Page 18 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museum

‘Lissa, I know you’ve got your hands full, but there’s something quite odd going on…’

It’s a few days later and Warren’s gone out for his lunchbreak. There haven’t been any suspicious exhibit incidents since the pumpkin carriage, but the hair stands up on the back of my neck as I answer the phone, and it’s Imogen on the other end, sounding apologetic, but also quite worried.

‘It’s this spinning wheel, you see. It’s, well, it’s everywhere, and it’s starting to make me a bit uneasy…

’ Imogen runs a shop called Sleeping Beauty’s Once Upon A Dream that specialises in all things cosy for a perfect bedtime.

Pyjamas, luxury bedding, snuggle hoodies, bath bombs and pampering kits, among other things, but this is the first I’ve heard of any spinning wheel problems.

‘It was a bit strange when I arrived this morning and it was outside the front door, but I thought it was just kids playing a prank, but a little while later, it was outside the back door, then there was a tap-tap-tap on the shop window and it was out there, lurking in the bushes round the side, but now it’s turned up in my office and every time I look at it, it’s creeping closer. ’

‘Wait, it’s in the office? It’s actually moving?’

‘Well, I’ve not seen it, but I shut the door and locked it in, and now every time I look through the glass in the door, it’s moved a bit nearer, like it’s coming for me. You don’t know anything about it, do you?’

I do know this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

‘We know something’s been going on with the exhibits, but we’re still trying to get to the bottom of it.

I’ll come and get it as soon as Warren gets back.

Just try not to… provoke it?’ I say before she hangs up, and I wonder if I should take a defensive weapon or something to fight it off with.

How the flipping heck is a spinning wheel taunting someone inside their office?

And in broad daylight? How is it circling her shop with no one seeing it?

I quickly go to check on the spinning wheel that usually stands beside the mannequin of Princess Aurora, and it’s definitely missing, and I go back to the lobby, perplexed by how it escaped my notice earlier, never mind how it escaped at all.

‘Everything al—’ Warren comes back in from his lunchbreak carrying shopping bags and clocks the look on my face instantly. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’ve just had a phone call from Imogen in the Once Upon A Dream shop. She’s being taunted by Sleeping Beauty’s spinning wheel, and—’ I don’t get to finish the sentence before the phone goes again, and this time, it’s Ali, the head chef and owner of the 1001 Nights restaurant.

‘Look, I know this is just a big joke,’ he says down the line. ‘But putting a big, furry Remy from Ratatouille in my kitchen is not in the slightest bit funny. It might only be a fake rat, but any kind of rat in a restaurant kitchen is a terrible omen.’

‘I didn’t put it there!’ I say indignantly.

‘Oh, I know that, but if you could come and collect it as soon as possible, I’d be much obliged.’ Ali puts the phone down without waiting for an answer.

‘Remy, the rat who loves cooking, has appeared in the kitchen of 1001 Nights,’ I explain to Warren.

‘Ali starts work around this time of day, he must’ve just got in and found him.

And he and Imogen are a couple, they started dating last Christmas, is that weird?

Someone’s targeted them both at the same time.

It must be someone who knows they’re together. ’

Warren shakes his head, looking like he doesn’t know where to start dismantling everything he’s just heard. ‘There’s a rat who loves cooking?’

‘Oh, you really need to watch some Disney films…’ I realise that he’s changed since I last saw him. ‘What are you wearing?’

He transfers his shopping bags into one hand and curtsies to me. ‘A nice jumper or something.’

He’s still got on the suit trousers, but like I told him to the other day, he’s now wearing a cosy-looking brown rib-knit jumper with orange leaves around the bottom hem, and it looks good. ‘Have you just been out and bought that?’

‘Maybe. I’m not a big “autumn jumper” kind of person, or at least, I wasn’t…’ He shifts the bags he’s carrying between his hands again.

‘You’re not a big comfort person then.’

‘No, I’m not.’

It’s another thing that strikes me as being incredibly sad.

There’s something comforting about big, cosy, baggy jumpers at this time of year, something that brings in the season and makes you feel snug, and I feel quite sorry for anyone who misses out on this particular joy of autumn.

‘It was a good choice. It’s a very nice jumper. ’

He blushes and the thought that a little compliment from me could make him blush makes me feel flushed too.

