The envelope I found on my desk one Wednesday morning was a deep, rich violet, and the paper was soft, almost leathery when I picked it up. In the always-dim light of the newspaper office, I could see the reflective glow of gold-foil letters. The text was simple:
“YOU’RE INVITED”
Now, if you’re anyone else, this might be a pretty cool thing to find on your desk—nothing like an invitation to a fancy party or an exclusive club to break up your typical work day—but the sight of this envelope filled me with apprehension.
An invitation is never just an invitation in Habitsville.
And yet, I opened it. Inside was a metallic gold sheet of paper with scrawling, looped writing that read:
A Guided Tour of the Habitsville Heart Museum
Below it was tomorrow’s date, and a time: three o’clock in the afternoon.
The Habitsville Heart Museum. I had never heard of such a place. I asked around the office, but everyone seemed just as clueless as I was, even Heather, who covers the Arts & Culture column.
It was seeming more and more like a prank. After all, there was no address on the paper or the envelope. What sort of invitation doesn’t include a location?
So, I let it sit on the corner of my desk the rest of the day. When it came time to close shop, I put it in my jacket pocket, and resolved to throw it away once I got home. But, like the various wrappers and loose bits of paper that also lived in my pockets, it was forgotten. So there the invitation stayed. I didn’t waste time pondering it that night, nor the following morning, and by the afternoon of the next day, I had forgotten about it entirely.
Until around 2:30 p.m., when I began to hear it.
Bum bum
At first, I thought the pulse was my own. I was working on a fairly boring story at my desk, practically dozing off, when it settled lightly in my ears—a slight thumping, like a distant drum.
I tried to write through it—maybe I was getting another migraine, or my blood pressure was high—but soon the rhythm became distracting because of one disturbing fact.
This heartbeat didn’t match up with my own.
It was much heavier, slow, and as I became more anxious the dissonance between the two speeds grew. I looked around to see if anyone else seems to be hearing it, but the few other people in the office appeared unbothered.
I stood up and walked over to the office door, trying to spot an outdoor concert or a car with a bone-rattling bass, but all appeared quiet out on the street. Although when I moved closer to the door, the beating in my ears grew ever-so-slightly louder, as though coaxing me forward.
I took another glance around the office. There were no suspicious glances turned my way. I could see through the glass that my boss was stuck in another all- day meeting. And so, I slipped out the office door.
Walking through the streets of Habitsville was trial and error. As I lurched forward towards the sound, the drumming pulse led me down alleyways and past unfamiliar shops and houses, growing quieter with each wrong turn and louder with every one that got me closer to… well, I wasn’t sure what.
Eventually, I ended up at an impasse. The beating was at its loudest volume yet—but there was nowhere else to go.
I was cornered in a truly decrepit section of town—I half expected a tumbleweed to come rolling by—and the drumming in my head had faced me with two unappealing options.
On the left was what seemed to be an old hat shop—not old like the 1950’s, old like the 1850’s—there were dusty hats stuffed with feathers and taxidermized animals behind a filthy pane of glass. On the right was an ice cream parlor with a shattered window, and a huge novelty discolored cone out front. Neither building had lights on, and both felt supremely haunted.
I sighed heavily as the pulsing continued. I leaned to the left, and the sound decreased. I sighed again: demented ancient ice cream shop it is. But when I moved to the right, the sound went lower as well.
I stared ahead for a moment, confused. It was one thing to be led here by a creepy internal beating heart, but it was another thing for it to be so anticlimactic.
And then, I saw it.
Between the ice cream parlor and the hat shop, there was a sliver of space. It was slight, too slight to be intended as a well-trodden passageway—and yet, when I took a steps towards it, the beating grew louder.
I knew I shouldn’t go in there. It was just wide enough for me to fit in sideways, that much I could tell—but my brain was adamant that I not attempt to scrape through. No Sam, please don’t squeeze into the tiny dark crevice where your corpse will never, ever be found if you get stuck and die,” my brain said.
But it would be incredibly out of character if I was to start listening to my brain now. So, I turned sideways, and began to shuffle.
The space between, to put it plainly, sucked. It was dark, like the sun couldn’t reach such a narrow angle, and the brick on my chest and back chilled me through to my lungs. Worse than that was what spread over my hands as I felt my way forward, a viscous fluid that seemed to cover the expanse of the alleyway. The stone scraped against me every time I breathed deeply, and resorted to taking only short, shallow puffs of air.
The pulsing in my ears continued, strong and certain as I traveled through the slim passage.
