The Chest of Drawers part 1

Joe Miller

I must have lost my mind. I could not bare to keep Anna inside the event horizon a whole month, only to grow twice as fast backwards. Could not bare to think she'd have to miss another month to regain her youth. So I experimented. I took the tweezers and put them in the glass under the Cover of Anticipation with the paperclip we already had set in.

That -could- have been dangerous or even with terrible results! Just tough the Tweezers were weak enough of an Object to be safe to put in. And I was right! The time seems to run that much faster. It even had corresponding effect when loaded with a simple tune using the Harmonica!

The team has now collected all the Objects outside USA, so next step was to start gathering scattered ones inside the borders. Leah asked me if there were any Objects left in New Mexico. Frankly, never had tought to look there, I have assumed no Objects were left in that area at all.

But, there were. And 5 of them too! I pointed those Objects to be in small farms near the Gallup area. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leah Maddoc
So we headed back to Gallup. First stop was a little farm a little north from the Sunshine Motel ruins. The Edgewood family owns it. They have 10 cows. The house was quite small and it did not seem to be repaired in a while. We parked the van in front of the house and looked around. No-one seemed to be home.
Brock heard some noise from behind the shed, and found out there was a henhouse back there. The eggs were collected this morning, so the people have not been away too long. I went on to knock on the door, and right then we heard a dog bark behind the house. He was skinny and did not look well. He had lots of food and water there for him, and all the other animals seemed well, so we figured this dog was very old. That would also explain why he did not hear us drive at the yard.

Not much longer we saw a pick-up truck approach. It stopped right next to our van and a man stepped out, carrying a bended shotgun on his arm. A little moment later a woman stepped out too, but stayed behind the car.
"Who are you people and what is your business?" The man asked with a stern voice. Mike explained he was a collector and that he had heard around here were many items from the early sixties era. And that he was especially interested of the stuff the motel he had built once had. And that he was just driving around here asking if folks would like to sell the stuff.

The guy smiled a little and said he indeed had stuff like that. But when we asked if we may go inside and look if there were anything interesting, the lady of the house spoke, saying she had not cleaned the house and asked fifteen minutes. After saying that she rushed in.

"We'll start from the barn then" the husband said, "I keep my ex-wife's stuff there anyways, so Sarah would not mind you taking them at all... Mind your step right there folks, Matilda is with calf and Sarah led her about the yard to calm her down... you might slip."

Avoiding the slide-mines we walked to the barn, It was more like a warehouse than a barn to me, it was divided in small earth-floored sections, with a heavy irony lock on the door. Everyone could just dig their way under if they wanted to go inside, I thought to myself.

There was a lot of stuff! Mostly furniture, covered in sheets and old moth-eaten furcoats and the likes. Mike hit his eye right away to the pinewood drawer, but constrained himself and went on examing on the wardrobe. Mr. Edgewood said we could explore to our heart's desire, and that he would go to help the missus. So off he went.

Instantly Mike turned towards the drawer. "This certainly glows like an Object" Brock said "But it is too worn and does not look anything like the pictures you had of the motel room furnishings."

"Yeah" Jacob agreed "The Object must be a lot smaller and hidden inside one of the drawers."

Right at that moment Mr. Edgewood returned and said we could go in the house now. Mike said he was not that much interested of the stuff in the barn, but that he had a drawer like that when he was young. Mr. Edgewood said Mike could keep the drawer. He was just happy to get rid of the thing.

We had got what we came in here for, as we knew only one Object was here, but to maintain our cover-story we went inside to look around. Mrs. Edgewood had decorated the house anew. And she had done a good job too! But nothing from the requested era was in anylonger. Mr. Edgewood said Sarah wanted to clear the house from Elvira's "scent" so she had renovated the whole house from inside. I did not say it aloud, but it seemed they run out from cash... because the outerior was in such a terrible condition. And what little I know about interior decorating... this stuff is not cheap!

Mr. Edgewood said there was not much stuff left from the 1960's downstairs, but there might be some in the attic. There was nothing much to see. Most of the stuff had obviously taken in the barn, except for the few heavy-looking furniture.
Mike lifted the sheets covering one of the furniture there and his jaw dropped! Aparently it was a very old antique dresser, with an oval mirror. Mike said it was worth almost thirty thousand dollars! Mike asked if the onwer knew what the value of the dresser was, and he did not. Mike said he wanted to buy the dresser and offered a hansome amount of it. A fair price too.

The next step was to go see the downtown bank with Mrs. Edgewood. You should have seen the bankier's face! Sarah told us the dresser was inherited from her husband's mother Matilda, and she had got it from her fiancee as a engagement gift. And he had got it from an auction... The old Henrickssons manor had put under the hammer when they built that highway fifty or so years ago.

That meant there were more of these rare 19th century furniture scattered about New Mexico. And most of the people had no idea of their true value.

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Michael Monroe
A case-hardened collector just can not skip a chance like this! It was now also about finding more items from the Henrickssons manor, than just locating the Objects. Good old-fashion scouting!

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Jacob Erez
We drove at the Sunshine motel and used the Room 9 door to take the chest of drawers and the dresser to the Ziggurat Complex. The drawer was locked, but it took no time for Jimmy to pick the lock. The drawer was full of old letters, one particular took our interest, as it glowed with electricity. The envelope itself was mundane, the address line smudged and corners bent. The stamp imprint had a year 1967 on it and it had been sent from Gallup. The sender line said "Irene Kowalsky" one of the first Collectors!

