The Cabinet of Curiosities
Jar of eyes

July is the Month of Maps (Again)

 

There has been a slight upset in the chronology of the Curator’s home: In June, we wandered down a little used-corridor in search of our miniature wind-up pearl-catapult and found ourself caught in a time-loop, desperately recording our own voices on phonograph and sending them out into the aether in the hopes that someone would hear our cries and rescue us. We have since rescued ourselves, and have found the experience quite enjoyable, but will nevertheless be returning to our previous schedule of one frightening and downright odd story per week, on the subject of maps.

Many things can be mapped. Countries, and lives, and root-structures. And what else can be mapped? The road from Hell to Gloucester perhaps? Or the lines on a dead man’s hand. Many things. Four will follow in the coming weeks.

We would also like to thank all of you who, in your search for morbid things, have bought copies of our stories for yourself or your impressionable young ones. If you’ve read it, we would be delighted and terribly thankful if you took a moment to review it on your favorite book website:

barnes & noble | indiebound | books-a-million | the book depository | amazon | itunes

Episode 4: Generously Donated By . . . , by Emma Trevayne

In the fourth and final episode of The Cabinet of Curiosities podcast,  Curator Emma Trevayne reads her mad, tricksy story Generously Donated By . . .

You can subscribe to this podcast at iTunes.

In this podcast series, each week, one of the four Cabinet curators—authors Stefan Bachmann, Katherine Catmull, Claire Legrand, and Emma Trevayne—reads a tale from their collection of spooky, creepy, or simply horrifying short stories, The Cabinet of Curiosities: 36 Tales Brief and Sinister, available from Greenwillow/HarperCollins, wherever books are sold.

Scary stories for ages 8 and up. Adults will like them, too . . .  if “like” is the is the best description for a cold and creeping terror.

 

Episode 3: Plum Boy and the Dead Man, by Stefan Bachmann

In the third episode of The Cabinet of Curiosities podcast,  Curator Stefan Bachmann reads his most disturbing story “Plum Boy and the Dead Man.”

You can subscribe to this podcast at iTunes.

Each week, one of the four Cabinet curators—authors Stefan Bachmann, Katherine Catmull, Claire Legrand, and Emma Trevayne—will read a tale from their collection of spooky, creepy, or simply horrifying short stories, The Cabinet of Curiosities: 36 Tales Brief and Sinister, available from Greenwillow/HarperCollins, wherever books are sold.

Scary stories for ages 8 and up. Adults will like them, too . . .  if “like” is the is the best description for a cold and creeping terror.

Episode 2: Dark Valentine, by Katherine Catmull

Welcome to the second episode of The Cabinet of Curiosities podcast. This week, Curator Katherine Catmull reads her story “Dark Valentine.”

You can subscribe to this podcast at iTunes.

Each week, one of the four Cabinet curators—authors Stefan Bachmann, Katherine Catmull, Claire Legrand, and Emma Trevayne—will read a tale from their collection of spooky, creepy, or simply horrifying short stories, The Cabinet of Curiosities: 36 Tales Brief and Sinister, available from Greenwillow/HarperCollins, wherever books are sold.

Scary stories for ages 8 and up. Adults will like them, too–if “like” is the is the best description for a cold and creeping terror.

Find Your Way in June . . .

As summer approaches and the days turn warmer and brighter, you might think that things here at the Cabinet will become somehow warmer and brighter as well. That in the face of the sunlight and the cheery red roses and the bright green grasses of summer, the shadows will melt away, and all the bizarre inhabitants of the Cabinet will retreat until autumn comes whispering once again.

But you could not be more wrong.

No, dear readers, summer is, in fact, a time of great hustle and bustle at the Cabinet, for now there are more hours in the day for adventuring, more light in the sky for finding things you’d rather not find, and less watchfulness in the hearts of many. For it is summertime–school is out, breezes are lazy and so is weekend traffic. People retreat to strange new places for supposedly restful vacations, and enjoy long naps on Sunday afternoons because it’s far too hot to step outside.

This is the time of year when the darker, stranger creatures and characters of the world come out of hiding in incredible numbers–for who would suspect that, in the midst of a bright summer’s day, secrets and shadows lurk just around that corner, just behind that flowering tree? Who would suspect that, beneath the warm concrete of a bustling midday plaza, ancient artifacts turn and shift, awakening at last after long centuries of slumber?

Who would ever guess that the map you hold–that very map to which you cling as the road you travel takes you deeper and deeper into unknown territory–has a mind of its own?

That long-desired holiday, that trip to the chic streets of Paris, that escape into the wilds of the cool summer mountains . . . Do you really think, considering what you have learned through our many stories, that any of that will work out as you have planned?

We suggest you hold tight to the map you bring with you–as long as you keep your mind sharp. For you know what they say about maps, don’t you?

They can hold many secrets and many tricks. They can say they are taking you one place when actually they are leading you to quite another place entirely. Who knows where that map has been? To what places has it traveled? What other souls–some doomed, others more fortunate–have stared desperately at the map in your hands?

Who’s to say? Not even we Curators know the answers to those questions.

But we will be sharing stories about maps with you this month–maps of bone and maps of skin, maps of paper, maps of cloth, maps of the mind and maps of the heart. Maps you have to view from the stars to understand. Maps written in the stars themselves.

These are only a few examples of the many kinds of maps we have encountered in our travels, and we hope you’ll come to the Cabinet on Wednesdays this month, to hear the stories about them for yourselves.

You may learn a thing or two–and keep yourself out of trouble, and safely on holiday, just as you planned.