I couldn’t make out what awaited me at the end, only that the darkness gave way to a beam of white light. Which, unfortunately, is often what people report seeing right before they die.
The alley grew just a bit narrower at the end, so I couldn’t turn my head, had to suck in my stomach, and hold my breath—until, finally, I was birthed into a section of Habitsville I had never laid eyes on before.
Huge brick walls, probably forty feet high, surrounded this strange, secluded square. It seemed impossible that I had never noticed it before, logically it should be visible from just about every other part of town. There was no break in the brick that I could see, besides where I stood after emerging from the crevice—as though the tight alleyway was the only entrance to get within the brick square.
And in the center of it all, was The Habitsville Heart Museum.
The building was grand in every sense. I’m no architectural expert, but it looked more like a cathedral than a museum, with ornate onion domes and towering twisted spires. It was the most impressive building I had ever seen.
And there, engraved on a marble plaque over an elaborately carved oak door, was its title “The Habitsville Heart Museum.”
I stood there, feeling absolutely miniscule in this bizarre alcove, listening hard for the heartbeat to tell me where to go next. It took only a moment for me to realize I had been standing in complete silence. I couldn’t catch a single pulsing note on the breeze.
“Mr. Singer!”
A voice cut through the quiet. I turned away from the magnificent structure before me, to see a man emerging from the same slight passage I had just inched through.
The man was small, at least smaller than me, with a very neat appearance—a suit with a starched patterned handkerchief in the breast pocket, groomed mustache—but he didn’t seem stuffy. His eyes seemed friendly, and I finally felt my shoulders relax.
The man walked over, his steps echoing strangely against the brick enclosure. He smiled. “You’re early.”
“Am I?” I answered, realizing I had taken neither watch nor phone with me from the newspaper office. “I just came when I was—er—called.”
It was the smallest allusion to the drumming heartbeat that I dared make, lest this stranger think I was completely insane. But to my surprise, he laughed.
“Yes, the Museum can get impatient, “ he said.
Okay, so definitely not the time to relax. I looked from the slight man to the astounding building, and my hands grew cold and clammy. “You mean… the pulse was coming from that?” I asked, nodding towards the great hulking silhouette of museum.
The man chuckled, and his moustache wiggled up and down as he did. “We should really walk and talk, Mr. Singer. The Museum was anxious to see you, and it’s best not to keep it waiting.”
He took off towards the tall oak door and I scampered to catch up with him.
“The Habitsville Heart Museum is one of the oldest living buildings in Habitsville,” he began, and I was already at a loss for words. I couldn’t pick which phrase was the most alarming—“living building” or “one of.”
“It is a place of artistic achievement and organic intellect. It is also extremely exclusive. Only those who have been invited are permitted to go inside. So far since its reopening, that VIP list has included myself—I serve as Curator—and our security staff. And as of a few days ago, you, Mr. Singer.”
He smiled like I was supposed to feel lucky, but I couldn’t even muster a grimace. We had arrived at the front doors, and suddenly the man stopped.
“You don’t hear the heartbeat anymore, correct?” he inquired, bemused. I listened for a moment, then nodded. “It isn’t gone. It has simply matched up with your own. That’s how you know you are one of the fortunate souls who have arrived at the right place, at the right time, with the Museum’s blessing. Everyone has the same heartbeat here.”
He was right, the pulsing was gone- but if I was quiet, even held my breath, I could hear it: a second pulse humming along with my own, the slightest throbbing echo against my ribcage.
“Right then,” the man said, before gripping the handle of the door and swinging it open. “Let’s begin the tour.”
It was mysteriously magnificent—a domed wooden ceiling painted with intricate Renaissance-style scenes that forked into multiple rounded hallways. Artwork lined the walls of various styles and content, everything from sweeping landscapes to picturesque pastorals, to the bright, bold colors of the abstract.
I struggled to take it all in while the Curator crossed the stone floors briskly. “Right then—I believe we shall start over here—” He started, motioning to the tunnel on the far right before he was interrupted.
“Um… sir?”
The meek voice came from a very nervous looking woman behind a desk in the center of the room. She appeared to be in her 30’s, with wildly curly hair stuffed into a cap that read: SECURITY in large block letters. She had several over-sized computer monitors in front of her, but she was looking to the Curator with worried eyes.
The Curator was annoyed. “Not now Kimberly.”
She shifted behind the desk. “But, sir—” she tried again, but was cut off.
“Kimberly. We have a guest,” the man hissed through his teeth.