I took a glimpse of the envelope and saw a woman stuffing the envelope in the drawer, crying and her tears made the address line wet. However the lines seemed to had been stroked out prior to that with a pen.

Brock Storm
Mike opened the letter and gave the envelope to his staff for further study on the smudged letters. Jacob had his interest also on the name and went along. Inside the envelope was another envelope, smaller, without a receiver's name. This one had been opened. Inside the smaller envelope was a letter, folded in two, containing a small piece of cardboard: a 1958 issued driver's licence for Eddie!! On the letter was in woman's handwriting a brief message:

"I send you this piece of evidence of the greater power we endured. Arlene is lost. I do not know what to do! Brother keep this safe and do not speak of it to anyone! As if it is revealed your life does not have any value for the ones seeking these Objects
There are many, many more items like this, with different powers"

The message ends, as if the writer was in a hurry, or was not able to finish her letter, without a signature, not even a full stop at the end of her last word.

Not too long later Jacob returns, being able to clear out the receiver's name: Marcus Lanneker. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leah Maddoc
"We need to go an pay a visit to this Lanniker-guy" Jimmy stated "assuming he is still alive."

We all pulled a few contacts and searched the internet, to learn more about Marcus Lanneker. I found a link to this book he wrote: "The Modern Power-Atrifacts". It was a pseudo-scientifical study about these hyphotethicly alien-implemented things, set on Earth to test human behaviour. I recall vaguely reading it back on my association days, but I set it aside being over-affected, pompous and without any merit whatsoever. Have to read the thing all-over again.

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Michael Monroe
We all decided we should go back to Gallup to pick up the few Objects left, as by now the rumor should have runned about the whole town, about this "grazy millionaire" buying old stuff. What a better time to stay in the cover-tale. If we went wild-goose-chasing with this Lanniker now, and returned to Gallup few days, weeks even, later the cover would be blown. So we had to smith while the iron was still hot.

The next Object was in a little farm owned by Lounsbury family. They grow crops, mostly to their own use and to sell in small amounts as a cattle fodder. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leah Maddoc
The house was well-maintained and the crops were looking good, to my eye at least. Upon our arrival (it was quite late, almost 8 PM) the master of the house came to meet us in the front yard. He was wearing cowboy boots and a quite impressive stetson. He greeted us with a mixed Texas-dialect. He introduced himself as George. He turned out to have inherited the farm from his parents. His mother was put in the old-people's home, suffering from Alzheimer's decease. His father had died a while ago.

Mike gave his speach of our why-abouts and Mr. Lounsbury said he had nothing against a little cash.

We were invited to his house. Everything was in a pristine condition, clean and straight order. George told us he remembered having few boxes of Sunshine Motel's stuff in the attic. His uncle had worked in the motel on that year it went bankrupt, 1976. It was because the new highway. All the traffic went right by Gallup after it finished. His uncle had carried quite a lot of stuff from the motel home.

Guys went on the attic, but I excused myself and asked if I could use the lavatory. I did not want to leave the downstairs unsearched, in case the Object was not in the attic. Not much later I peeked in his bedroom and found out the painting above his bed was the Object we were looking for!

Now the trouble was how to hint of itīs excistence to Mike, as you could not "just walk by and see it" because the door was supposed to be shut.

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Jimmy Spencer
On the attic everything was tidy, as if someone had lived in there resently. The walls were painted pale blue too. I have never seen an attic as clean as this one. Everything was in straight lines, the furniture and the cardboard boxes were named and organized alphabetically. Mike discovered the Sunshine Motel boxes, and begun to go through their contents. I wanted to check around in case there was something else interesting and I found a box with a heavy crystal-chandelier inside!

I hollered to Mike and it took only one glimpse from him as he recognized it to be one of the same era as the other Henrickssons manor items. George-boy agreed to sell it to us after he heard of it's value. He also said he had more of the kind in his bedroom. He had also a bedside table and two brass candle-holders. Mike saw Leah nodge towards the painting and coughed: "Oh my, that painting looks just like the ones we had in the Sunshine Motel" George said it must be one of the items his uncle had brought home and that it had not much sentimetal value. Mike offered a generous sum for the four items too.

It was so late already we figured we had to come back the next morning to collect, when the bank was open again.
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Jacob Erez
The painting did not speak to me at all. I figured it was another of the dormant ones.
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Leah Maddoc
George had only one bedside table, so I figured we could go pay a visit to his mother, perhaps she remembers what happened to the other one. Usually Alzheimer's affects mostly on recent memories.

After we had paid a quick visit to the bank with Mr. Lounsbury and fetched the antiques, we directed our way towards the "Prairie Mellow" old folks home.

You should have seen Mike's face when we were lead to mrs. Lounsbury and she recognized him!!! It turned out Annabel was Mike's first crush, back in the elementary. Yes, she was from Texas too, originally. But marrying Mr. Lounsbury she settled here. She remembered a lot of very old events, but she kept asking like every five minutes if we were Mike's children, and if we had coffee yet. Poor old lady.

She told us her first fiancee had bought the bedside table and the candle-holders from the Henrickssons mansion auction, some 50 years ago, but he was too poor to buy both of the endtables. He had died in the World War II. Leaving her pregnant with George. They were not married, so she told to the other suitor, Mr. Lounsbury that she was with a child. So they married. Mr. Lounsbury never knew George was not his.

She had no idea she was talking to a bunch of complete strangers.

To be continued: March 24th 2009 The Chest of Drawers part 2


Case report no 8 by Cattrina