When Emi said the train station was preserved in its original form, I didn't think it would mean this. Old cans, plastic bags, cigarette butts, and other debris sit in the dirt surrounding the station. The building itself is an unpainted wooden shack, matching the platform outside it that's missing boards. I cross over the rusted rails as I walk toward it.

"You'd think the city would do a better job of preserving history," Emi says.

I shrug. "Probably had a low budget."

Boards creak underfoot as we ascend the platform. I glance back at the parking lot, empty except for Emi's old Honda, which somehow fits in perfectly.

The silence is slightly unnerving. Anyone could lurk outside—or inside—and no one would be around to help. I peer inside a tiny window at the top of the station's door. The building seems empty, so I try the handle. The door creaks open with surprising ease. Slowly, Emi and I enter.

I'm not surprised that I never heard of this place; there isn't much to see. A map of the old town hangs on the wall over the front desk, which is the only new piece of furniture present in the room. A few old chairs line the wall to the left, adjacent to a fireplace strewn with cobwebs. On the right, a glass display case contains old items, the most common being clocks. In fact, clocks crowd two entire shelves.

"H-hello?" I call out.

Emi nudges me, mouthing the word 'no.' I stroll up to the desk, lifting a brochure lying out.

A door closes, followed by the slow patter of footsteps. It's a pin drop in the quiet, yet each tap on the floor inches my heart rate up. A figure rounds the corner, and I suppress a surprised yelp.

"Good afternoon," a young man, probably no older than thirty, says. "My name is Dustin. How may I help you?" He tugs at the bottom of his white shirt, as if the motion will smooth the wrinkles in it.

"We're just looking around," Emi says with a tense smile. "We just learned about this museum and thought it'd be cool to check it out."

"Ah, I see. Would you like a tour?"

"Uh, perhaps..." Emi trails off. "When's the next one scheduled?"

"Anytime!" Dustin breaks into a full grin across his angular jaw, displaying straight yet yellowed front teeth. At least he brushes his pearly-white molars. "I'm the only one running this place, so if I'm free, a tour can be in store." Dustin leaves the front desk and steps through a side door to enter the museum floor. From several inches above us, he stares down like he's inspecting us. My skin starts to crawl.

"This a map of the city," he says, pointing at the map above the front desk. He turns and walks to the display case in front of a dirty window. Emi and I follow, though we keep a distance. "These are some artifacts found on site when we first turned this place into a museum. By far, clocks are the most prominent."

"Why?" I ask.

"Ask the train conductor." His smile widens as if he's told a joke. Too bad it was so dumb, it didn't make sense. I could use some levity right about now.

I squint at him. "Don't you have any ideas? You're the one renovating this place." Emi's elbow jabs my ribs again.

"No." Dustin aims his smirk at me again. "What do you theorize?"

I shrug, making eye contact with the clocks instead of him. "Maybe they kept malfunctioning for some reason."

The clocks are all shapes, sizes, and styles — one a wristwatch, one a circle on a golden chain, another a cuckoo clock, another for a mantle. None work anymore; their hands are frozen on numbers or roman numerals.

Click the clock to find the time. Could the clue be a clock stopped at the time one thirty-two?

Quickly, I figure out the times on each clock. Six-twenty, eleven forty-eight, midnight. Dustin's voice drones in the background, something having to do with old train tickets. I go over each one carefully, but none read one thirty-two. There must be another clock around here other than the ones in the display case. I peer through the display case, noticing for the first time that there's a window behind it. My eyes zero in on the parking lot, still occupied by only our car. A moment later, a burly man in a gray, sweat-stained t-shirt walks along the train tracks, passing right by the window before disappearing from view.

My brow furrows. Didn't Dustin say he was the only person running this dump? Then why is this random dude hanging around here? If he were a visitor, I would expect his car to be outside with ours.

"And over here, we actually have a replica of what a train conductor could very well have worn during his long trips across the United States."

He walks toward a mannequin in the center of the room wearing a faded and tattered uniform. It seems more the real thing than a twenty-first century replica, but I bite back any comments. I have to focus. Where would other clocks be?

Subtly, I angle myself behind Emi and unlock my phone. It's a good thing I took a picture of the poem as a reference.

Look to the left upon the grass,

Does the grail wait below the glass?

The grail is probably the clue we're looking for — the greatly sought-after prize for our efforts. If we need to see something on the grass, then perhaps the clue is outside. Perhaps it was never moved to the display case.

Dustin starts for the other side of the room, his back toward us. Emi is slowly following, but I edge toward the door. My roommate's hand nudges mine as I pass behind her. When I look at her, she's motioning with her head toward our tour guide. She mouths, let's go! I lean over and whisper,

"I'm going outside for a minute."

Emi glares at me, but I slip past her and through the door. My gaze sweeps over the splintering platform outside the station. There are no clocks in sight. I look over the rail, to the yellowed, dried straw growing below. I scrutinize the door and the wooden sides of the station, then venture to the far ends of the platform, searching every bit of surrounding gravel. Not even one clock shows its face.

Finally, I look up, and there it is. A clock hangs in front of a cracked window above the door. It's a funny-looking clock with twenty-four roman numerals squeezed around the face, as opposed to the usual twelve. Two metal hands point to one thirty-two.

The clue waits before the glass, so it must be inside the clock. Or did the poem say 'between?' I pull up the picture on my phone again.

"Looking for somethin'?"

I nearly jump out of my skin. The sweaty man from before leans against the platform's decrepit railing. He spits into the dirt, then fixes his gray-blue eyes on me. A prickle of anxiety runs up my arms, or perhaps it's just goosebumps from the light, spring breeze.

"No, just taking in the sites. How about you?"

Sweaty Guy raises a bushy eyebrow, but doesn't reply.

