The Ghost Box (3 page)

“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.”

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 trapped 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.