The Case of the North Station Mummy

By D. Clarence Snyder

Ned Crystie is a normal police officer in every way, if you don’t count the set of wings he keeps hidden under his uniform.

When Officer Crystie and his partner respond to a call about a dead body on the train tracks by “The Garden,” they thought it would be a routine call. After all, there is nothing unusual about a dead body lying next to train tracks in Boston. Except the body turns out to be a thousand year old mummy; it appeared out of nowhere; and the person who discovered it is covered in faerie magic.

Officer Crystie suspects a larger truth about faeries in the human world, but investigating risks exposing the secret he has kept since he was exiled from Faerieland two thousand winters ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Clarence Snyder
• Release date: Apr 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463288252

D. Clarence Snyder

D. Clarence Snyder is a retired Master Sergeant and unabashed nerd. His previous work includes uncredited technical articles; several issues of the comic book series The Tick; and an infrequently updated blog and web comic.

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The Case of the North Station Mummy

A Modern Fantasy Story

by D. Clarence Snyder

Copyright 2019 by D. Snyder

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

The Case of the North Station Mummy

About the Author

Also by D. Clarence Snyder

Every time a child says ‘I don’t believe in faeries’ there is a faerie somewhere that falls down dead. -James M. Barrie

The Case of the North Station Mummy

I should start at the beginning, but that would take too long. My name is Neditte Crystie, and the important facts are: faeries are real, they exist; most of them live in Faerieland, a kingdom you can only see out of the corner of your eye; they work with a force you would describe as magic, most of your laws of physics are more like guidelines than actual rules; they are essentially immortal, they hardly age and are nearly impossible to kill; and I am one of them.

Caligula sat as Emperor of Rome the day I was exiled from Faerieland, and I have been living in the human world ever since. I fought in the American Revolution, on the side of the British. I’ve served in the Navy and the Army. I fought in the American Civil War and both World Wars. For the last half century, I’ve been some kind of police officer in departments along the Mass Pike. I’m not specifically from Boston, but it is where I have made my home.

I hide my true identity by changing it every decade or so. If the wrong person discovered a real faerie in the human world, I would be turned into a science experiment. They would dissect me and keep the parts in separate jars until the sun goes out. So, I keep my head down.

In Faerieland, I didn’t harvest dew or push the flowers up. I didn’t make the wind blow or carve unique snowflakes. I was a royal guard. I’m a cop because that’s what I did in Faerieland. Protecting things is all I know how to do.

To look at my record, you might say I’m not a very good cop. I do just enough to get by. I don’t pull extra shifts unless it’s mandatory. I don’t take time-and-a-half event gigs. I use all my vacation time and sick leave without being told. I pay my union dues and give my proxy vote to the steward. It’s tough, but I don’t do anything to get noticed or promoted. When a lieutenant starts talking about my career opportunities, I quietly get a job in another city and start over.

That’s why I got this case. Even the dispatcher knew it was going to be a scraped knee on a mass casualty kind of day.

Please respond to report of a body on the tracks under the Zakim Bridge.

The report had to be wrong. The closest above-ground train tracks were the MBTA Commuter Rail at North Station. If anything, they are under the Leverett Circle Connector Bridge, but the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge is more distinctive. It looks like an actual architect was involved, and less like somebody in Boston wanted to get away from Government Center but didn’t know what a straight line was.

North Station isn’t some abandoned rail yard in Supervillain-Town or vacant construction project in Southie. It was an MBTA hub under whatever they’re calling ‘The Garden’ these days. The body was half-way between the Suffolk County Sheriff’s office and a State Police Marine Section post, not to mention the MBTA has its own police force which works at the station itself. This wasn’t a mob drop. Everybody knew it was just some homeless guy who fell down for the last time. It was tragic but mundane. So, they sent me and Officer Cecil Poeffoir.

We had been on foot patrol north of Government Center. Our assignment for the day was to patrol and wait in reserve, just in case the first day of the annual Pride festival in Quincy Market got out of hand. We got the call because we were closest and expendable.

The MBTA Police weren’t even there when we arrived. A track worker waved at us when we finally got to the right island platform.

Hey, over here! he