The Ghost Box

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.