The Ghost Box Read online

A wet, cloying smell, like something rotten.

  And the bottom drawer of her wardrobe had been opened, because a trail of purple shirt hung out of it, the old purple shirt she didn’t wear any more, that she had used to wrap the silver box in.

  With a gasp of anger she knelt and tugged at it. If he’d ...

  But the box was still there, still locked.

  Still rattling when she shook it.

  *********

  Later, after dinner, Matt was lying on the couch watching TV. She walked in and stood in front of the screen.

  He twisted his neck to look around at her. “What’s up now?”

  “Don’t you even try that again. Or I’ll speak to Gareth.”

  “Try what, drama queen?” Matt said.

  “That box is mine. Stay out of my things, creep.”

  One black-lined eye flickered at her. “Don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  In the kitchen she said to Gareth, “Where do you get keys made?”

  “You need a key?”

  “Oh, not for a door or anything big. Just ... I have an old jewelry box and I’d like to be able to lock it. My dad gave it to me.”

  She knew he wouldn’t ask any more questions about it if she said that, and he didn’t. “Oh, right. Well, a cobbler, I suppose, or a jewelers if it’s really old. There’s a shop in Marston, down that little side street by the stream. I could take it for you, if you – ”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That’s OK. I’ll take it myself.”

  *********

  She woke up late in the night.

  She was lying on her side, with her face to the wall. All she could see were the blurred, close-up sneakers of a band on a poster that she was already bored with. But her eyes were wide, her back prickling with sweat.

  Someone was sitting on her bed.

  It wasn’t a dream.

  She could feel a weight dipping the mattress, smell that odd, leafy smell.

  She kept very still, listening to the rattle of the box in his hands, feeling terror ice her skin. Then she sat up and turned her head.

  A boy was sitting next to her.

  He was small and had dirty, tangled dark hair and a thin, frail face. He had one earring, and when he looked up his eyes were lit with a faint green glimmer. For a moment he just looked at her, and then he turned back to the box.

  She stared at his hands.

  He was tugging at the box, trying to force it open with his broken nails, smearing it with dirt. He worked at it, getting more and more desperate. Then he said, “I can’t do it. I just can’t.”

  There was a sadness in his voice that chilled her. She sat up, slowly.

  “Who are you?”

  He shot her a glance. “I need the key. Do you have the key?”

  She shook her head. He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be real, because his was the face she had seen in the painting, and in her dream.

  “I gave the box to you,” he said. “Because I knew you could bring it out.”

  “Out?”

  “Of the tree.”

  She drew her knees up under her. “How did you get in here?”

  He threw the box on the bed in despair and looked at her. Then he lifted his hand and pushed it through her, through the poster, through the wall.

  “It was easy,” he said in a whisper.

  Chapter 5

  The Shop by the Stream

  Sarah almost screamed.

  But the boy just shrugged. He tapped the box with one dirty finger. “I need the key. I need you to get me the key.”

  She huddled herself up, pulling the bedclothes tight around her. She wanted to shiver and shiver, to back away from those fingers that had moved right into her skin. She asked in a hushed voice, “Where is it?”

  “Lost.” He looked at her. “Some trees grow keys. Ash does. But not oak.”

  It meant nothing to her. Perhaps the boy sensed that, because he shrank back and leaned against the wall, his head dropped as if in misery. Locking his long dirty fingers together, he said, “I’m trapped here.”

  “Trapped?”

  He turned his eyes sideways. They were dark and bitter. “I was a thief once. I picked pockets, stole purses, snatched watches. Do people still do that?”

  “Cell phones,” she said, thinking of Matt’s anger when his had been stolen.

  The boy’s gaze flickered. “This is what happened to me. I stole a package from a man in the street. I pushed him and he fell, and I ran away with it. I felt gleeful, and proud. But he called after me, strange words in a foreign language, and I looked back and saw he was pointing at me, a long bony finger. He was calling down a curse on me.”

  He rubbed his hands together. She saw how the thin wrists stuck out from the ragged sleeves, how his shoes were a web of holes.

  “He killed me,” he said in a whisper.

  Sarah’s lips were dry, so she licked them and murmured, “How?”

  “Sickness. The town was always full of sickness. I opened the package but it only contained a box. This box. And it was empty. Weakness came over me. I hadn’t eaten for days. I felt feverish and hot. So I slipped away, out here into the hills. It was a freezing night and I knew I wouldn’t see the end of it. I lay down in the leaves at the foot of the tree, made a hollow in them, curled up shivering. And I died, holding the 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, hug
e 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.”