"Do you visit the train station often?" I try again.

Why is this weirdo just hanging out around here? Something about him seems off, and I'm hoping that if I can get him talking, maybe I can figure out what it is, exactly what he's doing here.

"You could say that." He turns his head, which seems disproportionately small due to his brown buzz cut, to the right, momentarily diverting his gaze. I glance at the clue again.

Below the glass. Behind me, windows line the museum's exterior, overlooking wooden boards on the platform. I take a few paces back and step on a board. It squeaks loudly, and Sweaty Guy's head whips around. My fingers grip the railing. I force a smile and look to the parking lot.

"Such a nice day, isn't it? And this lighting is perfect for selfies." I hold up my phone and a peace sign and pretend to take a couple snapshots. A few moments later, Sweaty Guy grunts. My peripheral follows him around the back of the museum.

I wait five seconds once he's out of view, then return to my search. Some boards squeak as I apply pressure to them, others remain silent. I work my way to the door, peering inside the tiny window embedded in the wood. Emi stands next to Dustin on the other side of the room. Though she doesn't need to face me, I can tell she's uncomfortable.

Hold on Emi, I'm coming soon.

I press my foot on the board right in front of the door. It caves inward slightly, and I quickly step off it for fear it may break. I squat down, slipping my fingers in the crevices on either side of the wood. With all my strength, I heave upward. It pops out of place, revealing a foot-deep hole. A rusty box hides on the bottom. I do a quick check of the bottom for spiders before lifting it out. There's no lock on the box, but I have to force the rigid lid to squeak open, revealing yellowed, folded paper curled against the interior. I stick it in my purse and drop the box in the hole.

"You okay there?"

I whirl around just as I push the board back into place. Sweaty Guy is walking toward me. He's like this towering figure coming to steal my purse... and the parchment I stuffed inside. I grip it a little tighter than before, standing to even out our heights.

"Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You were on the ground." He glances down at the plank. "Moving a board."

"Yeah, it was a little loose. Nearly tripped over it. Thank goodness I wasn't in heels. I would've been a goner."

He weighs my words carefully, and his gaze drifts between me and the ground. Finally, it settles on my purse. I wedge it under my arm. I refuse to be detained by him any longer. He seems in no rush to get out of my space, I have a sickening feeling about waiting around for him to do so.

I paint a casual smile on my lips as I reenter the station. Fortunately, Sweaty Guy doesn't follow. Two heads turn my way. Relief floods Emi's face, tension melting from her brow and shoulders. In contrast, Dustin's brown eyes narrow at me, then flick back to normal.

"Sorry, I just had to get a picture outside," I say. "The lighting was just too perfect."

A lazy smile cracks Dustin's suspicious expression. "I'll bet you look good in them."

"The lighting made them," I say with an awkward chuckle. What a creep.

"More than lighting makes a picture special." Dustin somehow manages to wink and graze his eyes up and down me. I shudder internally.

"On that note," Emi says, summoning a stronger voice with each word, "I should get back to work myself. But it's been nice seeing this place." She hurries to my side.

"Very unique," I add, opening the door. "Good luck with your... museum."

"Take care." I barely hear Dustin's voice over the shutting door.

Emi and I jog down the steps of the railroad station. Glancing around, I'm relieved to see that the guy from before has decided to sweat somewhere else, unless he's lurking behind the museum out of sight...

Emi grasps my arm. "Please tell me you found it," she whispers.

"I think so," I say. "Let's go."

"Thank goodness. Because I'm never going back there. Did he keep giving you creepy looks, too?"

"Yeah. Probably doesn't get out very much."

"Or maybe he's just a weirdo. Why would the city put someone like that in charge?"

"Like I said before, they probably had a low budget." Now come on." I tug on her arm, then jog the rest of the way to the car.

The car doors click open when I reach them, and I get into the passenger seat.

"What was that about?" Emi says. "You never take off like that."

"There was another guy hanging outside the museum. I didn't want him to overhear anything about the parchment."

"Parchment?" I supply the paper from my purse. Emi instantly wrinkles her nose. "Gosh, that reeks."

"I'd be more concerned if it didn't. It's been sitting in a box for who knows how long."

45805

The folds in the paper create two creases running across a letter. Smears of black ink blur some words together, but it's readable.

"Young musician," I begin. "You've done well, so far. Not only did you believe the rhymes in my first letter, you solved the clues in the first line of the poem. But don't be too confident in your temporary success. The future songs will be much, much harder.

"Thus, I shall give a few suggestions to nudge you in the right direction. Some clues work together, others apart. As you probably already guessed, the clues are embedded in the scores. Analyze every detail in them, and you might find the right answer. Even the smallest notes, the simplest words can be the difference between riches or destitution. The scores correlate with one of the rhymes in my first letter. If you don't match them correctly, then say goodbye to the pot at the end of the rainbow.

"I'm a person of opposites and oxymorons, combinations that don't quite fit. A female mob boss. A criminal who reveres the arts. Take nothing for what it is. Then again, things may be simpler than they appear. Worst of luck, D.C. Silverenn."

The car's engine fills the silence after I finish. Emi and I stare straight ahead at old trees beyond the vacant parking lot. The longer I hear the quiet hum, feel the vibrations in my seat, the more it reminds me of a song — a Silverenn song.

"Is it just me or did that tell us nothing?" I say at last.

"Told me something." I look at Emi. She doesn't return my gaze, but something flickers in her eyes. "Maybe you were right," she says. "I mean, the paper... it's proof of something."

"Yeah, proof that Silverenn won't help very much."

At long last, Emi puts the car in reverse, and the car swings back in an arc.

"It also proves that there's more to the scores than I originally thought," Emi says. "The first clue checks out. And if the others are just as real, maybe we both are in for a pot of gold."