The Little Brown Box

Chapter II

  Hazel woke early and went downstairs, determined to change her father’s mind. She passed the spare bedroom that her mother had taken residence in since becoming sick. She could hear the heavy breathing through the door. Usually the door was kept open; it was closed on this particular morning, her father must have been in there.

  Hazel continued on and poured herself some cereal. While she ate she watched the neighbors through the window. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis were always in their yard across the street tending to their flowers. She liked to watch them; she could forget about whatever was on her mind and concentrate on other people’s lives.

  Mr. Winbolt came downstairs looking exhausted. It was another rough night. He poured himself some cereal; almost falling asleep in it.

  “I am prepared to fight to stay here.” Hazel announced proudly.

  “What?” He hadn’t heard any of it.

  “I don’t want to go, dad.”

  “Neither do I.” he admitted.

  “Then why do you want me to go?”

  He sighed. “Your grandmother wants you to be there. She is getting up there and needs the help. I have to admit it is strange that she has a sudden interest in you. I promise that you will have a good time.”

  “How am I supposed to enjoy myself with someone I don’t even know?”

  “Just give it a chance, Haze.”

  She knew it would be easier for everyone if she was gone, but she still didn’t want to go. Hazel spent the next few days trying anything she could think of to stay. Telling her father that she had to study up for the school year didn’t work. Neither did telling him that there were mandatory school sessions in August. After all her hard work she still found herself packing clothes one night to take with her.

  Hazel’s grandmother said in a letter that she would not allow any toys or anything else fun in her house; destroying the idea that Hazel was going to have a good time. So instead she just packed clothes and other essentials. Her father came in while she was packing. She glared at him.

  “How are you?” He asked.

  Hazel wondered how she was supposed to respond to that. Obviously she wasn’t doing too well. “I’m fine.” She said.

  “Look, I’m sorry about this. Look at this as an adventure. You are going to go to a big house where you can explore and pretend. It’ll be great.”

  She was tired of hearing how great it was going to be. “Alright.”

  “I’m sorry about your grandmother’s rule against toys. She never was one to be predictable.”

  “Fine.” She was hoping the short answers would get him to leave faster.

  He took the hint and left her alone. She finished packing her clothes and looked around for what else she could bring. Her dolls were off limits, so were her video games. There was some yarn and a crochet hook on her night stand. Her mother tried to teach her how to crochet before she became sick. Hazel rolled up the yarn and stuck the hook in it, but there was no more room in her suitcase for anything. There weren’t any bags or boxes lying around that she could use but she knew where to get one.

  Seconds later Hazel tiptoed into her mother’s room, trying not to wake her. She lay on the bed, her face screwed up in a grimace as she slept. The closet in that room had all of the extra clothes and old boxes that were mostly forgotten about. Hazel looked for the right box, but all the ones she found were too big. She looked up and saw that there were some things on the shelf above her head. She climbed on a large box and peeked over the edge of the shelf.

  There was a small brown box made of plywood in the corner behind an old Parcheesi board. Hazel brought it down. It showed signs of age and smelled really old. It was the type of thing that went unnoticed until someone cleaning stumbled upon it. She figured it was so old and worn that nobody would miss it. It was the perfect size for her yarn.

  Back in her room she finished packing and took her suitcase downstairs and set it by the door, placing the box on top. She then went around to each room and said goodbye to it. She was sad to be away from home for the first time without her parents. She was already counting down the days until August 30 when she would be back. The hardest part was to say goodbye to her mother. Hazel snuck back into the guest bedroom and sat on the bed.

  Mrs. Winbolt was fast asleep. Hazel took her hand and said goodbye. Her mother woke and smiled at the sight of her daughter.

  “Have fun.” Her mother said. “Your grandmother may seem mean at first, but trust me, she’s really nice.”

  “But I want to stay here with you.” Hazel said, a tear coming to her eye.

  “I’ll be fine. You’ll like her house; it’s bigger than this one. It’s surrounded by a forest that you can explore. I promise that it will be great and you will be back before you know it.” She smiled and gently pushed on her daughters back.

  “How will I find out how you are? I heard she doesn’t even have a phone.”

  “You can write us. I promise that if anything happens your father will be out there to get you as fast as he can.” Mrs. Winbolt reassured her daughter.

  “I still don’t like that I have to go. I promise that I can help here.”

  “We know you can, honey, but I think that it would be best if you weren’t here while the doctors try to figure out what is wrong. Your father is going to have to work a lot of overtimes to pay for my medical bills. It’s a good thing doctors around here make house calls. It would cost a lot more if I had to stay in the hospital.”

  Hazel nodded; she didn’t have anything else to say. She hugged her mother and told her she loved her, and then she left the room.

  Hazel sat motionless in the car, resisting the urge to dance to the songs on the radio the way she usually did on trips. Mr. Winbolt attempted several times to start a conversation, each failing like the one before.

