Chapter 63 - The Box on the Fence
I didn't touch the box with my bare hands. I pulled my work gloves from the pocket of my canvas jacket, gently working the package free from the split rail. It was remarkably heavy for its size—no larger than an old cigar case, wrapped in thick parchment and bound with the yellow satin ribbon that had once adorned Lily’s waist.
Carrying it up the drive felt like carrying an unexploded shell. I climbed the porch steps, tapped the secret code on the windowpane, and waited for Lily to undo the lock.
"Mom?" she asked, her voice small, standing in the entryway clutching her school binder. "Is Aunt Melissa back?"
"No, sweetie. Aunt Melissa isn't coming back," I said, keeping my tone steady as I set the box on the kitchen island. "Go upstairs and finish packing your lunch. Officer Miller is going to send a patrol car to sit at the end of the driveway."
Once her footsteps receded up the stairs, I took a pairing knife from the magnetic block and cut the yellow ribbon. The silk parted with a soft hiss.
Inside the parchment was a tarnished silver snuff box engraved with the crest of the Van Der Bilt family—the maternal line that Evelyn had guarded like holy scripture. I pressed the tiny spring latch. The lid clicked open.
Nestled inside a bed of dried chamomile flowers was a single iron skeleton key, blackened with age, its ward cut in the distinct shape of a Celtic cross. Beneath the key lay a folded piece of stationery, brittle and yellowed at the folds, bearing the faded blue letterhead of St. Jude’s Parish, dated October 14, 1974.
May you like
The handwriting was unmistakably my father’s, written in the frantic, slanting strokes he used only when he was terrified.
*Evelyn made me swear it on the altar,* the note read. *If I die before the debt is cleared, the forty acres do not go to the children. The land is collateral for what we took from the diocese. Nora took the communion bread, so Nora carries the curse, but the deed remains beneath the stones of the nave. Forgive me, Nora. She was never in the river.*
