The Treasure Box Read online

  When he finally ran out of both words and nerve, Vita gave him a five-dollar tip, sent him on his way, and wrestled the heavy oak table into the house on her own. Three weeks later, when she had found six pressed-back chairs to go with the table, she had brought them home herself, two by two, in the backseat of her ten-year-old Toyota. She wasn’t taking any chances that Hap might latch onto the wrong idea.

  But no matter how much Vita discouraged Hap Reardon’s earnest attentions, he never seemed to get the message. Apparently he did not share the rest of the town’s opinion that Miss Vita Kirk was a cynical, bitter woman who had best be left alone. Even outright rudeness didn’t seem to dissuade him.

  “Searching for china this morning, Vita?” he asked cheerfully, bearing down on her with that infuriating effervescent grin. “Her Majesty’s Garden, isn’t it? I’m afraid I don’t have any more pieces of that particular pattern at the moment, but I’ve just had a new shipment of—”

  Vita whirled on him. “Listen, Hap,” she hissed. “I’m simply looking around, all right? Go on back to your cash register. I’ll let you know if I find something.”

  The smile never faded. He touched a fingertip to an imaginary hat brim and took a step back. “As you wish, Vita. Call me if I can be of assistance.” He retreated to the high counter to unpack a box of small figurines. But she could feel his gaze still on her, boring into her back as she turned away.

  She let out a disgusted snort and moved into an alcove of the store, as far away from him as she could get. Just because they were both middle-aged and alone was no cause for him to take on like a love-struck teenager. Hap Reardon ought to know better, at his age. Or at the very least, he should have sense enough to realize that she was not now, nor ever would be interested. She had made that abundantly clear.

  On the wall just above the shelves, a round beveled mirror caught her image and reflected it back to her. Vita inspected the frame for a moment, considering whether it might fit in that empty space above the stair landing, then suddenly realized she was scrutinizing herself. As she peered into the spotted, yellowed glass, the image that stared back at her could have been the portrait of a Victorian woman. A thin, narrow face with high cheekbones and a faint frown line between the brows. Dark hair parted in the center and pulled back rather severely from the face. And a smaller figure in the distance over her shoulder—a round-faced man in a vest and white shirt, with blondish hair and blue eyes.

  Hap. Looking up. Watching her from behind.

  Vita immediately dropped her gaze and moved to a shelf stacked with small wood and metal boxes. She knew exactly what she wanted—something to store CD programs and computer disks. A place for her research files and software and the disks that held travel books in progress and completed manuscripts. A writer these days might need to be high-tech, but she didn’t have to lose her taste in the process. Vita deplored the ugly, brightly-colored plastic things they sold at the discount stores, or the more expensive but equally vulgar cases made from fake wood. It had to be something that was durable and functional but wouldn’t offend the eye, preferably an antique that would complement the decor of the house.

  The shop’s dust filled her nostrils and aggravated her allergies as she examined the small containers, and she silently maligned Hap for never cleaning the place. Then she forgot Hap, forgot the mold and dirt, forgot everything as her eyes lighted on the box.

  Ten inches long and six inches wide, the ideal size—just high and deep enough to accommodate a CD in its plastic jewel case.

  Made of heavy tin and painted a light sea blue, it was crafted like a small treasure chest, with brass fittings on the corners, brass handles on each side, even a tiny brass keyhole and lock. But the best part about it was that, across the sides and back, an antique map of the world covered the little chest. A travel writer’s dream.

  The artist had carefully painted in tiny mountain ranges and blue rivers and the islands of the Pacific. There was even a dragon in the waters, reminiscent of the old sailors’ maps which warned There Be Dragons Here at the point where vast oceans dropped off the precipice of a flat, two-dimensional earth and fell in a roaring cataract into the netherworld.

  The box was made to order for an office in a Victorian house.

  She retrieved it, holding it gingerly by the brass handles, then stood up to make her way toward the cash register.

  When she turned, however, she found herself nose to nose with a tall man, exceedingly old, whose bright brown eyes pierced into hers. He wore a high-necked collarless shirt and waistcoat, a black swallowtail coat, and a silk top hat. If Vita hadn’t known for certain that it was the twenty-first century—and Vita knew everything for certain—she would have instantly assumed him to be a nineteenth-century gentleman. In one arthritic hand he carried an ebony cane with a figure of a bird worked in brass on the handle. He lifted the cane and tapped lightly on the top of the box—once, twice, three times.

  “Take care,” he warned in a low, whispery voice. “You hold in your hands something more rare and valuable than you can possibly comprehend.”

  Vita stared at him. “Do you care to elaborate, or do you merely intend to stand there blocking my way?”

  “Elaboration,” the man said, “is unnecessary. Eventually, you will understand.” He gave a slight bow and raised the cane to the brim of his hat, then moved into a side aisle to allow Vita to pass.

  Vita resisted the impulse to turn and look back at him as she headed for the counter. The old man gave her the creeps, and she simply wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  Hap Reardon, however, seemed determined to waylay her.