The guard looked at him, confused, and then her eyes traveled behind him to see me. She studied my face in an odd, bewildered way, until suddenly, her expression shifted to one of excitement. “Mr Singer!” she exclaimed, and I wondered if everyone here mysteriously knew my name. “We are all very glad you’re here. Welcome to the Habitsville Heart Museum.” I nodded politely, and she turned back to the Curator. “I’m sorry sir, but I really do need a quick word with you.”
The Curator sighed, mustache wiggling with agitation. “Fine, but make it quick.” He turned to me. “My apologies, Mr. Singer. Have a look around the lobby, I will be back in a moment.”
“Take your time,” I said. Politeness seems to be something I fall back on when completely and utterly confused.
The two sequestered themselves behind the security desk as I began to stroll around the circular room. I was looking around the lobby, sure—there was plenty to see in just this first room alone, I couldn’t imagine what awaited me in each of the Museum’s hallways—but I was also, of course, doing my best to eavesdrop on the conversation going on in the center of the room. At first listen, it seemed to revolve around the whereabout of a missing security guard named Humphrey.
“He patrolled in Respiratory this morning, which was what was on the schedule—” Kimberley was whispering nervously as she typed something into the computer.
“Yes, right,” the Curator hissed impatiently. “And then?”
“Well… he was supposed to go to lunch— he said he was going to lunch, so I said I would cover Olfactory. He said he was going to lunch,” she repeated.
“And?” The Curator demanded. “Kimberly, please stop wasting my time—”
“Humphrey went to Muscular instead.”
The room grew deathly quiet. I was standing in front of painting of a family having a picnic in a meadow, trying my best to seem like staring at art rendered me deaf. Though it seemed like this new information was enough to make the two Museum staff forget they had a guest.
“Muscular?” the Curator repeated, his voice strangled and hoarse.
“Yes, sir,” Kimberly answered, morose. Then she clicked something on the computer.
It was silent as the two watched whatever it was on the screen, but it only lasted about twenty seconds, and when it was over, the ringing silence seemed to intensify.
Then, the Curator spoke.
“Right then. On with the tour.”
The Curator strolled away from the guard behind the desk, who’s feared looked not the slightest bit assuaged. He came back to me, smiling, and motioned towards the far wall. Carved into its surface was a darkened archway, the entrance to a tunnel. Above it was a plaque labeled “Coronary.”
“It’s always best to start with the heart of the Habitsville Heart Museum. Perhaps this will tell you more about why you’re here.”
Then, the Curator stood before the tunnel, and crossed into the darkness without hesitation, like a willingly swallowed sardine into a whale’s open mouth.
I often wonder, dear readers, if you think me brave. If you’ve read my stories—read and believed them—then you’re used to hearing me justify just why I get myself into the predicaments I do, with all the mysterious creatures, places, and most horribly, people that make up this town. You may think me courageous to the point of stupidity, daring to the point of arrogance—but if I was to tell you the truth, I would say that I am a supremely anxious mind trapped inside an absurdly trusting body.
So, as I stood in front of this great maw of a hallway, listening to the footsteps of the Curator get farther and farther away, my mind pleaded with my body, begging to turn around and leave. And yet, my foot moved forwards, into the shadow, and soon, I too was inside the whale.
I followed the Curator into the Coronary tunnel, two cells in a vein, and felt myself overcome with the strangest sensation in my chest.
My heart was beating harder, not faster. I was afraid, my pulse should have been racing. But instead, it held its same steady beat, and seemed to compensate by pushing large gulps of blood through my arteries, like a little combustion engine in my chest. “What is that?” I asked, unabashedly putting my hand to my torso, horrified to find that I could feel it as well, the outline of the organ inflating and deflating at an alarming capacity.
“Nothing to worry about,” the Curator’s voice drifted through the dark calmly. “Completely ordinary,” he continued, though the sensation felt anything but. “You are in-sync with the Museum, which doesn’t have much leniency for guests. Stay calm and you’ll be fine.”
My chest actually hurt with the force of the blood being pushed through my veins, my heart compensating for the Museum’s slow pulse, and though the panic was sitting as a pit in my throat, I forced myself to take deep breaths. Slowly, the pulse returned to normal, and the straining in my chest settled to a dull ache.
So, bravery was a necessity to survive a trip to the Heart Museum. Not even bravery—complete and utter apathy. To give way to the will of the Museum.
Though my sight was limited in the darkness, my sense of smell wasn’t. The odor was growing stronger as we walked, a rotten, dank smell mixed with some chemical. The scent of preservation.
