The Treasure Box (6 page)

“Behold Titania, Queen of the Fairies,” Sophie declared solemnly, settling the handkerchief doll into a forked space at the base of the tree. “And these—” She lined up a semicircle of acorns in the grass, with their little hats bowed down facing the doll. “These are her faithful fairy minions, who have come to do her bidding.”

At first Vita thought she might be viewing the yard surrounding Jacob's cottage, for a stone's throw away she could see a sturdy hut with a thatched roof and wild pink flowers climbing over the doorway. But a woman, younger and thinner than Bridget, came to the doorway and stood there leaning on her broom, smiling at the girls. Rachel's mother, Rose Woodlea.

“Where's that sister of yours got off to?” she asked her daughter.

Rachel shrugged. “I don't rightly know, Mam.”

“Well, if you see her, tell her to come inside straightaway. She left without finishing her work. There's wood and water yet to fetch, and I've got a colicky baby on my hands.”

“Do you want me to do it?” Rachel got to her feet.

“No, child, it'll wait a while. You've done your own chores, like the good girl you are. There's no point to your doing Cathleen's as well. That girl takes on like the Queen Mother herself. She's got to learn responsibility, or she'll die a pauper.” She shook the dust off the broom and went back into the house.

Rachel shot Sophie a black look. “Die a pauper? Not likely, that one.”

Sophie reordered the fairy minions into two straight lines and then looked up at Rachel. “So where is she?”

“I expect she's down at the village green, making eyes at that almighty dolt, Rafe Dalton.”

“Dalton? The landlord's son, do you mean?”

Rachel nodded and flopped down on the grass next to Sophie.

“She's been after him for weeks.” She tilted her head and took on a high-pitched, mocking tone: “Oh, Rafe, you're so handsome!

Oh, Rafe, you're so smart!”

“Handsome? Smart?” Sophie grimaced. “He's dumb as a rock with a face like a draft horse. And Cathleen's only thirteen!”

“She doesn't care. He'll inherit his father's money and land; that's all she's interested in. And when she marries him, she'll be”—Rachel screwed up her mouth in disdain—“a
la-dy
.”

“It'll take more than a rich husband to make a lady out of Cathleen,” Sophie said.

As Vita watched the girls playing and laughing together, an unfamiliar emotion stirred within her, something akin to spring fever. She'd once had a friend like Rachel, so long ago it seemed like a wisp of smoke on the wind—not even a dream, just the echo of a memory of a dream. Hattie, the girl's name was—two doors down on East Chestnut Street in Asheville, in the neighborhood where she grew up. Hattie Parker . . . Parkinson. Or maybe it was Mattie. Vita couldn't remember.

But she could recall vague images of drawing hopscotch blocks on the sidewalk with brightly-colored wedges of chalk.

Hiding under the porch in the cool semidarkness. Dressing up for Halloween in Mama's high heels and a musty-smelling fur cape from an old trunk in the attic. Putting doll clothes and a yellow bonnet on Harley, the Parkers' big gray tabby cat. Trading plastic rings from a Cracker Jack box and promising to be friends forever.

Forever. How long was that
, Vita wondered,
in Cracker Jack years?

Sophie and Rachel, with their heads together arranging Queen Titania and her acorn fairies, didn't see the attack coming. Suddenly a foot slammed down onto the grass, crushing several fairies and grinding Titania herself into the dirt.

“You told, didn't you?”

Sophie looked up. Cathleen stood above them with both hands on her hips, her mouth twisted into a scowl and her cheeks the color of boiled beets. She glanced over at Rachel to see a look of sheer terror pass over the girl's ashen face.

“You told Mam where I was—with Rafe, down at the green!”

Cathleen hauled Rachel to her feet and shook her. “You're going to pay for this, you are!”

Sophie jumped up and grappled with Cathleen, trying to make her let go of Rachel's arm. “Stop it, Cathleen! Rachel didn't tell your Mam a thing.”

Rachel was beginning to cry. “Cath, you're hurting me.”

Cathleen shook harder, digging her fingernails into Rachel's skin. “I'm going to hurt you a lot worse before this is over! Sweet little sister, who never does anything wrong! Perfect Rachel, Mam's pride and joy!” She began to pummel Rachel with her free hand, boxing her ears with a clenched fist.

