* * * * *
Once the door had closed, Abby reread the note, while wishing there was something more. All it said was:
Dear Ab,
Grandmother Annabelle wanted you to have this on the morning you turned sixteen. She didn’t tell me much about it, just said she knew you’d figure it out.
P.S.: Don’t show it to your mother! You know how she is about this sort of stuff.
Love always,
Dad
That was it. Nothing deep or profound. Abby didn’t even remember her paternal grandmother; the woman had died when Abby was six months old. It seemed strange that she would leave a gift.
Four freaking sentences, thought Abby, running her fingers over the lines. Couldn’t he have written a little more? And why did he say not to show it to Matilda? He’s the one who’d asked her to deliver the thing. What was this, some sort of game? No, she thought, glancing at the box. This was just business as usual.
There had always been this strange tug-of-war between her parents, with Abby invariably stuck in the middle. Sometimes Abby wondered that if there weren’t so many secrets, maybe her mother could grow to accept.
Tears pricked the backs of Abby’s eyes, but she blinked them away. “Nothing to cry about,” she whispered. “He’s gone. You’re not in the middle anymore.” Then she turned her gaze to the golden box. The final connection. Her father’s last gift.
The box was wrapped perfectly, its paper so bright that it seemed to glow. Abby knew her father couldn’t have wrapped the thing. You’d think a doctor would be good at that sort of stuff, but her father had always joked about missing the surgeon’s gene. It was Matilda who was the neat-nick in the family. She was the one who wrapped all the gifts. But if Matilda didn’t wrap it, reasoned Abby, then Grandmother Annabelle must have done it before she gave it to Dad. So her father really hadn’t known what was inside, just that it was something Matilda wouldn’t like. Something about me, thought Abby ruefully. Or mermaids.
Just open it, she thought. Do it now. She took a deep breath and ripped open the paper. It scattered in pieces across the floor. For a moment the scent of the sea rushed through her, sharp and briny and smelling like home.
Then, at last, she saw what it was. And it wasn’t quite as exciting as she thought it would be. It was a wooden box, a child’s toy really. On each side was carved, in rudimentary lines, different sections of a mermaid’s body. The box was made up of four sections of wood, each one stacked upon the next. You assembled the mermaid, as well as the moon above her, simply by rotating the pieces and lining them up. Abby did it quickly, wondering at the point of it all. It was only when she’d finished that she noticed the serpent, sliding along the base of the box. The serpent was carved in lighter strokes, and its skin blended in with the wood’s dusky grain. On its back Abby could make out some sort of engraving, symbols she’d never seen before. Since she knew only English and a smattering of French, it could be almost anything.
Gently, Abby shook the box, wondering if there was anything inside. It was heavy, too heavy for such small pieces of wood. But when she tapped on it with the tip of her nail, she could tell by the sound that it was hollow inside. And yet it was impossible to open the thing; there were no latches or hinges of any kind.
Abby flipped the box over so the mermaid swam on her head. The bottom was just a blank slab of wood. But when she picked the box up and held it in the light, something on it caught her eye. The mermaid, thought Abby, there’s something strange about her. Abby peered into the mermaid’s face, and that’s when she realized what it was. The mermaid’s eyes were glowing; their pinpricks were a shiny sea-glass green. As Abby continued to stare, the eyes began to grow infinitesimally brighter until they became so bright they were like two tiny sparklers, sizzling in their coffin of wood. Something hitched in Abby’s chest and the hair on the nape of her neck stood up. She dropped the box and leaped off the bed. The eyes, she thought, they were looking at me!
“Just cool it,” she whispered. “It’s just a trick of the light. You’re being weird. Nothing was there.” Still, whether she was being irrational or not, she couldn’t bring herself to touch the box again. Instead she turned to her father’s note, which lay open on the bed.
“But what exactly am I supposed to figure out?” said Abby, a note of frustration filling her voice. And suddenly, she hated this present, hated the mermaid’s frozen face. And those eyes— she could still feel them on her skin. Gingerly, using the corner of her pillow, she shoved the box over so the mermaid side was face down. “That’s better,” she whispered, once again wishing that her father were here. He would have known what to do. And if not, he would have made her feel better about not having a clue.
There was a knock at the door. “Abby,” called Matilda, “can I come in?” Abby wrapped her hands in the bottom of her shirt and snatched the box off her bed. The scent of the sea flooded through her again as she shoved the thing under her pillow, promising herself she’d find a better hiding spot later. Then she stood up and opened the door.
Matilda’s eyes were dry and her face was perfect. If Abby hadn’t known better, she would never have believed that her mother had spent the first part of the morning in tears. “Food’s ready,” said Matilda, who looked like she wanted to say more. But she spun on her heel and sped toward the stairs before Abby had a chance to respond.