  “Ah,” he sighed wistfully as she set the box down in front of him, “the Enchanted Treasure Box.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He took a stained rag and wiped off the top of the box. “See?”

  Vita looked. Sure enough, across the top of the metal box was painted an embellished baroque scroll, with Gothic lettering that said, Enchanted Treasure Box.

  “It’s a Victorian memorabilia box,” Hap explained. “A place to save important things like photographs and poems and”—he gave her a broad wink to go with that ubiquitous smile—“love letters.”

  “It’s the right size for CDs and computer disks,” she said. “How much?”

  Hap thought for a minute. “For you, Vita? A dollar.”

  “A dollar?” she repeated.

  “Too much?” Hap grinned at her.

  Vita hesitated. Rare and valuable, the fellow in the black coat had whispered. Was it possible he was some kind of expert, an antique dealer giving her a tip? “The old man back there said—”

  She turned and looked over her shoulder.

  “Old man?” Hap peered toward the back of the shop. “I didn’t see anybody come in. I was in the back for a few minutes, but I would have heard the bell—”

  “Never mind.” Vita shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “A box like this has held generations of memories, a hundred years of love,” Hap went on. He raised his eyebrows, and his face took on a faraway expression. “Don’t you find it a little mysterious and compelling? Who knows what stories this box holds?

  Who knows—”

  “Who cares?” Vita thrust a crumpled one-dollar bill in his direction. “Are you going to sell it to me, or aren’t you?”

  “Oh, I’ll sell it to you, all right,” he said softly. “In fact, I’m delighted to sell it to you. I think you’re just the right person to have it.” He took her dollar, carefully wrapped the box in a length of wrinkled butcher paper, and handed it over. “Let me know how it works out for you, will you?”

  Vita didn’t answer. Hap’s cheery farewell mingled with the jangling of the overhead bell and the slam of the door as she made her exit.

  Vita did not go to the grocery store, as she had originally intended.

  She had endured enough of humanity for one day, and she could do without the few things on her list
until later in the week. She still had chicken and rice casserole left from last night, and some pasta and vegetables from the night before.

  As soon as she arrived home, Vita went straight to the kitchen sink and unwrapped the Treasure Box. The first item on her agenda was to get the multiple layers of dirt and mold removed, then organize her disks and CDs and select the right place in her office to display her new find.

  Cleaning the chest brought some pleasant surprises. The colors brightened up considerably under a gentle buffing with rubbing compound. The artwork survived intact, and Vita discovered that the appealing little dragon at the edge of the sea actually had a smile on its face. Under several spots caked with mold, she uncovered a blue whale spouting a flume in the Atlantic, an elephant raising his trunk at the tip of Africa, a tiny pod of sea lions lounging on the beach in the Bahamas.

  And underneath the lid, a small inscription, in the same Gothic lettering as the banner on the outside. At first she could barely read it, so obscured was it by time and the accumulated dirt of ages. Then, gradually, it appeared more clearly:

  Love Is the Key That Unlocks Every Portal.

  Vita’s mouth went dry, and the old man’s words came back to her: “You hold in your hands something more rare and valuable than you can possibly comprehend.” A twist in her stomach, some involuntary synapse in her brain, triggered a flood of adrenaline.

  For an instant the metal box felt red-hot—or perhaps ice-cold, for in the first moments of trauma the mind cannot always distinguish between the two.

  But cold or hot, the sensation shocked her. She dropped the chest with a clatter into the kitchen sink. For a moment she stood staring at the maxim, then reprimanded herself for her foolishness. It was just a pathetic, maudlin aphorism created by some teary-eyed Victorian. Nothing more.

  Vita was no sentimental fool. She had chosen the box for utilitarian purposes. If it turned out she had gotten the bargain of the century and the little chest was worth a bundle, so much the better.

  She set the box aside, went to the refrigerator, and peered in.

  As soon as she had finished lunch, Vita would take it to her office, file her computer disks and CDs in it, and do a little research on Victorian memorabilia boxes.

  It was time to find out whether or not this Treasure Box was valuable, after all.

  2

  THE PORTAL

  When she entered her office with the antique box, Vita cast a fleeting glance at the answering machine. Before she left for town, she had erased her sister’s voice from the tape, and now the light glowed a steady red. No new messages. Good. That meant Mary Kate had given up.

  She sat behind her desk and stared out the window for a moment—not that she could see much. Vita’s office had once been a large sunroom on the southeast corner of the house, surrounded by windows on two sides. But the sunlight rarely got in anymore; she had let the privet hedge next to the foundation grow up until it wove into a living curtain of green through which no prying eyes could penetrate. Someone walking by on the sidewalk might see a pinpoint of light or two peering out, like separated stars in a near-empty galaxy, but they couldn’t see Vita, and she couldn’t see them.

  With the Treasure Box at her elbow, she spent an hour and a half thumbing through her large collection of books about antiques. By the time she had turned the final page of the last one, she had a stack three feet high on the floor beside the desk.

  She had located two dozen or more Victorian memorabilia boxes, ranging in value from a few dollars to several thousand, but nothing resembling the box she had discovered at Pastimes.