Sophie latched onto Cathleen's flailing arm, and the fist connected with her nose. Blood spurted out, but Sophie held on.

“Stop! Stop it
now!
” She heaved with all her might. Cathleen's grip gave way, and she reeled to one side and fell against the trunk of the oak tree.

For a minute she lay there, stunned and panting. Sophie turned away from her and went to comfort Rachel.

“Your nose is bleeding.” Rachel dabbed with a hand at the sticky mess on Sophie's face.

“I'll be fine. Let me look at your arm.”

The arm was bruised and bloody, marred by three deep gashes where Cathleen's fingernails had dug into the flesh. Fueled to a fury by white-hot indignation, Sophie whirled around to face Cathleen.

“How could you? She didn't do anything.”

“You stay out of this!”

“I will not! Rachel is my friend, and even if you are her sister, you've no right to—”

But Cathleen wasn't listening. She had risen to a sitting position, her eyes fixed on a point just beyond where the crumpled form of the handkerchief doll lay. Sophie followed her gaze.

The Treasure Box, her birthday gift from Papa, lay in the grass a few feet away.

“Leave it alone, Cathleen,” she warned.

Cathleen lurched toward the box, grabbed it up, and was on her feet in a flash. “You want it back, you'll have to come and get it.” She took off running with the box under one arm.

After a split second of hesitation, Sophie went after her, with Rachel close on her heels. She could see Cathleen up ahead, sprinting through the woods that surrounded the cottage, lifting her skirts to jump over a fallen log. But she managed to keep her in sight and could hear Rachel's labored breathing right behind her.

At last they slowed and came into a clearing on the bank of the river. A dead tree spanned out halfway over the water, and

Cathleen stood on the trunk, doubled over laughing at both of them. Then, as if in slow motion, Sophie saw her raise her hands and hold the box out in their direction. “Your precious little box that Papa made for your birthday,” she mocked in a singsong tone. She put the box up to her ear and shook it. “I hear something rattling inside. A locket? Something special? Some
treasure
you just couldn't live without?”

“Give it back, Cathleen,” Rachel demanded.

“Or what? You'll tell on me? You'll go crying to Mam?”

Rachel took a step forward. “It's not yours. It's Sophie's. And you know it's important to her.”

“Rafe Dalton was important to me. But the two of you had to spoil that, didn't you?”

“We didn't tell. Now, give it back.”

“You didn't tell? Oh, well, that explains everything. Mam just knew all on her own, right where to find me with Rafe, and when.

Maybe she's got the second sight. Maybe she had a vision.”

“Put the box down, Cathleen. Please. I beg you.”

“You beg me? You
beg
me?” She laughed wildly, tossing the box from one hand to the other and moving in a bizarre dance up and down the tree trunk. “Beg some more.”

“Please,” Rachel repeated. “Please, put it down.”

“All right, since you asked so nicely.”

Cathleen held the box out toward Rachel, dangling it by one of its brass handles. Then, as Sophie watched in horror, she swung her arm out over the river and dropped it into the water.

“Nooo!” Rachel darted to the bank and plunged into the stream. For a moment or two she kept her footing, wading out into the shallows. Cathleen still stood on the fallen tree, laughing.

The bottom sloped down until the water rose as high as Rachel's knees, then up to her hips. As the weight of it caught her skirts, she slipped and fell, and her head went under.

Spluttering and gasping, she came up with the blue tin box in one hand. “I found it!” she shouted.

Triumphant, she began struggling back toward the shore.

Sophie buried her face in her hands, but when she looked up again, Rachel was staggering, pitching on the mossy rocks. She lost her balance, and as she went down, her head struck the side of a massive boulder, just a few feet from where the river widened and deepened and rushed downstream in a cataract of white water.

Before Cathleen could scramble down from the fallen tree, Sophie was in up to her waist, frantically trying to reach her friend.

The day had been mild, but the water was like ice, and the current was a good deal stronger than she had expected. She could hear Cathleen behind her—no longer laughing, but screaming above the roar of the river: “Rachel! Rachel!”