Eventually, my nose was burning with the acrid scent, when suddenly the Curator’s footsteps stopped in front of me, and I too ceased moving through the black. Then, two sharp claps cut through the quiet, making my body and my heart jump painfully. And suddenly, the lights flashed on.
I blinked as my pupils adjusted to the jolt of brightness.
What surrounded me was a library of faces. Painted portraits on stretched canvas covered the surrounding walls, sat upon easels under spotlights, and some even were placed flat on the tall ceiling above, eyes staring from every possible direction.
They were all sorts of people from all kinds of demographics, and their facial expressions were some of the oddest I had ever seen. They were like stills from a video, complex contortions of faces captured in oil, not the usual vacant expressions or soft smiles of other portraits I had seen. An old woman looked tired, a young boy seemed bored. One woman appeared to be mid-sneeze, another mid-laugh. The hair, make up, and visible clothing of each person varied in style and time period. I saw boxy glasses from the 40’s, long hair from the 70’s, and a teenager with headphones on. Though the subjects were odd, even I could tell that these paintings were expertly done. If all done by a single artist, to fill the room would have surely taken a lifetime.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I had nearly forgotten I wasn’t alone. The Curator stood in the center of the room, gazing at the portraits. “I’ve seen them a thousand time, and yet, each encounter they take my breath away.” He smiled at me, and for a moment, I actually half-returned the expression, so genuine he seemed. “I like to start guests off here. It lets them know how welcome they really are.”
The statement almost seemed sweet, until I really thought about it. “The beauty is welcoming, you mean?” I asked hesitantly.
“Well, yes,” the Curator said, “but that’s not what I was referring to.” I didn’t respond, and he turned to me, eyebrows raised, as though I’d done something he hadn’t expected. “You surprise me, Mr. Singer. Surely you recognize them? Habitsville isn’t that large of a town.”
I examined the portraits more closely, trying to understand what the Curator expected me to see. And then, I felt it. Familiarity. But it wasn’t until I saw a portrait of my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Devereau, that I realized what all of the portraits had in common. They all depicted the contorted faces of citizens of Habitsville.
It might have been charming, if the one portrait I had recognized hadn’t been Mrs. Devereau.
We’re shielded from so much as children, if we’re lucky. That’s a kind way of putting it. Often, I wonder if it was this editing of everyday events that led me down the path of investigative journalism – I can’t stand for a secret to be kept.
Mrs. Devereau was one of those secrets. She had been a kindly woman in her late sixties, too passionate about teaching to retire (though perhaps that was a sugarcoating too.) Though memories are blurry from that age, there was no forgetting the large, wire framed squares she wore for glasses- the lenses so thick they were warped. Her eyes were made comically large, and I always thought she resembled a housefly. I could never swat them after she was gone.
A series of stand-in teachers came after Mrs. Devereau abruptly stopped coming to class, each telling us a different reason why the woman had dissapeared. A long vacation, a bad cold, a visiting relative—eventually, with the self-centeredness of children, we stopped asking for explanations.
Now, her portrait stared back at me, lips hardened into a grim line, her eyes sad, almost pitying.
“What is this?” I asked, barely letting the question come from my throat.
The Curator spoke gently. “This is how we choose our guests.”
I tore my eyes away from Mrs. Devereau’s and turned back towards my guide. His eyes mirrored her, pitying and patient, a teacher talking to a child.
I was acutely aware of the pain in my chest as my pulse strained to quicken, held back by the mysterious thrall of the museum. I was always a good student – it took only a moment more for me to understand what he was saying.
I walked around the room, eyes darting frantically from frame to frame, the movement making my blood gush loudly, painfully in my ears. Until, of course, I found it.
An ornate gold frame, orange under-toned oil so smooth it still looked wet. A young man was pictured, holding a white coffee mug with a pine tree on it to his lips, gaze cast down as though reading a newspaper, or perhaps, proofreading an article. I leaned in even closer—maybe I was mistaken. But I saw the chip in the pottery rim that always threatened to cut my lip, the tiny scar on his brow from a hard childhood fall;
It was a painting of me.
“Mr. Singer.”
He nearly crooned my name, so sweetly was he calling me. I tore my eyes away from my image on canvas, and looked at the Curator.
“How?”
He sighed, and closed the gap between us, resting a hand on my shoulder as we both examined the painting. “There’s an element of mystery to all art, I suppose, though the Museum’s work holds more questions than most. I’ve long since given up wondering how it does what it does. More pertinent now, is a different question.
Why?”