  The car drove past suburbs, and then out into back roads and small towns. Soon there was nothing in sight but fields and forests. Hazel thought they had left civilization behind. There wasn’t even an interstate to where they were going. The minutes ticked by and she wished she had asked how long it was going to take. The radio sputtered out after three hours. Finally Hazel couldn’t stand the silence.

  “How far is it?”

  “Not too much farther.” Her father said. He was happy his daughter was finally talking to him again.

  “Any chance you’ve forgotten the way?” She asked hopefully.

  “Nope. I’ve only been out here twice, but it’s not a route to forget.”

  “Why haven’t I ever met her?” Hazel blurted out.

  Mr. Winbolt’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “Your grandmother and your mother have a complicated relationship.”

  “All I know is that they don’t like each other.” Hazel never understood that side of her family or how any family could not like each other.

  Her father sighed. “I don’t know much more than you. Something happened after your mother’s father died. And for some reason your grandmother sent your mother to live with other relatives.”

  Hazel knew that her grandfather died, but she never knew that her mother had to live with relatives. The death must have really saddened her grandmother. “What happened to him?”

  “Well, no one knows, not even your mother. He was there one day and the next he was gone. Your mother was very young.”

  The conversation dropped there. The car entered a small town. The houses were all very old, with metal roofs and wooden shutters. The inhabitants watched the car go by. Hazel thought she saw a few glare at it. None of the roads were paved. Havel was aware of the age of the place, and thought it looked straight out of a movie. But instead of the prim and polished people one would expect in a movie, everyone looked haggard and dirty. They passed through the town quickly, bumping along the gravel. The car swung up onto a path through a forest. It was very narrow, the car jolted over branches and tree roots
. A minute later they arrived in a clearing, a large house stood in the center.

  There was something about the house’s brick exterior and black shudders that Hazel wasn’t comfortable with. Or maybe it was the dead grass and large shadows that were cast on the walls that didn’t appear to come from anything at all. Or perhaps it was none of those things and the feeling of uneasiness was something deeper that could not be seen. She shook it off and attributed it to nerves.

  A woman came out of the house and stood by the door, arms crossed. Her white hair was pulled back in a bun and she frowned as if seeing the car pull up ruined her day. Hazel waited for her dad to get out first; she got her suitcase and followed up the walk. She decided to listen to her parents and see the next month as an adventure. It was hard to muster, but she smiled.

  “Nice to see you Annabella.” Mr. Winbolt said.

  This was met with a grunt. The woman, who appeared to be in her early eighties, looked at Hazel.

  “You will address me as Mrs. Norwich and that is all.”

  Hazel shrugged. “Alright.”

  Mrs. Norwich made a small noise that sounded almost like a growl. “Not ‘alright’. You will address me properly and will not shrug . . . ever.”

  Hazel shrugged again. “Alright.” She was determined to not let her grandmother control her while she was there.

  Mrs. Norwich looked to Mr. Winbolt, disgusted. “I hope this will be sorted out before you leave.” She went inside.

  He turned to his daughter. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t want her to tell me what to do.” Hazel said.

  “If you’re going to stay here then you need to do as she says.”

  “Then maybe I shouldn’t stay here.”

  Mr. Winbolt disregarded this with a wave of his hand. “Just behave.” He took the suitcase and went inside. Hazel held the little box.

  The inside of the house was even drearier than the outside, though it appeared to be friendlier. The dreariness came from the overall feeling more than the actual appearance. They were in a large living room with old wooden furniture. All the furniture said Norwich on it somewhere. Mrs. Norwich must have been paranoid to put her name on everything. A staircase to the left led upstairs, it was covered in a dark red carpet. A kitchen was beyond the living room, and a hallway led off each side with doors that led to many rooms that Hazel was told not to go into. Mrs. Norwich told them to take the suitcase upstairs and put it in the smallest bedroom. All the others were much too big for a child of her size, she insisted.

  The smallest bedroom wasn’t so bad. It had a hard wood bed, a small nightstand, and nothing else. Hazel liked the simplicity of it, or at least she told herself she did. She was determined to like everything in the house, even if she did not like her grandmother so far. Outside the room she explored the second floor. There was a long hallway around the corner that led to more stairs and the attic. There were six bedrooms in all, though one had a ‘keep out’ sign on it.

  Back on the first floor Hazel heard the others talking in the kitchen. She wanted to hear what they were saying without going in, but they had the door closed. She was forced to go in to hear it. The kitchen was smaller than she’d expected. The floor was yellow laminate and the style of the stove and refrigerator made her think that it was last renovated in the 1970’s. She sat at a small table and listened in.

  “How is she?” Mrs. Norwich asked of Hazel’s mother.

  “Mr. Winbolt looked nervously at Hazel. “She’s struggling.”