At last Sophie got to her, and with some difficulty pulled her face up into the air. Rachel came to, coughing and choking and spitting out river water. When she finally found her feet and stood upright, she was still clutching the precious Treasure Box.

Cathleen waded out part way and stood knee-deep in the stream. “It's all my fault,” she muttered. “I never should have . . .

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

Sophie gripped the boulder and watched as Cathleen put an arm around her sister and helped her toward the bank. Exhausted and shivering in the waist-deep water, she wanted nothing more than to go home to Papa, to be warm and dry and wrapped in a blanket by the fire.

“Come on!” Cathleen shouted from the bank, motioning for her to hurry.

But Sophie couldn't move. The hem of her dress, heavy with water and silt, seemed to be snagged on some outcropping under the surface. “I'm caught on something—a branch or a rock, I think,” she called back.

“Well, pull it free.” Cathleen's repentance apparently hadn't lasted very long; her annoyance was clear in her tone. “We need to go home. It'll be dark soon.”

“I'm trying.” Sophie tugged vainly at her skirt. “I don't want to rip my dress.”

“Tear it, you little fool,” Cathleen shot back. “Unless you intend to stay out here all night.”

“I'll come help you,” Rachel offered, her voice barely audible.

“You'll do nothing of the sort.” Cathleen grabbed Rachel's arm to hold her back. “You're already soaked and freezing; we both are.” She turned back to Sophie. “Pull harder.”

A shudder ran through Sophie, whether from the cold or from fear she couldn't tell. The sun was beginning to set, and a chill was closing in. The push of the river against her legs seemed to be growing stronger. Long dark shadows stretched over the surface, making it difficult to see. She took a deep breath, braced one hand against the boulder, and yanked with all her might.

She felt a rip, and the dress gave way. The momentum threw her backward into the current, and before she could regain her footing, the force of the water swept her downstream toward the rapids.

The monitor went black. Vita sat staring at it for a full minute after the image had vanished.

She shouldn't be surprised. Both logic and life experience had taught Vita that Murphy's Law was not merely some cynical philosophical construct, but an inescapable reality. If anything could go wrong, it would. Expect the worst, and you'll never be disappointed.

But she hadn't expected
this
. Somewhere, deep down in Vita's soul, in a place beyond the reach of experience and logic, a voice kept saying,
It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

Rachel had saved the Treasure Box, and Sophie had saved Rachel. Weren't people supposed to be rewarded for their courage and their love, not punished by a capricious God or a heartless Fate? Where was justice? Where was simple fairness?

Vita pounded her fist against the keyboard, but nothing happened. The scene didn't resume. No fortuitous rescue. No happy ending.

Nothing.

Just the vacant computer screen, a black hole, a lifeless eye staring back at her from the depths of a senseless universe.

6
UNDER THE WILLOW TREE

T
he first rays of a salmon-hued dawn filtered in through the high hedges around Vita's office windows. After roaming around the house for hours, unable to concentrate, Vita had gone to bed in a black funk, determined to keep her distance from this computer and its virus and the compelling, disturbing images it pressed upon her mind. Yet after a sleepless and grueling night, here she sat, coffee cup in hand, as the sky lightened into morning and the clock chimed seven.

The computer was up and running, but so far nothing had happened. For thirty minutes she had waited, staring, while the monitor stared back, dark and unchanging. Maybe it was over.

Maybe the virus had consumed her hard drive and there was nothing left.

Then she heard it—faintly. Muted sounds emanating from the dual speakers on the shelf above her head. Muffled footsteps.

A rooster crowing. The bark of a dog.

The sounds drew closer, louder. She could hear voices now, although she couldn't make out the words. Shouting. Running.

And above and behind the voices, a whooshing like static, like the white noise of a waterfall.

Or a river.

The screen brightened, and an image came into view. A riverbank, flanked by a stand of willow trees. In the middle of the stream, the water tumbled wildly over huge boulders and fallen tree trunks, but where the willows grew, their roots created a sheltered, placid pool. Long strands from the graceful branches cascaded into the shallow water, and light from the rising sun turned the pool to molten gold.