The Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum was not an old building. In truth, it was only four years old. A place of archeology, geology, mineralogy, paleontology and zoology, it in truth, house five separate museums, one for each of its devoted fields.
Staring a stuffed specimen of a dodo, a species extinct long before his time, Alexander saw Herr von Fell appear in his mind's eye. It was said he was a devil, if not the Devil, and slowly Alexander was indeed beginning to see him as the Devil.
While Captain Smith, Ms. Lombard, Alan, Gemma, Hippolyta, the teachers and the students all stood nearby, with Roxana staying close to Gemma and Cnut and Emma close to Captain Smith and Ms. Lombard respectively, Alexander roamed the Museum of Zoology. Looking at these various creatures that once lived, murdered by people like Herr von Fell. These stuffed specimens may have been to educate people, but the fact remained that in order for them to exist, live specimens had to be killed.
"It's barbaric!" exclaimed Alan as he and Gemma looked over a stuffed lion. Walking over to them, Alexander saw that the stuffed lion had a mane, looking quite ridiculous in comparison to the maneless lion Heinrich. "I doubt this lion was a man-eater like Heinrich or his most famous fellows the Ghost and the Darkness."
"It is unlikely it was, Alan." Said Gemma, shaking her head as she looked at the stuffed lion. "There must be an alternative like a painted statue."
"The paint might fade overtime, but that does sound better, Gemma." Agreed Alan with a nod.
A painted statue? That did indeed sound better, though Alexander was not sure if he would see such things in his lifetime.
"Captain Smith!" Alexander turned his head to see a man standing in the doorway, a well-dressed man, someone Captain Smith knew from something called the "Royal Society." When Captain Smith turned to look at the gentleman, the Man from the Royal Society said: "We are ready for you."
"We'll be right in, Danvers." Said Captain Smith, running a hand through his hair. Looking to everyone else, he then said: "Go on, I'll be right there." While everyone else exited the Museum of Zoology, with Roxana, Cnut and Emma following, Alexander stayed with his master, looking up at him. Captain Smith looked down and at the Northern caracal and said: "Alexander, my lad, what am I going to do? I'm here right now and what am I going to say? What was it I even said earlier?" Meowing at his master, Alexander soon found Captain Smith kneeling and placing a hand on the side of his neck. Laughing, Captain Smith replied: "Yes, I said something good. The question is what?" Sighing, Captain Smith started to scratch Alexander's chin, something that the caracal enjoyed immensely. "I don't know, Alexander. What if I make a fool of myself? Every other notable archeologist in the province is here and I feel like if I make a fool of myself, I have never given a speech before my fellow archeologists before." Taking a seat on the floor, Captain Smith watched as Alexander stepped onto his lap and then proceeded to rub his head against his face. Smiling, Captain Smith stroked Alexander's back. "Yes, there is a first time for everything, isn't there? First time for giving a speech, first time for leaving a continent… Would that my mother and father could see me here tonight… My first wife and my sister too… And old Borna as well. True, Alan, Ian, Hippolyta and Igraine are here, as are everyone else, but I wish they could actually be here instead of just smiling down on me… If I don't make a fool of myself. I haven't got my father's strange charm he would just randomly start singing to himself and immediately everyone smiled. My father was what he was. He was strange, but people loved him. He gave a few speeches in his time at my first wedding, the wedding of Alan's parents, he did it quite well, but I… I get tongue-tied even reading aloud a speech from 'Julius Caesar.' Alexander, would you do me the honour of accompanying me on stage? I think I'll need someone by my side." When Alexander meowed, Captain Smith stroked the caracal's back and said: "Thank you, my friend. You are as fine a caracal as Darius was… I wish to stand up, now, Alexander, please move." Getting off of his master's lap, Alexander looked once more at the dodo. Such a strange looking bird and its loss was a tragedy, a tragedy that Alexander knew nothing about. "Come, Alexander. Let us go and give our speech." As Captain Smith exited the Museum of Zoology, Alexander continued to stare at the dodo, before finally following after his master. As he emerged from the Museum of Zoology, a scent, multiple scents. came to Alexander's nostrils, the scent of living beasts, but where? "Alexander!" Looking to his master, standing at the other end of the hallway, Alexander returned to following after him.
