Catherine Fisher: The Ghost Box

Sarah didn’t want to think about that. So she said, “But the box isn’t empty.”

“Not now.” He turned his dark gaze on her. “Don’t you see? He cursed me for all time. He has locked my soul into the box.”

She stared at him. Outside the wind was rising. She heard it thrash in the bare branches, heard it whip along the corner of the house.

“I know your name,” he said, suddenly sly. “Your name is Sarah. I’ve heard them call you, your mother, your brother ...”

“He’s not my brother.”

“Find it for me, Sarah. Find me the key! Help me. I’ve been here for so long … and I’m so cold.”

His misery was making her shiver – that and the cold that seeped from him, the flakes of dried mud on the bed.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

He turned to her and smiled, and shook his head. “I’ve forgotten,” he said.

*********

The shop had a sign outside saying Morgan Rees – Fine Antiques . Sarah stopped at the door, the silver box in a plastic bag under her arm.

She was nervous about going in, and she was tired. After the boy had vanished she had jumped up and turned on every light and lamp in the room. She had left them on all night, lying wide-eyed, her mind racing in terror through every ghost story and film she knew. Only when she’d heard Gareth getting up for work had she fallen asleep again.

Now she took a deep breath and looked up and down the alley with its pretty stream where two swans glided along. She would get him the key. And then he would go.

The shop was old. Chairs and cabinets were set out in the window. It looked expensive, but she turned the handle and went in, down one step.

A bell jangled somewhere far off in the building. Sarah stood in a slant of dusty sunlight and gazed around.

A great doll’s house stood on a table, all the tiny furniture taken out for cleaning. Behind it a gold bird cage hung, with a small stuffed bird that stared over her head. There were paintings on the walls. A shelf of musty leather-bound books stood opposite a small fireplace glowing red from the heat of the coals.

A man came up to her. “Can I help you?”

He wore a black coat and his hair was white. He had a pair of glasses on his sharp nose. He was tall, and very thin.

“I don’t know. I need a key for an old jewelry box.”

“Keys!” He smiled a lop-sided smile. “Well, I have plenty of those.”

He took out a tray lined with red velvet and she saw it held hundreds of keys. Big, small, gold, tin. Keys with pieces of ribbon tied to them, keys with labels, huge church keys, tiny luggage keys.

“May I see the box?” he said.

Sarah undid it in a rustle of plastic. “It’s this.”

She held it out.

“Ah,” the man said. Carefully he took it, his fingers around it. He carried it to a side table and focused a small lamp on it. The silver oak leaves gleamed.

“Fine. Very fine. 18th century, perhaps earlier. French. Made in Paris.”

“Is it worth a lot?” She hadn’t meant to ask but she was interested now.

He looked at her through the glasses. “Do you want to sell?”

“No ... at least ... it’s not really mine.”

She hoped he wouldn’t think she’d stolen it, but he wasn’t really listening. He was looking through a magnifying glass he’d taken from a drawer, looking at the writing on the box, the words in the strange language. As he did so, she felt him stiffen.

“I just need a key,” she murmured.

Morgan Rees put the glass down with a click on the table and stepped back. He took his hands away from the box.

“I’m afraid I don’t have one to fit,” he said in a quiet voice.

Chapter 6

A Terrible Secret

For a moment, Sarah didn’t understand. She stared at the shop-keeper, puzzled. “But … you haven’t tried any of them yet!”

“Nor will I.” Morgan Rees’s eyes were sharp and thoughtful. Then he took the glasses off and pulled out a white handkerchief. He polished the lenses. “Where did you get this box?”

At once she held back. “It … it was a present.”

He looked up. “A locked box?”

She blushed, angry. “Do you think I stole it?”

“It would be better if you had. Then you could just put it back.”

His voice was grave and worried. He said, “Let me tell you something. This is a box that should never be opened. I believe it contains a great danger. The letters around its rim are very old, and tell of a terrible secret. I have heard of such things before. I will not open it for you, and my advice is that you leave it locked and never try again.”

The fire crackled. Outside, footsteps pattered past the shop window.

Morgan Rees put one long finger on the box. “Let me give you some money for it. Then I will lock it away in my safe and it will be no danger to you, or anyone. Let me do that.”

His soft voice made her pause. And then she thought of the boy, his cold, bony hands twisting at the lid, his bitter voice saying, “He locked my soul into the box.” How could she leave him to be trapped for all time?

“I’m sorry.” Sarah reached out and took the box, shoving it back into the plastic bag. “If you won’t help me, I’ll find someone else who will.”

Morgan Rees shook his head. He seemed dismayed. He said, “Then just let me ...”

“Thank you. Goodbye.”

Sarah was angry. Her fingers shook as she grasped the door and tugged it open. A cold breeze swept into the shop, making the fire roar and fluttering pages of books. Without looking back to see if he followed, she ran up the step and hurried down the little street. When someone called her name she marched on, not knowing why she was so shaken.

Had he been trying to scare her? She wasn’t scared. She knew what was in the box, and he didn’t. He’d wanted the box for his shop. He’d thought all that nonsense about danger would scare her into selling it cheap. Well, she wasn’t such a fool.

“Sarah!”

She stopped. The man in the shop didn’t know her name. She turned.

Matt was pushing his bike up the street. He came past the shop and she saw that Morgan Rees was standing in the doorway, a tall shadow, watching them both. Annoyed, she walked on.

“Wait for me!” Matt caught up, out of breath.

“What do you want?”

“Look.” He took her arm and made her stop. “Can’t we call some sort of truce, agree to be friends? It wasn’t me who went into your room. And I’m not interested in any old box.”

But as he said it he was staring at the plastic bag, and she knew he could see through it at what was inside. “Where did you get that thing anyway?” he asked.

“Mind your own business. And ... well, all right, I know it wasn’t you now. It was him.”

“Him?” He stared. “Gareth?”

“Not Gareth, stupid.”

“Then who else? Is someone else getting into the house?”

“No.” She turned to him, in alarm. “What makes you think that?”

Matt shrugged. “I thought ... last night I thought I heard voices. Strange, low voices. I got up and looked downstairs but there was nothing. Except ...”

“Except what?”

He looked down at the bike. “You’ll think this is stupid. But I thought I could hear the wind in the branches of a tree. A big tree. And it was inside our house.”

Sarah stared at him. And just for a moment, standing in that narrow street with the swans rippling by on the sunny stream, she wanted to tell him, about the box and the boy and the tree. But instead she said, “It’s not your house. It’s mine, and Mom’s.”