The woman looked at her oddly. “$10.50, please.”
Sarah paid, locked the box again quickly and put it in the plastic bag. But as she walked up past the street that led to Morgan Rees’s shop she stopped. For a moment she wanted to go down there, to talk to him again, to find out what had worried him so much.
The street was quiet. Leaves lay in puddles. The swans were dabbling in the thick weeds that grew on one side of the stream, lifting their long necks and shaking them.
Sarah walked down to the shop and looked in.
Morgan Rees had a customer. His back was to her, but he and the customer were talking. She saw Morgan Rees spread a hand out in excitement, then stab a long finger at some paper on the desk.
She put her hand to the door, and then stopped.
The customer had turned around, and she saw it was Matt.
Instantly she ducked back behind a cabinet that filled the window.
They hadn’t seen her. But what was Matt doing in an antique shop, Matt with his Goth coat and his black eye-liner? Was he in some sort of plot with Morgan Rees to get the box?
She backed away, knowing now how much she had wanted to go in.
Then the wind gusted in her face, flapped her coat, whipped her hair across her eyes. All the leaves in the puddles lifted and spattered her with mud. Looking up, she saw a small shadow hunched in the dark tunnel at the end of the alley.
“Tonight, Sarah,” it whispered.
Chapter 8
Alone
“What do you think?” Sarah’s mom turned in front of the mirror.
Sarah said, “Very nice.”
“Well, you could be a little more positive,” Mom said with a sigh.
“It’s great. It looks really good on you.”
Mom’s dress was red, and long. Over it she wore a purple and red coat, very off-beat, very arty. Her hair was piled up and strands of it dangled in curls. She looked every inch the famous sculptor.
“I hope so. It’ll have to do.” She smiled. “I wish you could come, Sarah, I really do, but the invitation was only for two. We’ll be back around ten tomorrow morning. Are you sure there isn’t someone who you’d like to have to stay for the night? Olly, or Kate?”
“No. Not really.”
“I don’t like to think of you here on your own.”
Sarah gave a shrug. “Matt will be here.”
“No, he won’t.” Mom put her wallet and some lipstick in her purse. “He’s out late with some friends tonight, Gareth said.”
Sarah frowned. Sitting on the window seat, she pulled her knees up and hugged them tight. In the window she watched her own reflection, and beyond it the autumn golds and reds of the landscape. She found herself wishing that Matt was staying home, and that shocked her. Why was she so nervous? She had the key. The boy would be free. It would all be all right.
Downstairs, Gareth was waiting by the fire. He had a blue suit on, and a purple tie that matched Mom’s coat.
“Fantastic,” he said as she came in.
Mom giggled. “You’re not so bad, either.”
They grinned, and Mom arranged his tie. Sarah watched them and almost smiled. Then she realized and gave a scowl. She’d have to watch herself. She was getting soft.
Later, standing at the door and waving goodbye with the dogs panting beside her, she watched the car reverse and vanish up the road until only its red tail-light showed.
Then that went too. She was alone.
For a moment she listened.
The darkness was damp and windy. She could hear the shed door creaking and branches being stirred, and far off, the murmur of traffic on the road.
She had never been in the house alone at night before. Suddenly she became aware of how lonely it was. The next neighbors were at the farm three fields away.
Jess nuzzled her hand.
She turned. “All right, girl. I’m coming.”
There was no sign of Matt, so she locked up and fed the dogs and ate dinner and went to bed.
For a long time she lay awake, waiting, then dozed and woke up and dozed again, until in one sudden second she opened her eyes and stared into her pillow.
He was here.
She heard him. Heard a soft slither in the room, smelled that leafy, damp stench. Under the sheets she closed her eyes and breathed a prayer. She was stiff, her body sheened with sweat. Terror hammered under her ribs.
He said, “Sarah.”
Slowly she sat up and saw him.
He was sitting on the stool of her vanity table, a shadow in the darkness. One stripe of light from the moon slanted over him, showing her the angle of his jaw, a glint of the copper ring in his ear.
He stood up and came closer. She saw that leaves and clods of mud fell from him. She snapped the lamp switch on. Nothing happened. The room stayed dark.
“Where is it?” he said.
She knelt up among the crumpled bedclothes. The house was silent. Even the wind seemed to have dropped, and there was no sound from the dogs.
“What have you done to Jack and Jess?”
He shook his head. “They were afraid. The front door opened and they ran out. You’ll have to go looking for them in the morning. Where is it, Sarah? Where’s my key?”
