So I tried not to think too much about how I’d lost the box or how I’d failed to keep my vow to my dying grandmother, and I told myself it didn’t matter so much.
Until I saw the box again.
As I said, I wasn’t much for television, but I shared a house with seven other students, so the thing was always on. And as I walked through the living room one evening on my way to the library, feeling stylish in my black leggings with a long sweater over them and my backpack slung over my shoulder, I stopped in my tracks, fixated on the TV screen, where my gidaty’s prize possession was being handled by a TV show host.
“It’s a reproduction,” the man said, turning the box this way and that, examining it as if he were a doctor and my grandmother’s treasure chest his patient. “But a very good one.”
“How can you be sure?” asked the gorgeous blonde who’d handed it to him. She had big hair. I wondered how she got it so high. In the nineties women in the U.S. had become like male lions, the bigger the mane, the more status they had. And hers was massive. Or she was from Texas. One or the other. My own hair was perpetually flat, sleek and black. There was nothing I could do about that.
“See these paintings on the bottom?” the man said as he turned the box over. “Someone added these after the box was made, so it’s not in its original condition. I believe they’re the images of various Tarot cards—except this one, which looks Egyptian. And the locking mechanism is…something I’ve never seen before. This padlock here—” he jiggled the black iron lock in his hand “—it’s got no keyhole. I have no idea how this box would open, or if it even does.”
The blonde blinked like a cartoon kitten. I could almost hear the plink-plunk of strings that went along with the motion. “Why would anyone make a lock that doesn’t open?”
“I have no idea. As a joke, perhaps?” The man set the box on the table. “You say you’ve never opened it?”
“No. But we haven’t had it that long.”
“It’s a fascinating piece,” he said. “Where did you ever find it?”
“My fiancé brought it back from the Gulf War.”
I shivered.
The host nodded. “Please thank him for his service for us. I think this box’s true value is something other than monetary.” He slid it across the table toward her.
“Are you saying it’s not worth anything?”
Wide eyes now. And kind of empty. Like her head, I thought.
“Two hundred dollars, perhaps. But I think your husband should keep it.”
“Fiancé,” she corrected.
One of the roommates had been saying my name over and over, but I was ignoring her because the lettering on the bottom of the screen had the woman’s name: Glenda Montgomery from Akron, Ohio. I burned it into my mind as the show went to a commercial.
“Amarrah, are you okay? What’s up? You never watch TV.”
I blinked. “I thought I knew her. But, um, I was wrong.”
I have to go to Ohio, I thought.
But you can’t. You’ve got finals coming up.
Not for two weeks. That’s plenty of time to get there and get back.
Don’t be ridiculous. How will you even find her?
Not her. Him. She said it belonged to her fiancé.
Still…
All the way to the library I was having this inner argument. I didn’t have a lot of money, but Ohio wouldn’t be an impossible drive, and I did have a decent car. I could take my books with me, try to get as many assignments in advance as I could and cram for finals on the road.
It could be done.
The notion just wouldn’t leave me alone. And when I slept that night, I swore my grandmother was standing over my bed, shouting at me. “You must go, Amarrah! You must go and get the box! You promised me!”
And from there I dissolved into an image from the story. I was thirteen and very dirty, dressed in rags, with bruises on my arms and face. I’d finished my chores and run to play along the edges of the riverbank, where the grasses were tall and lush, and there I’d spotted a beautiful boy swinging a sword as if in the heat of battle with some invisible enemy.
Hiding behind the tall reeds, I watched, fascinated by him, until he tripped over a stone and fell on his face. I couldn’t quite suppress my giggle.
He spotted me, frowned and pushed himself up, brushing the dust off his clothes. “Come on out, girl. I see you hiding there.”
Bashful, and wondering if I’d just earned myself another whipping, I stepped out into his view, painfully aware of my disheveled state. I tried to smooth my hair back, but it was of little use. “I didn’t mean to spy on you,” I said. “It’s just that I’ve never seen a boy so young wield a sword with so much skill.” Flattery, I thought, might save me from punishment. But even so, it was no less than the truth.
He smiled a little. “Even if I did make a fool out of myself at the end.”
“You were intent on your form. You didn’t see that stone.”
“Did it seem…good?” he asked. “My form, I mean.”
I met his eyes, touched that my opinion was of any interest to him. “To me it did. I couldn’t look away.”
He smiled wider and came closer. “I’m Harmon, son of Brock. My father’s one of the most skilled swordsmen in the king’s guard. He’s been training me to join him in the ranks.”
“You’ll be a soldier, too, then?”
“I hope to be, yes.” He looked me up and down. “And you…you’re a servant girl, yes?”
I nodded. “Amarrah. I’ve been a kitchen slave since I can remember, but today was my last day. Tonight I get to move into the harem quarters, to be slave girl to the slave girls.” I smiled when I said it, and he did, too, getting the joke.
“Bet they’ll clean you up some. I’ve never seen a dirty slave in the harem quarters.”
“You’ve been inside?” I asked.
“No. I meant…no.” He moved closer to me, then, bending, dipped his hand into the sacred river. Rising, he wiped my face with his wet fingertips. He did this a few times, then stood back. “You’re going to fit in there,” he said. “I see beauty under all that dirt.”
I felt the blood rush straight to my cheeks. He had returned my compliments with one of his own, though he could not have known how deeply it had touched me.
Then someone called my name. The fat cook, who’d warned me earlier that she had orders to get me cleaned up and dressed appropriately for my move into the harem quarters.
“I have to go.”
“If the old bat beats you again,” he said with a sharp eye on my bruises, “kick her in the shins and run away. You should not have to take that. At least not anymore.”
“If she does, it will be the last time. The ladies of the harem are kind. I’ll be grateful to them forever for taking me away from the kitchens.”