  Heaving a sigh of frustration, she loaded her arms full and began replacing the books on the shelves that lined the two walls not taken up by windows. Her eyes lingered on a framed bulletin board filled with postcards, visual representations of places she had written about in the past: the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Trevi Fountain in Rome, an estate in the Cotswolds that had been turned into very affordable holiday cottages, a beer garden in Munich, a dairy farm in Wales. All places as familiar to her as this room . . . except that she had never seen a single one of them.

  But that was one of the wonders of the modern world, wasn’t it? Vita didn’t actually have to go anywhere. She could just log on, click a few buttons, and through the magic of virtual reality, experience whatever her heart desired without the claustrophobia of crowded airports or the inconvenience of delayed flights or the worry about lost passports or stolen funds.

  The Internet. Of course! Maybe her reference books didn’t have the information she needed, but she knew where to go to find it. If there was anything to be learned about the value of the Treasure Box, she’d uncover it on the Web.

  She hastily finished putting the books away, sat down in front of her computer, and logged on. From a long way away, she heard a faint rumbling noise—was the area due for a thunderstorm? She clicked a cloud icon on the screen: sure enough, the weather service predicted “the likelihood of precipitation in the afternoon and early evening, moderate to heavy in some locations, with significant electrical activity.” Translation: a good chance for a thunderstorm.

  Vita considered whether or not she should shut down her computer. Two years ago, her hard drive had been scrambled by a power outage, and three months’ worth of research had been lost. Still, this probably wouldn’t take very long, and she had a new surge protector in case of power spikes or brownouts.

  She logged onto eBay and ran a general search for “Victorian memorabilia boxes,” but the offerings were meager. A general Web search through various antique sites seemed more promising, but after thirty-five minutes of sorting through photographs which seemed to take forever to download, she came up empty-handed.

  Raindrops began to spatter the windowpanes, and the thunder drew closer. Just one more attempt, and then she’d shut down. She exited the current site and tried a more specific search, using the words from the lid of the box: Enchanted Treasure Chest.

  The screen shifted, and as her cursor turned into a rotating hourglass, a notice came up on the bottom of the screen: Downloading . . . 2%, 6%, 10%. Remaining time: less than one minute.

  Vita drummed her fingers impatiently. She must have hit the right one this time.

  Rain pelted against the glass in force now. A heavy cloud cover shrouded the room in gray, and she heard lightning crack in the distance. But the storm was still far enough away; she wasn’t about to shut down now.

  A Web site filled the screen, a star-studded sky with a banner across the top that read, Welcome to the Enchanted Box: Antiques for the Electronic Age.

  Vita scrolled down through the site map. Furniture, jewelry, art, estate pieces. Nothing about nineteenth-century memorabilia. She was just about to click on the link to “Accessories” when she saw it. In the upper right-hand corner of the home page, a tiny moving icon. A box. A small blue box with some kind of writing on the top, opening and closing, revolving on its axis.

  She rolled her cursor to the top of the page, hovered over the moving icon, and watched as it turned into a little white hand with one finger pointing upward. “Yes!” she whispered. “It’s a link.”

  This had to be it.

  She held her breath and clicked the icon. At the same moment, a writhing bolt of lightning struck the tree outside her window. Thunder rattled the house, the lights went out, and the computer screen faded to black.

  When the lightning hit, Vita felt a tingle come up through the mouse and keyboard into her arms. She shut her eyes and put her hands to her temples, praying—if you could call “God, no!” a prayer—that she hadn’t fried the motherboard.

  A minute passed, then two, while she sat there holding her head. She was just reaching for the telephone to call the power company when the lights flickered back on. The surge protector on her computer desk gave a faint little beep, and its red light changed to green, a signal that electricity had been restored and everything was all right. Maybe.

  Vita pushed the button to
restart her computer, and while it booted up, she rose and went to the window to see if she could assess the damage from the lightning strike. But the thick hedge screened the yard from view so effectively that she could see only dark shapes. Behind her, she heard the characteristic beeps and clicks as the computer went through its start-up procedures. She let out a sigh of relief, went through the dining room, and stepped out onto the front porch.

  Although threatening clouds still hung in the sky, the storm had rolled through quickly, and the rain had stopped. Everything had been washed clean; the air smelled charged and fresh, like the atmosphere of a younger, more vibrant world. The roof seemed intact—that was a good sign. One massive limb, almost large enough to be a tree in its own right, had fallen from the big oak tree in the side yard, but there was no other damage as far as Vita could see. She went back into the house, latching the screen behind her but leaving the door open to let in some of that fresh air.

  Her computer had finished its boot-up and gone to a screen saver. Vita took her place at the keyboard. She had lost the Web site when the power went down, but now that she knew where to look, she could get it back easily enough. Right now she needed to make sure her new project files were intact, or she would have to recreate more than a month of work on the Alaska project.

  She could just imagine the conversation with her editor:

  “Nick, it’s Vita Kirk. I’m—well, I’m going to be a little late on my deadline. You see, lightning struck my hard drive, and—”