The Riverbend Anomaly

The air in the Riverbend Arts Collective's archives hung thick, tasting faintly of paper dust and stale coffee, a familiar Winnipeg summer scent. My task for the afternoon: cataloguing the forgotten, the half-finished, the never-quite-launched projects from the last decade. A glorious, solitary job, I'd thought, until my hand snagged on something unexpected tucked behind a stack of community mural proposals from '09. A plain, heavy cardboard box. No labels. No ID. Just… cardboard. But it wasn't the lack of labelling that made my fingers tingle; it was the faint, almost imperceptible thrum against my palm, a low frequency I felt more than heard. Like a trapped insect. Or an old fridge motor on its last legs.

I pulled it out, grunting a little. Heavier than it looked. Dust motes, fat and slow, danced in the single shaft of sunlight that pierced the grimy window high above, illuminating the box's worn edges. A moment of hesitation. It felt… wrong. Not dangerous, exactly, just deeply, fundamentally *off*. My heartbeat picked up, a quiet, insistent drum against my ribs. 'Just a box, Maria,' I muttered to myself, the sound swallowed by the cavernous room. But my gut wrenched. It wasn't just a box. Nothing was ever 'just' anything, not really.

The lid offered little resistance. Inside, beneath a thin, yellowed sheet of tissue paper, lay not the expected flyers or faded photographs, but a stack of documents, neatly bound with fraying twine, and nestled amongst them, a small, dark metal locket. It was ornate, a twisted knot design on its surface, and startlingly warm. Not just room temperature, but actually *warm*, as if it had been clutched in someone's hand moments before. I picked it up. The warmth pulsed, a subtle, disquieting heat, against my skin. It felt ancient and alive all at once.

Unravelling Strange Frequencies

I put the locket down, placing it carefully on the steel table. My fingers, still warm from its touch, traced the first page of the documents. The typeface was crisp, academic, but the content… it was a jumble. 'Mixed-Methodological Participatory Methodology for Climate and Creative Entrepreneurship and Community Development.' The title alone was a mouthful, a string of buzzwords that usually sent my eyes glazing over. But beneath the impressive jargon, there was something else. Graphs. Not just graphs of funding models or engagement metrics, but strange, jagged lines charting atmospheric pressure and rainfall, overlaid with what looked like… sound waves? Resonant frequencies. That phrase kept appearing. 'Harmonic convergence for community resilience.' What even *was* that?

My mind scrambled, trying to connect the dots. An arts collective. Climate change. Entrepreneurship. And… harmonics? It felt like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube blindfolded. My brain did that familiar young adult thing, oscillating between 'this is probably nothing, just some over-the-top academic proposal that went nowhere' and 'oh god, this is a conspiracy, I've stumbled onto something huge.' The latter was always more appealing, even if it usually led to disappointment. But the locket's warmth, still tingling on my fingertips, argued for the latter.

Later that afternoon, the archive’s fluorescent hum felt less soothing and more like a low-grade headache. Dev, another intern, sauntered in, balancing a precariously stacked pile of coffee cups. He took a long, exaggerated slurp of his own, thick steam curling around his face. 'Still communing with the ghosts of grant applications past?' he asked, his voice laced with the usual sarcastic affection. He dumped the cups onto a nearby desk, narrowly missing a stack of ancient exhibition posters. A moth, disturbed by the sudden movement, fluttered clumsily past his ear, only to bump into the lamp and fall to the floor. Dev just kicked it gently aside with his sneaker.

'You would not *believe* what I found,' I said, gesturing vaguely at the documents spread across my table. My voice, I noticed, was a little tighter than usual. I picked up the locket again, its warmth a familiar comfort, a weird anchor. 'This.'

Dev peered over my shoulder, squinting at the cryptic charts. He picked up one of the pages, his brow furrowed in concentration, or maybe just confusion. 'Mixed-methodological what-now? Sounds like a university thesis trying too hard to be profound.' He laughed, a short, dismissive puff of air. 'Probably some grant application for an 'eco-sonic' art installation that never got off the ground. People come up with wild stuff when they're desperate for funding, you know?' He tapped the locket. 'And this? Probably a prop. Or a really fancy paperweight.'

