“The Box”

by Susan Savage Lee

Kyle sat across from the banker. Her knee bounced up and down until she placed a firm hand on it to stop the motion.

          “I don’t understand, Mr. Nichols,” Kyle began. “What do you mean there are accounts in my name?”

          “Well, this is terribly embarrassing,” he began. “And please call me Frank.”

          “Did my mom start these accounts and add my name to them, Mr––Frank?”

          “No, she did not. It looks like this account was started in 1978 by your father, but because you were only two at the time, he alone maintained it. You should’ve received access after you turned 18 under joint right of survivorship.”

          She paused, calculating the passage of twenty-two years since she’d turned eighteen. “Then why didn’t I?”

          “The short answer is that your mom took advantage as your legal custodian after your dad’s death,” Mr. Nichols replied. “I’m really sorry, Kyle. But if it makes you feel any better, they’re yours now.”

          When he smiled, she looked away. In her mind’s eye, she no longer saw the fake potted palm standing in the corner of Mr. Nichol’s office, the walls lined with his degrees, or the framed newspaper cutouts about himself. Instead, she imagined the apartment building she’d lived in throughout college, with the crack dealer on the third floor, and the continual barrage of prostitutes knocking on her bedroom window, demanding that she buzz them in. Kyle had slept with a switchblade under her pillow most nights. Then there were the long hours in which she barely slept at all as she balanced working and going to school full-time.

Things hadn’t gotten much easier as she got older. On her 33rd birthday, she’d bought a house with a man who became abusive the second he trapped her with such a large financial commitment. It had taken months to get him to relinquish his hold on the house. Still, no matter how much she worked, cobbling together multiple part-time jobs until she could get a full-time one in academia, it wouldn’t be enough for lenders if she tried to refinance and remove John’s name from the mortgage loan.

She’d fretted to her mom about it, perpetually scared about losing her home. If John should pressure her to remove his name, she would be forced to sell. Her mom had stayed silent, awkwardly steering the conversation toward her latest phobia she’d read about or seen in a movie. Fear of spiders, fear of death, fear of being trapped in the dark. All of them had taken the focus away from her daughter’s existence.

          Kyle rose to her feet. Although she would ask for an accounting another day before consulting a lawyer, for now, she couldn’t stand an additional minute inside Mr. Nichol’s office. She picked up her handbag and hastily retreated to the lobby and then a corridor lined with beige nondescript walls.

          She ducked inside a bathroom and enclosed herself in a stall, tears burning her eyes as she let them come, her forehead pressed against the door. How would she live with this? How?

***

          It was strange knowing she would never need to worry about money again if she made the proper investments and kept her adjuncting job at Windmore College. Her whole life had been plagued with this worry, like it had for so many others, with the exception of her mother, of course. Kyle had already begun reselling unopened items before throwing away two refrigerators’ worth of food that had been purchased just to have. After spending the entire day cleaning her childhood home without making much progress, she decided to treat herself to something nice.

          She drove to Bardstown Road where the antique mall, bookstores, and unique specialty shops were located. Out on the sidewalk, she drifted by store fronts housing cookies and browned loaves of bread, and taffeta prom dresses from the 70’s. But the item that finally caught her attention sat hidden behind a mannequin missing one hand and several snow globes filled with Easter scenes.

          It was a box that looked to be made of mahogany with a piece of brass placed in the middle. It reminded her of a miniature version of old steamer trunks that people used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when traveling abroad. Without a second thought, Kyle entered the store.

          The old woman behind the glass counter didn’t blink after Kyle entered. Her too-bright lipstick stretched across her teeth in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

          “Hi there,” Kyle said. “I was interested in that box in the window.” She gestured toward the front.

          “Of course,” the woman said, moving from behind the counter with a soundless stride, a perpetual smile plastered across her face. She reached the box without upending the mannequin or the snow globes.

          “This is a very special item,” the woman said, placing the box on the counter before resuming her spot behind the glass encasement.

          “What’s so special about it?” Kyle asked, certain this would raise the price.

          “It was crafted by a man deeply in love with his wife—to safeguard her diaries from prying servants. But then she fell ill and died and the man went a bit mad, telling his servants he believed he’d created something both beautiful and evil in the box.”

          “What does that mean?”

          “It only works for those who really need it.”

          “People in love?”

          “People with loss,” the woman corrected her with a smile.

          Kyle admired the box’s polished wood, gleaming under the shop lights. Even the brass seemed to glitter despite the overall gloominess of the store.

          “You just have to make a wish and place it inside the box,” the woman continued as she took a small step forward. “But remember, it takes as much as it gives.”

          “I’ll take it.”

          Outside on the sidewalk once again, her new treasure tucked under one arm, Kyle felt a strange pull. It was as if the box was warm––a beating heart––pressed against her side. A whisper of unease crept in, but she dismissed it, blaming it on the woman who had filled her head with silly stories.

***

          Three days later, with the box safely placed on her nightstand, Kyle grabbed a pad of paper and began writing down wishes. To be happy. To find someone who loves me. To be free. Then she crossed them all out, feeling how esoteric they were. What did it mean to be happy or free anyway? What difference would it make if someone loved her or not? Besides, when was the last time she’d felt anything besides sadness and worry? She realized it was when her dad was still alive.

