The Little Brown Box Page 3
Hazel woke with a start the next morning. She had had the most peculiar dream. All she remembered was that a man was sitting on the end of her bed. It wasn’t her father, or anyone she had ever seen before. After she had awoken she couldn’t remember his face very clearly and probably wouldn’t recognize him even if she had bumped right into him that day. She wondered who he could be. He didn’t say anything, he just looked at her.
Breakfast was served at the breakfast table in the kitchen. Mrs. Norwich made bacon and eggs. To Hazel’s surprise they were very good. She now knew to expect good food from her grandmother. Mrs. Norwich planned out the whole day for herself. She was to first read in her room, then have lunch at the dinner table, read in the living room, go for a walk down to town, have dinner, and then read in her room again. There was nothing for Hazel to do, though she was invited to join her on the walk.
Hazel was glad not to be included, she was happy to have her whole day to herself. Her schedule would be to crochet in her room between meals, and then explore the house while Mrs. Norwich was on her walk. After breakfast she went back to her room and started.
It was quiet for the next few hours as both occupants of the Swansberry Hill House kept to themselves. Hazel started on a blanket. She had practiced for two years but still had trouble. Her mother made things all year and their house was full of blankets and pillowcases that she crocheted. After a while Hazel put her future blanket on her nightstand, bored out of her mind. She tried to fascinate herself by staring at the walls and looking for patterns in the bumps and dried paint strokes. It didn’t last long; luckily she was called down to lunch before too much more time went by.
Several turkey sandwiches lay on the table. Hazel helped herself to some. Mrs. Norwich invited her to walk down to Swansberry with her, but she declined. She watched her grandmother leave and went straight upstairs to look into all the rooms she had been told to stay out of. She wanted to go on an adventure; the idea swam around in her head since her father said it to her. And now it sounded fun. What better place was there to have an adventure then a big old house? It would be great; she would pretend to be on a journey looking for lost treasure.
There was nothing of interest in any of the rooms down her hallway. Two were extra bedrooms, not much bigger than hers. There was nothing in any of the drawers or closets. She turned the corner and at the end of the next hall, to the right of the stairs leading to the attic, was a door that grabbed her attention. It had a sign on it that read: M.N. Who was M.N.? Hazel guessed that the ‘N’ stood for Norwich, but could not guess what the ‘M’ might mean. She tried the handle. Locked. The key hole was large and looked to take an old fashioned skeleton key. Whatever was in that room must have been a secret. She made a note to look out for a key.
She climbed the stairs to the attic and found herself in a long room with a low hanging pointed ceiling. Piles of old junk and forgotten filing cabinets filled most of the space. A few desks stood in a corner and a large crate was alone in another corner. The crate was filled with old envelopes. Some were addressed to the house she was in; others were addressed to some town in West Virginia. She wanted to read them, but didn’t think that she had time.
There was nothing else of note up there. Hazel made her way down to the first floor where she found a room with book shelves in it. All of the books were old and most of them had been worn. One in particular that caught her eye looked slightly newer and had animal pictures in it from a zoo somewhere. Hazel liked animals and made sure to look at as many of the pictures as she could. She put the book back as carefully as possible so it wouldn’t look like anybody had touched it, and continued on.
The rest of the first floor did not interest her until stairs to the basement were found behind a door in the hall. She went down. The basement also had a low hanging ceiling. A washer and dryer were down there. They did not look very old and stood out as the only true modern appliances in the whole house. Hazel found the basement to not be as interesting as the attic, though it definitely felt creepier. There was something about being underground that Hazel didn’t like. She went back up to her room, making it in at the exact moment that the front door opened on the first floor. She spent the next hour staring at the walls until she was called down to dinner. The treasure hunting would have to wait till later.
She took the same seat as before and piled her plate with mashed potatoes and turkey, fresh from town. They ate quietly. As dinner wore on Hazel tried to work up enough courage to ask about the room behind the locked door. She finally thought it too personal and stopped worrying about it. Instead she tried something else.
“How old is this house?” She asked.
Mrs. Norwich looked around as if she wasn’t sure where the sound came from. “Built in 1896.”
Hazel whistled. “That’s old.”
“My father was born here.”
“How long did he live here?”
Mrs. Norwich shook her head. “Sit up, you look like a slouch.”
“Sorry.” Hazel said quickly, straightening up. She was going to have to play nice if she wanted to get any information. “How long have you lived here?”
“My whole life.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to get away and see the world?”
Mrs. Norwich frowned at the far wall, as if seeing a bug crawling up it. “I’ve seen enough.”
“I don’t want to stop exploring until I’ve seen it all, every last bit of it.”
“I would think that there are some parts you wouldn’t want to see.”
Hazel was shocked. She wanted to see the whole world and wasn’t going to be denied access to any of it. “I don’t think so. Do you ever explore these woods?”
Mrs. Norwich dropped her silverware onto her plate with a clank. “I should say woods are a very poor place to explore. There is nothing but wild animals and dirt. Now eat your food before it gets cold.”
Hazel filled her mouth with turkey. She found two subjects that her grandmother was not comfortable with: her great grandfather and the woods. She wondered if they had any connection. She knew there was one more subject that she would probably not want to talk about, but Hazel brought it up anyway because she did really want to know about it.
“How come you don’t like toys?”
Mrs. Norwich looked at Hazel for the first time that night. A grimace put even more wrinkles on her old face. “Toys rot the mind of young children, keeping them from realizing their true potential at other, more important endeavors.”
“Such as?” Hazel pushed on.
Mrs. Norwich picked up her knife and looked dangerous holding it. “Such as learning skills.”
“Toys can teach skills.” Hazel knew that she was going too far, but she was only becoming more interested in her grandmother’s hatred of toys.
Mrs. Norwich scoffed. “Hardly.”
Hazel nodded and did not pick up the topic again. She presumed there was some reason from her grandmother’s past that made her the way she was. That mystery might never be solved.
“Do you have any paper?” Asked Hazel politely.
“For what?”
“I want to write my parents a letter.”
“Want to go back already?”
Hazel fought back a, “Ya think!” and simply said. “No, I want to see how my mother is doing.”
“There’s some in the drawer in the kitchen.”
Who puts paper in a kitchen drawer? It was strange but Hazel went and got some after dinner, found a pencil, and went up to her room with it. She didn’t know what to write about, and didn’t want to seem too worried, so she put it away and hoped an idea would come to her.
Hazel got into her pajamas early and went to bed. She was tired before she got ready, but was wide awake by the time she got under the covers. She pulled out her crocheting again and tried to work on her blanket, but again didn’t feel like i
t. She sat and stared at the dark ceiling, hoping that she would grow tired.
There was another creak from the hall right outside her door. The hallway light was still on and Hazel sat up, hoping to catch her grandmothers shadow pass under the door. The noise continued, but there was no shadow. Hazel found this strange, but thought little of it at the time. She fell back onto her pillow and finally went to sleep.
She had another dream. This time she was sitting up in bed and a little black bear, only three inches tall, was staring back at her from the floor by the door. They looked at each other for a long time. Then finally the bear disappeared. It was a strange dream, but not as strange as the one where a man was sitting on her bed. It was the first time ever that her dreams took place in the room she slept in, and the first time that she had two dreams in a row about the same place. But, like most strange things, she thought nothing of it at the time.