  “It’s a shame; she was always a healthy little girl. Does anybody know what’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “They’re stumped.”

  “That’s the trouble with medicine today. There are thousands of diseases and every little thing wrong makes you think you have all of them. They probably can’t sort it out.”

  Hazel did not like her grandmother’s voice. It droned on monotonously without any change in pitch.

  “I’m sure they’ll figure it out.” Mr. Winbolt said, seeing how Hazel was glaring at the wall.

  Mrs. Norwich turned to Hazel. “Now if you’re going to stay here you need to straighten up when sitting. Your mother had the same problem.”

  Hazel straightened up, her frown growing ever more unpleasant.

  “Now I suspect that you brought clothes in that suitcase.” Her grandmother continued. “And made sure not to bring any toys. Those things make children refuse to grow up; I’ve seen it happen before.”

  Hazel knew she was talking about her mother, and had to refrain from retaliating. If she was to make this work she would have to watch her mouth. She did not want to know if Mrs. Norwich could get any worse.

  “There are no toys.” Mr. Winbolt assured her.

  “I did bring my crocheting, is that alright?” Hazel asked in a mockingly sweet way.

  Mrs. Norwich did not catch the sarcasm. “Yes that is fine. Crocheting is a skill.”

  The day passed by too fast. Hazel’s father helped with various chores around the house. He cleaned out the rain gutter, cut some hedges, painted a door, and fixed the mailbox down by the forest (no postman would come closer). Hazel spent the day helping him, wanting his protection from her grandmother. But before too long it was time for him to go. She begged to come along but he assured her that staying there would be good for her. Before she knew it she was waving as he drove away through the forest.

  Hazel went to her tiny room and prepared for a night of crocheting. She figured she would spend every morning avoiding her grandmother out in the yard or the forest, and then spend every night in her room crocheting. By the end of August she would probably have several blankets and other assorted bags, as long as she could find more yarn. That idea proved impossible when Mrs. Norwich demanded she come down and eat dinner at the table like a civilized person.

  She slumped down the stairs and sat at the little table in the kitchen, only to be told that dinner would be in the dining room and not at the breakfast table. The dining room was off to the side of the kitchen and was a lot bigger than Hazel expected. A long table sat in the center of the room with five chairs on either side and one on each end. The walls were covered with book shelves holding anything from plates with etches of far off places to decorative bells from cities all over the country. A flower patterned table cloth was on the table and the silverware looked old and ornate. Mrs. Norwich sat at the far end.

  “Well sit down.” She barked, seeing Hazel’s shocked expression.

  “Are you expecting more people?” Hazel asked.

  “Sit down.”

  Hazel sat at the other end, was ordered to come closer, and instead sat half way down the table. She thought it best to sit out of arms reach of Mrs. Norwich, just in case.

  There were several large bowls of food set out. One had roasted chicken, another salad, and the last had rolls. Hazel helped herself to the chicken, was told to take salad, and in her frustration piled as much salad as she could onto her plate until it was several inches high and the bowl was almost empty. This was met with a, “At least you’ll be healthy”. What made things worse was her grandmother nitpicking at everything she did.

  “That is not the proper way to hold a fork; it goes to your mouth in your right hand.”

  “But I’m left handed.”

  “Another thing your mother refused to stamp out.”

  “Where did you get all those plates and things?” Hazel asked, attempting to make a better impression.

  “My husband traveled when he was young and collected them.”

  “That’s neat.”

  “Eat your food.” Mrs. Norwich barked.

  Hazel concentrated on the food, which was very good, and hoped that would occupy her mind. Dinner passed quietly after that. She ran upstairs at her first opportunity after washing dishes. Her running was met with a, “There is no running in my house!”

  Her tiny room see
med cozy and safe now, though the whole house still had an uneasy feel to it. She sat on her bed and looked out the window at the trees growing darker as the sun set behind them. She pulled out her crocheting when she couldn’t see anything more out the window, but didn’t feel like doing anything with it once it was out. She put it away and got ready for bed in the bathroom down the hall. It was small and old with green walls and a green floor. The tub had feet and was stained after years of use. She got dressed, brushed her teeth, and was out of there, determined to find a new less creepy bathroom the next day.

  The blankets on her bed were old, worn, and dusty like everything else in the house. She got under the covers and was met with the smell of mold and age. She threw the blankets off her; it was too warm in her room anyway. Sleep eluded her for several hours. She got up occasionally just to make sure nobody was there; she had the strangest feeling that somebody was watching her. At about one o’clock she heard a faint creak outside her door. There was no doubt it was her grandmother checking to make sure she was asleep. She turned over and faced the wall. A few minutes later she finally fell asleep. Her last thoughts before slipping unconscious were about how strange the house was. She hoped it would be friendlier to her in the morning.