All she wanted was to end this. She slid her hand under the pillow and felt for it. She found the cold touch of metal and pulled the key out.
His eyes lit with a strange light. He held out his hand for it but she said, “You’ll need the box. It’s there, on the desk.”
With a swift movement he turned, took the silver box and brought it over. His hands stroked it, leaving muddy smears on the perfect oak leaves. He sat on the bed and looked at her. “I’ve dreamed of this.”
“Do ghosts dream?” she whispered.
“All day. While the world turns and people work and talk and forget us, the ghosts dream.” He reached out and took the key from her. “And now my dream will come true.”
He put the key into the lock and said in a sly voice, “You must turn it for me. I’m a ghost. I can’t.”
So she turned the key.
Or tried to.
It wouldn’t move. She tried again, shook the box, jammed the key in tight.
It wouldn’t turn.
The boy snatched it from her. He forced it, struggled with it.
And when he looked up, his pinched face was white and drawn. “You’ve tricked me!”
“No! I – ”
“You’ve tricked me. You should never have done that, Sarah.”
In terror, she grabbed at him. Her fingers closed on cold, empty air. But before she could say anything, she looked past him and saw Matt, standing in the open door of her room, holding up a slim, bright key.
“She didn’t trick you,” Matt said. “I did.”
Chapter 9
A Soul for a Soul
Matt had a flashlight, but as he came into the room it failed, and the light sparked out. Quickly Sarah jumped up and grabbed the curtains. As she flung them wide a bright flood of moonlight spilled into the room. She saw the boy fixing Matt with a stare of cold hate.
“What have you done?” he hissed.
Matt held the key tight. “Sarah had a key made, but I took it from under her pillow and put another one there. All that one opens is the padlock on my bike.”
“You’ve spoiled everything,” the boy snapped.
Sarah shook her head. “But why?”
Matt came in and leaned against the vanity table. “He knows why.”
The boy looked down. He clasped his bony hands tight together in silent agony. “I can’t tell you,” he whispered. “If I do I’m trapped here for ever.”
“Well, you’re in luck, here’s someone who can tell her.” Matt nudged the door wider with his foot and with a shock Sarah saw that someone else was standing just outside. A tall man in a dark coat, his glasses catching the moonlight. It was Morgan Rees.
He said, “So it’s true.”
“You!” Sarah was
amazed. “How did you ...?”
“He saw me talking to you, and next time I passed there he was waiting for me,” Matt said. “He was worried about you.”
Morgan Rees was staring intently at the ghost of the boy. “I was very concerned. And now, to see him! I read the words on the box, and I have heard of such spells, but I have never seen – ”
“What spells?” Sarah’s voice was sharp with anger. “Explain this to me.”
Morgan Rees stepped into the moonlight. Like Matt, he wore a long dark coat. For a moment she had the crazy thought that they were like master and apprentice.
“I was dismayed when I read the letters on the box. Let me read them to you now.”
“No!” The boy’s face was full of anguish. “If you do … she’ll know.”
“She has to know.” Rees took the box that Sarah held out to him and turned the letters to the light. “This writing is old. The language is Latin. It says that the box is made to hold a soul, and whoever opens the box and frees the soul trapped inside it will, in turn, be punished by having their own soul take its place. This is true, boy, isn’t it?”
The boy was still for a moment. Then his shoulders sagged. “Yes.”
Sarah said, “But you told me ...”
“It was all true, what I told you. Only that the curse was not for all time. It was just until I could get someone to open this, and take my place.” His voice was sullen and miserable. “And I nearly did.”
She stared at him in horror. “You would have let that happen? To me?”
He shrugged and a fragment of mud fell from his shoulders to the floor. “Why should I care who it was? You, him, anyone would do. I’d be free! Free from haunting this darkness, from this terrible cold place! All night I lie in the leaves and the tree sways above me and there’s no one!”
She watched him, half angry, half sorry for him. Then she looked at the box, and at Morgan Rees. “What can we do? There has to be something we can do. If it’s a spell, surely it can be broken?”
“It’s possible.” Morgan Rees said, looking at Sarah. “But it will be a risk. Both for you and your brother.”
“He’s not my brother!”
The tall man frowned. “But I thought ...”
“Step-brother.” Matt’s voice was quiet. “What do you mean, risk? And why us?”
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 week
s 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.
Catherine Fisher, The Ghost Box
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