The Hidden Jewelry Box EDITED

One day, a young girl was searching through the endless boxes of ancient treasures in the dusty, forgotten attic of her home.  The young girl's name was Sarah and she loved mysteries and adventures, especially frightening ones full of danger, sadness, and true love.  On weekends, Sarah would go exploring through the trees in her back yard, imagining she was in the magical worlds of the books she reads.

Sarah had long stared up at the square trap door that led from the guest bedroom to the attic.  With her head tilted far back and her mouth slightly open, she stared and imagined what she might find up there.  She knew the attic was used for storage.  Her mother often spoke of “Getting rid of all that useless junk up in that old, dirty attic,” but Sarah still sometimes saw her mother up on the pull-down ladder shoving unlabeled cardboard boxes through the trap door, as incapable of throwing the past away as Sarah was of leaving it untouched and unexplored.  On this day, Sarah had finally built up the courage to pull down the ladder and explore the mysteries of the attic for herself.       

While this attic was no exception to the typical dark, unfurnished, and scary attics, with shadows running across the walls, Sarah was unafraid.  The attic was filled with little nooks and crannies hidden in the darkness where many a monster has been known to reside very comfortably, but Sarah was too excited to feel any fear.  The grimy windows let in a dim grey light and she searched the darkness, with the glow of her flashlight.  Thousands of dust motes danced in the scanty light.  The attic was like a large, dark, and silent church. While the dust covering the floor softened her footsteps, the old wood groaned whenever she moved, but Sarah did not mind.  She held her small, narrow flashlight aloft as she sifted through the many belongings of the past. She did not know why the cardboard boxes had been stored away in her attic, who had put most of them there, or to whom their contents had once belonged, but she did know that the boxes were not filled with junk.  They contained a world far different and more wonderful than her own, filled with untold stories she was determined to discover. 

Admiring this, wondering over that, Sarah searched through boxes of black and white pictures, hand-made Christmas ornaments, and old records.  Sarah opened one box and pulled out a beautiful, long white wedding dress.  She ran her hand along the intricate design of the beaded bodice and gingerly fingered the lacy neck.  She stood and held it up to herself.  She twirled around and around clutching the dress to her chest, holding up the full skirt to keep it from dragging in the dust.

Sarah went through each box one by one, searching with the thoroughness of an archeologist digging to a Pharaoh’s hidden resting place, and carefully replacing each item when she had discovered and wondered over them all as if they truly were the jewels of a long lost king.  Now and then she set aside something special to claim as her own, an old yearbook she assumed was her mother’s, a letter dated long before she was born, and a dried rose found pressed between the pages of a large book with a title she had never heard of.  Sarah wondered which boxes her mother had put in the attic and wondered if maybe the rose or the letter had once been her mother’s from a long time ago.  Sarah took the letter in her hand and peered at it, using the flashlight to see, but the writing was such spindly cursive she couldn’t read it very well.

Sarah tucked her short brown hair behind her ear, stood, and dusted off her old blue jeans.  She wandered away from the piled boxes.  She had searched through them all and it was time to move on.  She flashed her light around the cramped, dusty room, looking for a new mystery to uncover.

The flashlight beam moved over something massive and dark, with clawed feet and black eyes.  Sarah froze and felt for the first time the cold fist of fear clutch her heart.  With a gasp of fright she squeezed her eyes shut, nearly dropping the flashlight from her shaking hand. Preparing herself for the worst, she peeked through her eyelids and moved the light back over the monster and breathed a sigh of relief as she discovered it was only a large dresser. She chided herself for being so afraid and peered closer at the dresser. The dresser, though very large, was unremarkable.  It had a mysterious air about it as if it held so many more wonders and would lead to so many more amazing discoveries than the old cardboard boxes.  Being a lover of secrets, Sarah quickly maneuvered her way to the dresser.  It was even bigger up close.  It was wider than her arms could reach and a few inches taller.  She reached out and touched the rich, smooth, dark mahogany; running along it with her hand.

Wasting no more time, she grabbed the wooden knobs and opened each of the dresser’s six drawers searching carefully for some unknown treasure or hidden message.  The dresser seemed empty, but Sarah neither despaired nor gave up.  She shone her light over the whole thing, front, sides, and what she could see of the back, searching for mysterious writings or carvings. There was nothing. 

Sarah stood on her tiptoes and tried to see if anything was on the top.  Then she got down on her knees and peered at the underside, but saw nothing remarkable and came up sneezing from the excessive dust.  She put her hands all over the dresser.  “Maybe it’s blocking a secret door,” Sarah thought to herself.  She grasped the whole dresser and tried to shift it but her arms barely reached to both sides and it was much too heavy for one little girl to move.  She tried shoving it from the side and when that was hopeless she grasped the bottom edge and pulled to see if she could move it that way.  Sarah fell back as a hidden compartment came free.  With wonder and delight and not a little pride, Sarah opened the false bottom farther and shone her light on the green felt bottom.  Nothing again!  The air of mystery surrounding the dresser was nothing but dust motes dancing in the stuffy air.  But, wait- there, in the far left corner she spotted a small black box.  “A jewelry box?” Sarah asked herself.  She carefully picked it up in her hand and, holding her breath, opened it.  Inside was a pair of emerald stud earrings and a matching heart necklace.  Sarah stared at the beautiful jewelry and immediately began concocting fantastic and heart-wrenching stories of the box’s origins.

There had been forbidden love affair!  A young, dashingly handsome man had given his beautiful and faithful lover this jewelry as a sign of his eternal, unfaltering love.  They had to always meet in secret because her parents did not approve of him.  He was poor and she was rich.  One night, he slipped the jewelry in her pocket, whispering how much he loved her.  When she discovered what gift he had given her, her heart was filled with love for him, but she could not wear the stunning jewels and hid them away because if her parents found out what she had been given and from whom, she would be sent far away immediately forever-- Or no- her lover would be killed!  They soon ran away together, but in her haste for freedom she had forgotten the hidden jewelry box and though she desperately wanted to return for it, it was too late and too dangerous.

The jewelry box could have been a gift; holiday, birthday, anniversary, or even better: just because he wanted to- he loved her that much.  One day, he saw it and just had to buy it for the girl he loved.  He was going to give it to her that night and confess his undying love.  But, there was a terrible car accident- her car or a cab; or maybe it was a train crash.  She was killed and he hid her gift away, too despaired to even look at it, but still too much in love to part with it.  Or- he had died in the crash on his way to see her.  The police found the box and gave it to her.  She could hardly bare to open it and see what magnificent jewelry he had bought just for her and, stricken with too much grief to bear, she flung the romantic gift into the hidden compartment and tried desperately to forget about it.

Or, perhaps he gave it to her one day, one perfect, beautiful, blissful day, professing his love, but, under circumstances unknown, he left the next day, leaving her alone and heartbroken.  Still too much in love to ever throw it away, yet too much in pain to leave it were she must always see it, she put the jewelry box away in the false bottom of her dresser and there it stayed, hidden until this very day.

Oh, how completely filled with thoughts of tragedy, romance, and despair Sarah’s thoughts were.  Still dreaming depressing, yet fascinatingly romantic thoughts of this hidden jewelry box, Sarah started when she heard her name being called.

It was her mother wondering where she was.  Sarah looked down at the jewelry box in her hand and started to say something to her mother, but changed her mind.  She put the jewelry box back in the left hand corner of the false bottom of the dresser and closed the hidden drawer.  The imagining, she said to herself, is better.