He was right, of course. On the surface, it *did* sound exactly like that. But the warmth of the metal, the deliberate precision of the overlaid graphs, the strange, almost unsettling language… it felt different. Not just academic ambition. It felt like something with teeth. I looked at Dev, but he was already rummaging through a box of old CDs, whistling off-key. He wasn’t seeing it. Or he was choosing not to. Most likely the latter; Dev had a knack for practical dismissal.

A Glimmer of Knowledge

I spent the next hour cross-referencing terms online, ignoring my actual cataloguing duties. 'Resonant frequencies' led me down a rabbit hole of acoustic physics and bio-feedback. 'Harmonic convergence' brought up everything from New Age spiritualism to a niche branch of architectural acoustics. None of it gelled completely with 'community development' and 'creative entrepreneurship.' The more I read, the more disparate the pieces felt, yet they were undeniably woven together in these documents. It was like a puzzle where all the pieces were from different boxes, but someone had forced them together anyway, creating a distorted, unsettling image.

My phone buzzed. A text from my mum about dinner. I ignored it. My focus was absolute, the outside world fading to a dull thrum. The heat outside intensified, the sun beating down on the city, making the already warm locket feel like it was drinking the energy. I realised I was clutching it again, the smooth metal cool and warm in places. It was almost hypnotic.

Professor Kiplingson, the Riverbend's director, was usually a whirlwind of focused energy, her sharp, intelligent eyes missing nothing. When I saw her passing the archives an hour later, I called out, 'Professor! Could I ask you about something I found?'

She paused, her hand already on the doorframe, a faint, almost imperceptible hesitation. Her smile, usually so ready and expansive, seemed to shrink slightly. 'Maria, dear? What is it?' Her gaze drifted towards the table where the documents and the locket lay, then quickly flitted away, almost too quickly.

I held up the locket. 'This box of documents… it's about a 'mixed-methodological participatory methodology' and these strange graphs linking climate data and resonant frequencies. It doesn't seem to fit with the usual project files. Do you know anything about it?' I watched her face, searching for a flicker, a tell. The hum of the ancient air conditioning unit in the corner of the room seemed to rise a notch, filling the silence.

Her eyes, usually so direct, seemed to lose their focus for a split second, blurring around the edges. 'Oh, that old thing.' She gave a short, dismissive laugh, a sound that felt brittle. 'Yes, I… I vaguely recall. An experimental proposal from a few years back. Very ambitious. Too ambitious, perhaps. It never really… materialised. I believe we just kept the files for posterity, a reminder of the more avant-garde ideas we sometimes entertain.' She waved a dismissive hand. 'Nothing to worry about, dear. Just a curiosity. Probably best to just log it as 'unrealised project' and move on.'

But she didn't move on. Not immediately. Her eyes lingered on the locket, then on my face. A small muscle in her jaw twitched. She cleared her throat. 'You seem… quite engrossed, Maria. It's just old papers.' The way she said 'just old papers' made it sound like anything but. Her tone was light, but there was an underlying current of something else—concern? Warning? I couldn't quite place it. It was like trying to catch mist in a net.

I nodded slowly, trying to project a casual indifference I didn't feel. 'Right. Just old papers. I just thought it was… unusual.'

She offered another strained smile. 'Indeed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a call to make about the summer programme schedule. Do try to enjoy the sunshine, Maria. You're working too hard in here.' And with that, she turned and walked away, her footsteps echoing a little too quickly down the hall. The door to her office clicked shut. The sound was sharp, final. Too final.

My gaze returned to the locket. Its warmth persisted, a silent, defiant ember against the sterile archives. Kiplingson's reaction, her quick dismissiveness, the way her eyes had darted away from the table… it all screamed more than 'unrealised project.' It felt like she was protecting something. Or someone. My finger traced the intricate knot work on the locket's surface. What if this wasn't just some forgotten academic curiosity? What if this 'methodology' had materialised, just not in the way anyone expected? What if it wasn't about community development at all, but something far more… resonant?

A strange thought pricked at me then, sharp and unwelcome. What if Kiplingson wasn't just protecting a secret, but was somehow *involved* in it? The locket seemed to pulse in my palm, hotter now, almost as if reacting to my suspicion. The hum, faint and ever-present, seemed to grow louder, a low frequency vibration that went right through the floorboards, up my legs, and into my teeth. I stood there, rooted to the spot, holding the warm metal, a new and unsettling question taking root in my mind: What exactly had I just unearthed?