FOUR

It was midnight before Thomas finally resigned himself to the fact that sleep wasn’t coming. His brain wouldn’t turn off. The little wooden box seemed to whisper his name, calling to him from its hiding place under the bed. Thoughts of the afternoon bounced in his skull. Already, he could tell that the rules would be way harder to follow than expected. Not being able to open the box unless he was home alone was rough. Keeping it hidden from his mom and friends was going to be brutal.

He switched on the reading light and reached under his bed. His fingers met wood. A thrill of excitement sped through his veins.

Thomas ran a hand over the lid, letting his fingers slide down toward the metal clasp. Electricity leaped across the space, a tiny arc of bright blue that zapped Thomas’s finger. He jerked his hand back instinctively. The bedside light flickered. Dark shadows ran across the ceiling, a flood of sudden movement twisting through the room.

Thomas leaped to his feet, adrenaline pumping through his veins. A splash of color caught the corner of his eye. He whirled to face it, hands raised in self-defense.

Dirty laundry lay in a pile on the floor in front of his closet, his red tennis shoes tossed lazily on top. Nothing moved. The light was steady, the room empty. The only thing out of the ordinary was his overactive imagination. He could almost hear his mom telling him to pick up the mess.

The breath whooshed out of Thomas’s lungs. He flopped onto his bed and lifted the box by the wooden edges. His fingers paused, the edges catching tiny ridges and contours. He lifted the box into the light. It was a slightly darker color than the slats of the top bunk and made of a higher quality wood.

A line of miniature symbols ran around the edges, carved so finely as to be nearly invisible. The shapes weren’t quite letters or pictures but something closer to hieroglyphs. Maybe that’s what they were. He turned the box, focusing on the lid. A delicate pattern emerged, hardly visible even in the light. There were dozens of shapes and symbols, the etchings almost completely hidden beneath layers of varnish.

The box felt suddenly heavier, the patterns more visible. Without thinking, he reached for the bedside drawer, groping for the key he’d tucked inside. His skin grazed metal and a shock jolted his arm, burning a trail to the top of his head. He jerked his hand out of the drawer.

The key came with it, the metal attached to his fingertip like a magnet. Thomas stared, eyes wide, as the buzzing slowly subsided. He reached out, hesitantly, and grabbed the white metal with the nervous fingers of his other hand. The key came away without further shocks or jolting. He held it up to the light. The material looked and felt almost ordinary. Almost.

The urge to open the box was overwhelming, but the shopkeeper’s rules were fresh in Thomas’s mind. Only when you are completely alone. With a sigh, Thomas dropped the key back into the drawer and slid the box out of sight behind a stack of comics under the bed. He climbed between the sheets, clicked off the light, and stared at the glowing star stickers under the top bunk. Eventually, fatigue won out and his eyelids fell heavily shut.