What are artifacts without a warehouse in which to keep them in?
This is no riddle to ponder over; the answer is very simple – they are orphans, living in limbo, waiting for a place to finally call home.
Jane tells them that there will be a new warehouse built, that the Regents have not forsaken them – Myka's eyes instinctually cut to Claudia and Claudia keeps her gaze trained elsewhere – and that things will go back to normal.
And there's that word again: normal. That word is starting to sound like a joke.
Beyond that, it is business as usual. Secret men and women with secret knowledge come in under the cover of night and turn Leena's basement into a make-shift storage unit; there are shelves in place and miniature containment areas, there are familiar purple gloves everywhere. Assurance trickles down from one figurehead to another, telling this struggling band of five that all will be just fine – Leena's Bed & Breakfast will be safe from the artifacts, that it won't take long to fill up a whole new warehouse, and that the days will pass and the wounds will heal.
Of course, the Regents do not say it like that, not exactly.
They are the true riddles, after all. Power and whispers, lies and trust; notions so closely linked that it can leave a person's head spinning. Or create a whole lot of bitterness. Or slowly kill off your faith in the 'greater good'.
But it is business as usual for now.
For now, it is the semblance of routine that they all hold fast to.
/
And so, there is no Land of Oz.
There isn't a lonely girl, with only her little dog for a companion, just wishing for an escape from the farm. There isn't a cyclone tearing up the bleached-out plains of Kansas. There is no Scarecrow longing for a brain; no Tin Man desperate for a heart; no Cowardly Lion seeking courage.
There is nothing over the rainbow except more sky.
However, there is the very real case of the ruby-red slippers.
Myka reads over the files as Pete drives down the highway (and as Pete sings along to a song on the radio, as Pete stops to get lunch and gets mustard on his jacket, as Pete behaves like Pete) and learns way more than she ever wanted to about 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'.
While she knows about the series of books (because there are actually fourteen of them in total), they were not the kind of reading material that her young mind was drawn to. L. Frank Baum's world seemed terribly childish to Myka – and, even as a child, Myka didn't like being thought of as a 'kid'. So, she had no interest in reading a single bit of Baum's endeavors. She had even less interest in seeing the film adaptation, but if you live long enough, you'll end up seeing the movie whether you want to or not. She knows all about Dorothy Gale – the role that Judy Garland inhabited, all fresh faced in sepia tones that soon change to blinding Technicolor. She knows all about Toto and the Lollipop Guild and the Wicked Witch of the West.
The assimilation of these facts does not mean that Myka cares; she just too good at retaining information.
Like now, there is a part of her brain that will never forget what she is reading: the shoes in the book were silver, not ruby-red; the author supposedly based the Scarecrow off of a reoccurring nightmare; Baum dedicated that first book to his wife, Maud. But for the purposes of their line of work, Myka places these details to the side and focuses on the shoes.
Artifacts were once just objects – regular, everyday things that no one would look twice at. But if the emotions are strong enough, these inanimate bits of metal or plastic or cloth can take on the total width and breadth of someone's pain or someone's passion. Most times, it ends up being a little bit of both elements; the agony and the ecstasy combines into something wonderfully wrong.
Something so magical can become something so dangerous.
According to the files, Judy Garland was not the happiest of girls during the filming of 'The Wizard of Oz'. Already used to being a cog in the Hollywood machine, Garland had sacrificed her childhood for the limelight – and the price was a steep one. There was drug addiction and the loss of a father to contend with even before filming began; there were thinly veiled comments from the head of the studio that Garland was too overweight and so they forced her onto a diet (she was only sixteen at the time). And while the film turned her from a singing-and-dancing ingénue into a full-fledged star, all the money and fame in existence could not fix what had been broken along the way.
Thus, an artifact was born.
All of that pent-up longing and sorrow seeped down into those ruby-red slippers like water; the soles soaking up every single drop of muted despair. Once the artifact became active, agents working for Warehouse 13 at the time were sent out to retrieve the shoes (snag it, bag it, and tag it… just like always).
Of course, it is never that easy. The studio had made countless pairs and each pair found turned out to be a copy or a spare of some sort; a prototype that was never used on set. When the original ruby-red slippers were finally discovered, the ones that had been on Judy Garland's feet, they had been given – anonymously – to The Smithsonian.
That was in 1979.
A deal was made that allowed the actual pair of shoes to remain in the museum, under lock and key and very watchful eyes.
Well, at least that was the deal until now.
Now, the shoes have been stolen and several comatose people have started popping up. That's the thing with these ruby-red slippers – once you put them on, they are difficult to get back off again. Once you put them on, you slip away into slumber and waking up is the last thing you want to do.
And all the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.
The shoes lure you away from this reality, opening up the chance to live in another world – albeit one that resides solely in the recesses of your mind and in the caverns of your heart. You'll think that you've found somewhere much better than where you are…
…You'll start to believe that you've gone somewhere over the rainbow after all.
/
Artifacts are not always the primary danger, though.
Sometimes the damage done depends more on the person who is wielding the artifact.
Sometimes, it is a boy who couldn't walk and who wasn't saved soon enough; sometimes, it is a woman lost within the passing of the years and still floundering with unending grief.
Sometimes, it is a girl filled up with rage; the kind of rage that comes with losing the only family that ever mattered – a sight never to be unseen, a slumped form in a chair and with skin so blue, so cold to the touch.
And sometimes it is just a person who wants things to be different; a person who wants to wake up and not have to search for what is constantly missing.
Sometimes it is a shattered heart that just doesn't know how to mend.
/ /
TBC