I decide to take Bob. My parents will wake up to find their daughter gone. I’d hate to have them left with the crap car, too.
Grabbing the extra keys from the breaker box, I reason that if I gun it, I can make it to town in about twenty-five minutes. Not too bad. I hop inside the car, throw my bag in the passenger seat, and start the engine. As I’m rolling down the dirt driveway, I glance into the rearview mirror. The house is still cloaked in night, and all I can think is: My family lives there.
Driving away, I suddenly realize the house isn’t so bad. I spent more time with my family in the last nine months here than I did in ten years living in Boston. And as it turns out, my people are pretty awesome.
I pull into the parking lot of the only diner in the area that’s open twenty-four hours and glance at the dashboard clock: 3:37. I made it in twenty-three minutes. Not too shabby.
The door of the diner chimes when I walk through. Exactly two people turn in my direction: a trucker-looking dude with Popeye-sized forearms and his female friend, who finds her inebriation hysterical. They’re a flawless match in this decrepit town of Montana.
A waitress in bad khakis appears from the back and strolls toward me, holding a discarded tray in her right hand. Watching her walk, I decide I could teach her a thing or two about sashaying.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I pull myself up, trying to appear adultlike. “Do you guys have a computer I can use?”
The waitress cocks her head. “You buying something?”
“Um, yes?”
“You know how to tip?” she asks.
Oh, real classy. “Thirty percent. That’s the standard, right?”
She smiles and nods. “You can use the one in the office. Just make it quick.”
I go behind the counter and find the computer. After a little googling on their dial-up Internet connection, I find that the Old Red Museum is in a city called Lincoln. And, good Lord, it’s seventeen hours away. What if I miss the selection process for the Pandora — whatever that is?
I print off directions and buy several sandwiches and bottles of water on my way out. I leave more than the 30 percent I promised the waitress, hoping it’ll put a little sashay in her step.
Then I get on the road and drive like a demon toward Nebraska, wondering if I’m a naïve idiot for doing this.
Almost twenty hours later, I’m nearing the middle of the city. I’m exhausted after the drive, and by now the whole wide world feels surreal and disconnected. Everything is fast and slow at the same time. I follow the last of the directions until I see it — the Old Red Museum. The picture Google provided matches the enormous redbrick building, which looks more like a medieval castle than a museum. At almost midnight, the place looks particularly eerie.
I find a parking spot and walk up the short flight of stairs. Rubbing my arms to fight off a sudden chill, I stop in front of the enormous double doors.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
There’s no way this place is open this late. And by the time they do open, it’ll probably be too late. It’s probably too late as is. I hold my breath and tug on the door. It doesn’t budge. I pull again and again, and scream when it still doesn’t open.
I drove across the US of A, left my family without an explanation, and now I’m either too late or there was never anything here to begin with. Ef my life. Rearing back, I kick the door as hard as I can. Then I wrap both hands around the door handles and let out a noise like a wild banshee as I pull back.
The doors swing open.
I’m not sure whether to celebrate or freak out. I decide to do neither and slip inside. As I walk around the inside of the museum, listening to the sound of my footsteps echo off the walls, I imagine I am moments from death. It’s sad, I think, that this is all it takes to break my sanity.
Two curling flights of stairs bow out from the first-floor lobby, and red and white tiles cover the floors. There are gilded picture frames everywhere. So many that I think the placement of the frames — and not their contents — is the real art. Everything, absolutely everything, smells like wax. I mosey up to an abandoned reception desk and leaf through the glossy pamphlets littering the surface. I hold one of the pamphlets up to my nose. Yep, wax.
I glance around, having no idea what to look for. Will there be a sign like at school registration? Students with last names starting with A–K this way?
On my left, I notice a long hallway dotted with doors on either side. Nothing looks particularly unusual. But when I glance to my right, I spot something. There’s a door at the end of the corridor that has a sliver of light glowing beneath it. I’m sure it’s just an administration office, one where someone forgot to flip the switch. But I’ve got nothing better to go on, so I head toward it.
I pause outside the door, wondering if I’m about to get busted for B and E. Then I turn the handle and find myself at the top of another winding staircase.
You’ve got to be kidding me. What is this — Dracula’s bachelor pad?
I’ve watched a lot of scary movies, and I’ve learned nothing good is ever at the bottom of a winding staircase. Pulling in a breath and preparing myself to be eaten alive, I head down. My shoes are loud against the steps. So loud, I imagine they are intentionally trying to get me killed.
When I reach the final few stairs, I ready myself to look around the bend. My heart is racing, and I secretly pray the worst I encounter is an angry janitor with a wax addiction. I turn the bend — and my eyes nearly pop from my skull.
The enormous room is perfectly circular, dotted with candles to light the space. Surrounding the walls are rows and rows of dark, rich mahogany bookshelves. A large round table stands in the center of the red-and-white-tiled floor. The room is spectacular, but what it holds is so jarring, my ears ring.
Across every shelf, every spot on the table, every tile on the floor — are small sculptures of hands. And in a few of those hands — the ones still performing their duty — are eggs. There are only nine eggs left, it seems. For a moment, I imagine how amazing it would have been to see each hand holding an egg, but it’s enough just to see these nine.
The eggs seem to dance in the candle flame, and as I move closer, I realize why. The surfaces of the eggs are almost iridescent, their colors changing depending on how you look at them. They are different sizes, too; some as big as a basketball, others as small as a peach.
I don’t need the device in my pocket to tell me what my gut already knows.
This is the Pandora Selection Process.
CHAPTER FIVE
If this race isn’t real, I think, I give the prankster mad props for enthusiasm.
The eggs look fragile, like if I touch them, they’ll shatter into a million pieces. I remember when I was small and we would go to my grandmother’s house — the grandmother I knew — there were always things I was allowed to touch and things I was not. These eggs would have definitely made the Do Not Touch List. I walk around the room slowly, bending down or reaching up on tiptoes to look closer at each one. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and it feels almost like I’ve stepped onto the set of a sci-fi flick. I don’t understand how these things got here. Or how this is even happening.