          Her father used to swing her around, gripping her hands tightly, the world spinning around her, all its gifts within reach. Back then, her mother had been a shadowy figure in the background, always frowning, a list of supplications on the tip of her tongue. Then her father had died, plunging the house into silence before, little by little, her mother’s voice and collection of trinkets filled it back up again. Kyle had never fully recovered from the loss, feeling as if something had been ripped from inside her––something that she really needed.

          “Do I seriously believe this nonsense?” she asked herself in the quiet bedroom, the drapes shivering with the air conditioning’s movement. She even shook her head to dispel the idea that this box was anything more than a beautiful item begun in love and finished in loss. Still the pad and pen stayed in her hand as she stared at the fresh blank page.

          Her phone’s ringtone startled her out of her reverie, a small gasp coming from her throat. She answered it, letting the pen and paper fall from her hand.

          “Hello, Miss Corbin. I’m sorry for the delay in returning your call. We’ve been assisting Mr. Godwin with a pretty tedious case,” a woman said with a chipper voice. “But I understand you’d like to set up an appointment to talk about issues with an estate?”

          Kyle nodded her head before she snapped back into the moment. She’d made a flurry of searches for someone who could explain the law to her and maybe tell her she had a case. After mechanically making an appointment, she was glad when the call ended. It wasn’t that she’d lost interest in seeing an attorney; it was that she finally knew what she wanted to wish for.

          Revenge.

          Unlike the other ideas she’d jotted down, this time, her hand trembled as she wrote. Her desire played out before her, vivid and consuming. The box sat there, waiting, almost eager.  For a moment, Kyle hesitated, her fingers hovering over the lid. Then, as if compelled to do so, she folded the paper and placed it inside, the lid clicking shut with a sound that seemed too loud for the tranquil room.

          Then she lay back in her pillows, smiling at the ceiling, a sense of release calming her, as if she’d just returned from a long, arduous journey.

***

          At first, Kyle fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, her body still but her mind uneasy. Then the nightmare began. It started with a ringing phone, the sound sharp and jarring. She answered it, her voice shaky.

          “Hello?”

          For a moment, there was only silence, heavy and oppressive, before a man’s strained voice broke through.

          “There’s a problem at the cemetery,” he said, each word laden with hesitation. “You should come right away.”

          Kyle’s chest tightened. “What kind of problem?”

          The man hesitated, his silence trying her patience. “It’s your mother’s grave. It’s … empty.”

          Her heart pounded in her chest, echoing in her ears. “Empty? What do you mean empty?

          Before he could answer, the scene shifted. Kyle was suddenly standing at the grave’s edge, her breath visible in the cold, damp air. The grave was open, the dirt freshly disturbed. Deep gouges made impressions in the coffin and the surrounding earth, as though something––or someone––had tried to escape.

“The marks,” the caretaker began, his voice trembling. “They’re from … inside.”

Kyle’s screams caught in her throat, and she jolted awake, gasping for air. Her heart raced as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of her bedroom. Most of the time, her nightmares contained confusing details that never quite fit once she awakened and tried to piece them together again.

The box on her nightstand gleamed softly, as though mocking her terror. She reached for it instinctively but pulled back, her fingers trembling. The nightmare couldn’t be true. Could it?

There was only one way to be sure it actually was a dream––go to the cemetery and double check that everything was as it should be.

At Eternal Peace, the rows of tombstones leaned as if bowing to some unseen force. A cold wind whispered through the cemetery, rustling dead leaves that scraped across the ground like skeletal fingers. Kyle’s footsteps felt too loud, too intrusive, as though she were being watched.

She reached her mother’s grave at the back of the cemetery. Everything about it looked so fresh and new from the dirt making a rounded hump six feet above the coffin to the etchings made on the marker. Some of the flowers from the funeral had been placed next to the tombstone, hiding the dates of her mother’s life. Nothing about the site looked amiss.

A man blowing leaves turned off his blower that filled the air with exhaust and the scent of gasoline. Once the machine stopped running, the cemetery became eerily quiet as if Kyle had chosen to visit in the middle of the night instead of three in the afternoon. She watched the man take his leaf blower and head back to a building used to house such things. By the time she turned to face her mother’s tombstone again, she heard it.

At first, it was a tiny sound like a cicada trapped beneath a jar. Kyle leaned toward the grave looking like a woman listening to a secret.

The noise grew just a little bit louder.

She looked over both shoulders to make sure that no one was there before sitting down right where the dirt mound stopped and the grass began. One day, the grass would grow over the grave too.

The sound grew louder still.

Kyle leaned in, nearly pressing her ear against the mound, her legs crossed, her hands pushing into the dirt to keep her balance.

“Heelllllppp! I’m traaaappppped!” the voice shouted from inside the grave. “For God’s sake, why won’t someone help me?”

Kyle froze, her blood turning cold as the words clawed their way up from the earth. A scream followed, growing louder and more frantic. Her mother’s voice, shrill and terrified, became unmistakable and impossible to ignore.

After a moment, she rose to her feet, gave the grave one last glance before beginning the journey back to the car. A curious smile spread across her face as she tried to imagine the smell of the dark earth, crawling with insects and worms, and the tightness of a space meant for the dead.

A part of her wanted to go back to the antique store and thank the woman with too much lipstick. Part of her knew she wouldn’t. After all, she told herself, she had better things to do in the vibrant, breathing world around her. The shadows from the past had no place here––not anymore.