As Alexander followed his master, he wondered about the scents. They were like that of Beelzebub, but different. What could they have been? Where were they coming from? Were they other chimpanzees, somewhere here in the Royal Ontario Museum? No, no… The scents were similar, but different. Something else. A chimpanzee smelled like a combination of human and monkey, but these things smelled similar and yet altogether different, something more natural, like they were creatures who were not the result of an unholy union between man and monkey, for Captain Smith had told a legend from Cameroon where a man had fed bananas to a group of monkeys, who in return abducted his daughter. In order to get his daughter back, the man drank a magic potion that turned him into a monkey. In that disguise, he joined a money troop and took a monkey bride, thus were born the chimpanzees. Was that the source of all apes? Certainly not, these scents while certainly smelling like that of an ape, did not have the strange, somehow evil scent of the chimpanzee. There mere many scents that could be called strange and somehow evil, just as many things could be called strange and somehow evil, but for some reason, Alexander found the scent of the chimpanzee to be the strangest and most evil of all. Perhaps, it was because the only chimpanzee he knew was Beelzebub, were they all like him? Alas, he knew not.
Yet, still the question remained of what the scent could have belonged to? Could they have been orangutans, who were said to have descended from humans who had been punished for crimes against the gods? Or perhaps one of them was the Pongo, the Congo's wild man of the woods?
Following Captain Smith up onto a stage before which everyone was seated, Alexander began looking at the crowd. He could see the everyone from Quebec Castle in the first couple of rows, Hippolyta was even giving him while Alan and Gemma were sitting next to one another while Cnut and Emma lay nearby.
As a gentleman said "Ladies and gentlemen: Captain Kull Smith", Alexander looked down at Roxana, sitting before Gemma, looking up at him and him alone. Meowing at her, the Northern caracal watched as his mate jumped up onto the stage, much to the amusement of the audience.
With a stoic face, Captain Smith said to the audience: "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Alexander and Roxana, successors to the late Darius." As the two caracals rubbed their heads together, the audience clapped softly. It was best not to frighten the two, otherwise who knew if they would go running and to what wings of the Royal Ontario Museum, they would end up in. "This year, I went to Egypt to bring home Alexander. He came from near Memphis where Merneptah, that scion of Ramesses the Great, held court. His ancestors have seen wonders that we ourselves never could have dreamed possible before we started searching for the wonders that the desert sands jealously guard. I know not when I will next be in Egypt, war is everywhere it seems save for here in Canada, but I know that when the war is over, whenever it is, then once more shall we unveil the great mysteries of past civilizations, bringing to light the many chapters that remain unknown. The world is our paper, the spade our pen and as we unearth history, so too do we rewrite it with our discoveries of history books of stone. To archaeology!"
The next thing Alexander heard as he took a moment to scratch and itch was everyone repeating: "To archaeology!" Wherefore? He did not understand it. What reason was there to repeat those two words? It was so strange and yet the people did it.
Once the speech was given and everyone was either talking to one another or looking at the various wings of the museum, Alexander snuck off, his paws as silent upon the museum's floor as a soft breeze through the trees of Quebec Castle. Following the scent of apes to an open door, he entered it and within he found cages filled with mostly monkeys, but there was one with a gibbon. Approaching the cage with the gibbon, Alexander watched as the gibbon extended an arm through the bars of its cage, never making a sound while the lesser primates all chattered in fear.
Alexander could see fear in the gibbon's eyes and he knew not wherefore. As he allowed the gibbon to place a hand upon him, as gentle as a breeze, Alexander meowed a question to the gibbon. The gibbon responded by pointing at two separate tables.
Jumping up, Alexander saw before him, covered in sheets, the bodies of two great apes, larger than a chimpanzee such as Beelzebub. Were these Pongo? Were these orangutans? Or were they something else completely?
Hearing a grunting from a larger cage, Alexander jumped over to see and what he saw was one of those apes, but living. Both skin and hair were dark, the coat denser upon the arms and legs. Meowing at the great ape, Alexander watched as the primate turned to look at him with brown eyes filled to the brim with sorrow. Alexander never saw the great ape, the gibbon or the monkeys ever again. While he would return to the Royal Ontario Museum many times in his life, never again would he see that room so used. This had been his first Halloween and he would never forget it. While later Halloweens would be less adventurous or equally so, he learned that Halloween was a time when children went guising, but for the rest of his life, he would always think about what he saw at the museum on that day.