  And then she walked off and left him there, and asked herself why she felt so miserable.

  *********

  She stayed up late that night, watching a film, even though it was boring. It was as if she was scared of going to bed, though she told herself that she was just being stupid. And when she did go, she undressed quickly and got under the covers and left the lamp on, staring up out of the window at the clouds streaming across the moon.

  She meant to stay awake. Instead, after what only seemed like seconds, she was being woken up.

  A small hand was pulling at her, urgent and fierce. With a great rush of fear her eyes opened. She twisted around and his hand clamped over her mouth, his dirty, bony fingers.

  “Don’t scream,” the boy whispered.

  Wide-eyed, she nodded.

  The boy leaned back on his heels. He took his hand away slowly, and she breathed in the musty smell of him, saw the ear-ring glint in the moon-light.

  The lamp was out. All the room was in darkness. Out of the corners of her eyes she thought she saw small curlings of leaves, as if branches were sprouting out of the walls. A bird fluttered.

  “Do you have it?” he asked in an eager voice. He snatched up the box from the table. “Where is it? Where’s the key?”

  Sarah dragged hair from her face. Her breath came short. She didn’t know what to tell him.

  Chapter 7

  You’ve Made Me Angry

  He must have seen it in her face.

  “You didn’t get it? I asked you and begged you and you didn’t get it!” His narrow face pushed close to hers.

  “I tried …” she began but he reached up and laid his muddy finger across her lips. His eyes were glints of green anger. “Too late,” he hissed.

  The lamp swayed. As she watched, wide-eyed, it toppled and fell, dragging its cord behind it, breaking the glass shade.

  The boy smiled a cold smile. “You’ve made me angry, Sarah. You’ve broken your promise. Now I want to break things too.”

  A breeze was growing in the room, a soft slithering of blown leaves. They flapped along the walls, made the curtains billow. Suddenly all the posters and pictures on her wall began to curl at the corners, rolling up as if they were damp, popping thumb tacks out.

  She pulled away from him. “Stop it!” she shouted.

  He shook his head.

  Boxes and bottles crashed on the vanity table. Lids flew off jars of make-up. They rolled and the gloop from them dripped in blobs onto the carpet. Sarah gasped in dismay. All her books fell forward from the bookshelves, one by one, crumpling in an explosion of pages. From the half opened wardrobe, clothes and scarves began to slither and twist and tear themselves to shreds.

  “Stop it! Please!”

  “Get me a key,” he said.

  His fingers caught her arms and held them tight. “Get me a key, Sarah. I won’t be t
rapped here any more. For a hundred years I’ve wandered this field, before there was a barn, before there was a house. All through the winter nights, through the frost and cold, waiting for someone to hear me, see me, sobbing and crying and scrabbling at the windows.” He drew back. “I won’t let you go now, Sarah. Not now that I’ve found you.”

  He was gone so suddenly that she was still staring at the shadow of his outline, and found it was only her coat swinging on the wardrobe door. As she watched, the coat fell in a heap onto the floor.

  *********

  “… Never seen such an absolute mess,” Mom said crossly. “I should make you stay home and clean everything up.”

  Sarah chewed toast, only half listening. It was hard to eat. Fear was choking her. And she was so tired. She had over-slept again, and felt heavy and bleary. Mom picked up her coat. “Don’t forget. By the time I come back ...”

  She went out into the hall, still talking. The dogs burst in with a joyful bark. They slunk outside and ran towards the gate, ears flat.

  Matt came back in.

  For a moment they sat in silence. Sarah drank cold coffee. Then Matt said, “There’s something wrong with the dogs. Can’t you tell? It’s as if they don’t like the house any more. They scratch to go out.”

  Sarah looked at him blankly.

  Then he said, “What’s going on, Sarah? Your bedroom looks like it’s been hit by a bomb.”

  “So you looked!”

  “Your mother was so angry.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone in.” But her answer was flat. She had no energy left to be angry with him. She stood up. “I have to go into town.”

  “I’ll drive you,” he said.

  She stared, surprised. “I didn’t know you’d passed your test.”

  Matt gave a shrug. His dark hair flopped in his eyes. “You don’t know much about me at all, do you?”

  For a moment she felt bad about it. Then she went to get the box.

  *********

  There was a lock-smith in town and she took the box there. They were very quick. They fiddled and filed and tried various keys until one fitted. As the shop woman turned the key, Sarah heard the lock click and her heart gave a great jump. She put her hand out hard on the box lid so it didn’t open.