‘Let me put these down and we’ll go and rescue the rogue exhibits.’ He lifts the bags again and heads for the stairs. ‘Ali didn’t sound particularly happy, so I’ll take 1001 Nights in case he’s angry and you take the spinning wheel.’

‘You’re a real gentleman, volunteering to battle a fake rat that’s about thirty centimetres tall,’ I say when he comes back down.

‘Nope, just marginally more terrified of a stalker spinning wheel. If you prick your finger and fall asleep for a hundred years, don’t blame me. You’re single so finding true love’s kiss might be difficult.’

‘Ahh, Prince Philip, the man who ruined me for all others. Quite frankly, if a man isn’t going to fight through roses and thorns and battle a dragon for you, then is it really love at all?’

He goes to reply but I cut him off. ‘And don’t tell me that’s an impossible standard like my friends do.’

He laughs and holds his hands up. ‘Wasn’t going to say a word. I fully support anyone with high standards, no matter how unrealistic they are.’

I laugh too, and secretly I’m quite glad that he’s swotted up on at least one fairytale.

* * *

‘What do you think it wants?’ Imogen whispers.

I’m standing beside her and we’ve both got our faces squashed against the small glass window in her office door, peering through nervously.

‘I don’t think it wants anything. It’s a spinning wheel,’ I say, wondering how my life got to a point where I’m having a conversation about what an escaped non-sentient object might want when the wooden thing really has no desires of its own whatsoever.

‘Do you think it’s after blood?’

I try to contain my laughter because she sounds legitimately concerned, but it gets the better of me and bursts out.

Imogen is a perfectly sane middle-aged woman who has worked here for almost as long as I have.

She isn’t prone to flights of fancy or anything out of the ordinary, but she sounds honestly worried that the spinning wheel in her office is here on some sort of revenge mission that can only end bloodily.

The office is at the back of the shop, down a narrow corridor between her till area and her storage room, and there is no feasible way that anything could have snuck down here without her seeing it, and yet, somehow, one of my exhibits is in her office, and she has no idea how it got there.

There is something really strange going on here.

In fact, at this point, the most reasonable explanation is that my exhibits have turned into ghosts and developed the ability to phase through walls, which is really, really unlikely.

I go to open the door, but she stops me and hands me a long-handled umbrella with a sharp tip. ‘Here. Just in case.’

I have to bite back the laugh again as I take my new protective weapon and go into her office, but the spinning wheel is just a spinning wheel, sitting there… menacingly.

There aren’t any clues for how it got there.

It’s a small, windowless room with only the one door, tucked away at the back of the shop, and there’s no hint of how it could possibly have moved each time she looked at it, and I’m half-wondering if Imogen’s secretly had a bottomless brunch.

Eventually I give up on trying to understand it, give the spinning wheel a gentle nudge with my foot while holding the spike of the umbrella out threateningly, just to make double-sure that it’s not about to attack, and then I pick it up and carry it back out.

Imogen jumps aside and gives me and the spinning wheel a wide berth as I hand her umbrella back and apologise again, wondering if I should reassure her that I’ll put it in a cage or something in future, lest it escape and seek her out again.

When I get back to the museum, Warren’s water bottle and the model of Remy the rat are now sitting on the front desk, and Warren looks up when I come in. ‘Should you be carrying that thing? What if it tries to bite? Do you need a tetanus jab after a spindle bite?’

‘Very funny,’ I say, despite the fact I’m trying not to laugh.

‘This is the best thing I’ve seen in years. I have no idea what’s going to happen next. I need to know what’s going on, and at the same time, I actually don’t want to know because it’s marvellously fun, and it’s sent my imagination into overdrive.’

Mine too, but mainly because there has to be a logical explanation, I just don’t know what it is. ‘Either way, budge over, because there’s a bicycle lock in one of those drawers and I’m going to tie this thing up and lock it in place. Just in case.’

He laughs as he gets off the stool behind the counter and gives me space to crouch down and rummage, and when I stand back up, Remy has moved along the counter and is looking over, and I let out a yelp of surprise at his rodenty face staring at me, and Warren is nearly doubled over with laughter.

I laugh too, and take Remy and the spinning wheel away to put them somewhere safe, consistently surprised by his sense of fun when he doesn’t overthink it.

Half the time, it’s like he forgets to be all businesslike and serious, until he remembers and quickly censors himself, and I wonder again if there’s more than I thought hiding behind the fancy suits and excellent taste in jumpers.