Catherine Fisher: The Ghost Box

Rees looked grave. “The box is made to hold only one soul. It cannot hold two. If two people open it together, strong in their trust in each other, then the spell would be broken. The curse would shiver into nothingness. Or so I believe ...”

Sarah was dismayed. “You’re not sure?”

“Not ... completely sure. But it is all I can suggest.”

She felt confused and unhappy. She said, “Yes, but the trouble is that Matt and I ... well, we’re not ...”

Her words dried up. She didn’t know how to finish. For a moment there was silence, and then she heard the boy sigh. He stood and moved back out of the light, a shadow at the window. He looked out at the moon-lit fields and hills. “I was only a pickpocket. I didn’t deserve this. But it’s up to you, Sarah.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she took her bathrobe, wrapped it around herself and tightened the belt. She walked over to Matt and looked right into his face. “I’m sorry. About ... being so horrible. Even though that Goth stuff is stupid.”

“I’m sorry you were, too.” He grinned. “And I’m sorry about what I said. But do you really want to try this, Sarah? Because if we mess up, one of us might be the ghost that haunts this house for the next hundred years.”

She glanced over at the boy, his pale, hopeless face.

“I’m ready if you are.”

For a moment Matt was still. Then he turned to Morgan Rees. “All right,” he said in a quiet voice. “Tell us what to do.”

Chapter 10

Together

In the garden the wind had dropped. The moon lit the smooth lawns, and the air was so cold that Sarah’s breath frosted around her face. She was glad for her thick coat and boots.

She looked behind her. The boy stood in the shadows of the house, leaning against the wall, watching. Out here he seemed more frail and helpless than ever. She was sure she could see the bricks of the wall through his body.

Morgan Rees came past her carrying the box. He walked out to a place on the frosty grass and said, “This will do.”

Matt came up behind her. They watched in silence.

The tall man put on his glasses and read the Latin words again, turning the box in the silvery light. He said, “Do you have the key?”

Sarah held it up.

“Then you must unlock it together.”

She didn’t move.

To her surprise, Matt held out his hand.

“Friends?” he said.

For a moment she hesitated. A sliver of soreness rose in her mind, the pain of memory. Her life as it used to be, just her and Mom, chatting, having fun, being on their own. She had loved it. Then she thought of Mom arranging Gareth’s tie, the silly way he had picked purple to match Mom’s dress. They were ridiculous. But ...

Looking up, she saw Matt watching. She reached out and took his hand, and it was cold and skinny and she felt awkward. “Friends,” she muttered. Then, “You idiot.”

He grinned. Together they walked towards the box. Morgan Rees held it up so that the moon-light caught it.

The boy flitted closer. He huddled behind Sarah.

She and Matt held the key together. They fitted it into the lock. They turned it, and the click it made was loud in the silent night. Then, together, they lifted the lid of the box.

For a moment she thought it held only darkness.

Then she saw something small and round, faintly shining. As the box tilted it rolled down to one corner. Matt reached in and took it out, and as he held it up they saw to their astonishment that it was nothing more than an acorn.

An acorn shining like silver.

A gasp.

Sarah turned quickly.

The boy cried out. He looked down at himself and they saw that he was fading, that his body was drifting apart like mist on the wind. “I’m going,” he breathed. “At last. I’ll be there. Soon, I’ll be there!”

Sarah couldn’t answer. She reached out to touch him but there was nothing left of him, and all at once his shape was a dissolving darkness and a whisper of sound that might have been her name, or might just have been the swish of grasses in the night.

“Goodbye,” she whispered. “Sleep tight.”

“We did it,” Matt said. “And we’re still alive.”

Sarah nodded. Then as Morgan Rees took the box from them she almost dropped it in shock. For, out of the empty box, birds were flying – blue and gold birds with long tails and flashes of scarlet on their wings. They fluttered and sang in an explosion of noise.

Then they flew away, in a great cloud, towards the sunrise.

Matt shook his head and looked into the box. “What else is in this thing?”

Morgan Rees closed it quickly. “Who knows? Perhaps we shouldn’t look further. But we have this.” He took the acorn from Sarah, held it in his hand for a moment and gave it back to her. “There’s only one thing to do with a seed. And that is to plant it.”

She nodded and walked a few steps, choosing the spot carefully. Not too near the house, but out on the lawn, not far from her bedroom. Not far from where the boy’s tree had once been, the tree she had seen in the painting, and in her dream.

She bent down and pulled at the grass. It came up in clumps, damp and soggy. Underneath the soil was black.

Matt said, “Use this,” and handed her a small twig.

She scooped and prodded and dug with it, and made a deep hole, just big enough. Then she popped the acorn in, covered it over, stamped it down, and stood back.

In silence they gazed down at the grass, almost expecting the tree to grow suddenly and, as if by magic, overnight, like the beanstalk in the story. Matt said, “In a few weeks we’ll see it sprout. In a hundred years it will be enormous.”

A bird began to sing. Looking up, Sarah saw a streak of dim red light in the east.

Morgan Rees said quietly, “It will be daylight soon. You’d better go inside before your parents get back.”

Sarah said, “Thank you for your help. Perhaps you should keep the box.”

His hand closed around it and he nodded. “I will keep it safe for you. But I will never sell it.”

“I think it’s done its job,” she said.

Morgan Rees smiled.

Together, she and Matt turned back to the house.