any sort of attention. And last, but not least, the woman who stood now in front of me, Laura.
“Am I bothering you?” she asked politely.
“No, not at all! To be fair, I was just starting to feel a bit lonely,” I said, getting on my feet as she got closer.
“Well then, that means I got here just in time. Tell me, did you manage to get used to this place yet?” She smiled in a friendly way.
“Not quite. I find it a bit difficult, to be honest, mostly because I have no idea where to begin,” I said, pointing at the piles on the desk and around it. “I managed to prepare a few parchments and books for display, but I’m currently facing a bit of a problem.”
“Such as?” she pried. “You know, I’ve been working here for quite a while, so I might be able to help you here and there until you find your own way.”
“For example, I have no idea what that is,” I pointed my finger at a long wooden carving.
“That’s a phallus,” Laura said relaxed.
“A what?” I asked, thinking I must’ve heard wrong.
“A phallus,” Laura repeated unbothered by my reaction.
“Okay, then what about this?” I showed her a very similar object, but this time out of metal.
“Also, a phallus. Anything else?” she asked joyfully.
“Alright, though I’m a bit scared to ask. What about this drawing?” I handed her one of the books lying around open. “The writing is quite washed away, so I can’t decipher it all.”
“Oh, now this is rather interesting,” she said, fascinated. “This is a double-headed phallus used in harvest rituals.”
“Double-headed!” my mouth fell open.
“Yup, there are with up to eight heads, but what goes over three were used for black magic.”
“But why couldn’t they use something else? I think I saw at least twenty similar objects and over a hundred drawings in the past several days.”
“The obsession for power, I suppose. The man was considered the absolute power, after gods, at that time, and since the major belief was that his power came from his genitals, they used it for various rituals,” she explained calmly.
“Wait. When you say ‘used,’ you mean . . .?”
“The organ,” she continued my sentence.
“‘The organ’?” I repeated shocked.
“If you ask me, this is exactly the reason why the Great Witch Hunt began, because the witches hunted men as well. The bigger and stronger the man, the more extraordinary the result, but when they began to no longer be able to acquire the needed materials, they became creative and improvised. And that’s how these little guys came into existence. Depending on the ritual they were needed for, the witches crafted them from various materials. For example–for harvests, used wood, for strength, used metal, for wealth, gold and silver; for fertility, animal skin. As for those who had enough courage to practice black magic, they used them from corpses, which is why a phallus with more than three heads is an extremely rare sight.”
I was as sickened as I could be and didn’t want to listen to another word, but I had to ask; there was no way for me to keep my job if I didn’t learn more.
“How do you know all that?”
“Oh, you poor thing, no one told you now, have they? We have a rather comprehensive library here with diverse witchcraft history books and case studies. Follow me, I’ll show you.”
“Lead the way.”
