The Whispering Shell

Julie loves her job as a curator at the old Museum, despite her mother’s disappointment that she hasn’t pursued a far more glamorous and prestigious career. Her mother is gone now anyhow, along with her disapproval - drowned in a swimming accident last summer.

When Julie’s school outreach sessions in the natural history room lead her thoughts to the water cycle and its interconnections, troubling events start to occur. Terrible accidents. All involving water. And somehow, the young victims all seem to have come into contact with the same conch shell exhibited in that room.

During a teachers’ strike, Julie has to bring her young son Oliver to work with her for the week. She warns him not to wander off, but when she leaves him alone in the natural history room for only a few moments, she returns to find him gone.

Putting the shell to her own ear, she finds that its whispers are now far more sinister than the familiar sigh of the sea…

The Whispering Shell is the fifth short story in the Eerie Exhibits collection, written by award-winning author Victoria Williamson, and available to purchase as an anthology.