She searched in the box again, and found another of the tubes, and a third. Each was slightly different from the last, but all had gold and gemstones in common. There were more of the cylinders down there, two dozen or more, and at least as many old gold coins in individual plastic sheaths. She rewrapped the cylinders that she had removed, and restored them to their place, then moved on to the next box. This one was heavier. She cleared away some of the straw packing to reveal a beautifully decorated vase. Beside it, in a crate previously used to transport wine, was the gold head of a woman with lapis lazuli for eyes. She ran her fingers across its face, so lifelike, so perfect in appearance. Although she was not someone who generally troubled museums with visits, here, in this musty basement, she began to understand the appeal of such artifacts, the beauty of something that had survived for so long, a link to civilizations now long vanished.
It made her think again of her earrings. Where Joel had got them from, she had no idea, but she knew now that this was the big score about which he had spoken, and in these items lay his hopes for both of their futures. She felt angry at him, yet also strangely relieved. If it had been drugs that she had found, or counterfeit money, or expensive watches and gems stolen from a jewelry store, she would have been disappointed in him. But these objects of beauty were so unusual, so unexpected, that she was forced to reconsider her opinion of him. He didn’t even have pictures hanging on his walls until she came to live with him, yet this was what he stored in his basement? She wanted to laugh. It bubbled up from deep inside her, and she covered her mouth to stop it, and in doing so she was reminded of the sight of Joel seated cross-legged by the basement door, speaking intently to someone on the other side of it, and in that moment she recalled the reason she had come down here. The smile disappeared from her face. She was about to move on to the other crates when a shape on the shelf to her left caught her eye. It was clearly a box, loosely covered in bubble wrap, and it stood incongruously amid paint cans and jars of nails and screws. Yet even disguised as it was, and in such undistinguished surroundings, she was drawn to it. As she touched it, she felt it vibrate against her fingers. It reminded her of a cat purring.
She laid the flashlight on the shelf, and began to undo the wrapping. She had to lift the box to do so, and something inside seemed to shift slightly. Any concern she had that Joel might discover she had been down there was gone: she felt a burning desire to view the box, to open it, understanding the moment she touched it that this was what she was seeking, that this was linked to the voices in her nightmare, to the sensations of confinement and imprisonment, to Joel’s nocturnal conversations. When the bubble wrap stuck she tore at it with her fingers, hearing it pop as she shredded it, until at last the box was fully revealed to her. She stroked it, caressed it, marveling at the detail of its carvings. She lifted it, and was surprised by its weight. She couldn’t begin to imagine how much the gold that went into its construction might be worth alone, regardless of the age of the box itself. With the tip of a finger she examined the intricate series of locks, shaped like spiders, that held the lid fixed to the base. There were no keyholes that she could see, merely clasps that would not move. She grew increasingly frustrated, picking with her fingernails at the metal, all sense of reason and patience gone. Then one of her fingernails broke, and the pain of it brought her back. She dropped the box as though it had suddenly grown hot in her hands. She was overcome by a profound sense of evil, a feeling that she was close to an intelligence that wished her only harm, that resented her touch. She wanted to run, but she was no longer alone in the basement, for there was movement in the corner to her left, directly across from the stairs.
‘Joel?’ she said. Her voice trembled. He would be so angry at her. She could already see the confrontation playing out: his fury at her trespass, hers at his hoarding of stolen artifacts in the basement of their home. They were both in the wrong, but her transgression was minor compared to his, except she knew that he would not see it that way. She did not want him to hit her again. Sense began to return to her: this was a serious criminal enterprise in which Joel was engaged, and that was bad enough. But the box… The box was another matter entirely. The box was foul. She had to get away from it. They both did. If Joel would not come with her, she would leave alone.
If he lets me leave, she thought. If it stops at just hitting when he finds out what I’ve been up to. Her mind went back to the weapons in his closet, and the bayonet in particular. Joel had shown it to her once before when she found him slumped in the corner of the room, his eyes red from weeping for his lost comrade, Brett Harlan. It was an M9 bayonet, just like the one Harlan had used on his wife before cutting his own throat.
Because the box made him do it.
She shuddered at the imaginative leap that she had just made, even as she strained to peer into the darkness before remembering the flashlight. She grasped it and pointed its beam at the corner. Shadows moved: the outline of garden tools and stacked bottles, the frames of the shelves, and one other, a figure that danced away from the light, melting into the blackness beneath the stairs; a deformed shape, distorted by the action of the beam but also, she knew, unnatural in its essence, contorted in its physicality. She could almost smell it: musty and aged with an acrid edge, like old cloth burning.
This was not Joel: this was not even human.
She tried to follow its progress with the flashlight. Her hands were shaking, so she gripped the Maglite with both hands, holding it close to her body. She shone it under the stairs, and the shape danced away again, a shadow without a form to cast it, like smoke rising from an unseen flame. Now there was movement to her right as well. She swung the beam, and briefly a figure was framed against the wall, its body hunched, its arms and legs too long for its torso, the crown of its skull misshapen by outgrowths of bone. It was both real and unreal, the shadow seeming to stretch from the box itself, as though the essence of whatever was contained within it were seeping out like a bad smell.
And the whispering had started again: the voices were speaking about her. They were disturbed, angry. She should not have touched the box. They did not want her desecrating it with her fingers, with her woman’s hands. Filthy. Unclean.
Blood.
She was having her period. It had started that morning.
Blood.
Tainted.
Blood.
They knew. They smelled it on her. She retreated, trying to get to the stairs, aware now of three figures circling her like wolves, moving to stay out of the reach of her light even as they closed upon her. She waved the flashlight like a flaming torch, using it to probe at the darkness, to keep them at bay, her back to the shelves, then the wall, until at last she was facing the basement and her foot was on the first step. Slowly she ascended, not wanting to turn her back. Halfway up, the bulb above her head flickered and went dark, and then her flashlight too gave up the ghost.
They’re doing it. They like the darkness.
Now she turned, stumbling up the final steps, and as she reached the door and slammed it closed she caught a final glimpse of them ascending toward her: shapes without substance, bad dreams conjured from old bones. She turned the key and pulled it from the lock, tripping as she did so and falling painfully on her coccyx. She watched the handle of the door, expecting it to turn like it did in those old horror movies, but it did not. There was only the sound of her breathing, and the beating of her heart, and the rustle of her robe against her skin as she pushed herself along the floor and came to rest against an armchair.