by Peter Fang
Maria searched through her purse, coat, and around the house, but nothing.
Ansen tried to reassure her, “I’m sure it is around here somewhere. Maybe you left it at work.”
Maria tried to recount in her head the last time she had the necklace. She shook her head. “No, I just had it last week, and I know I was wearing it to show my appreciation for the company. People notice that kind of thing at work, so I never took it off. I remember putting it on after the shower that day before we went shopping.”
“You worry too much. And even if they find it, how could they know it was yours?”
“It has my initials on the pendant.”
“Okay, so there’s initials––-M.W.––-but those aren’t that useful, are they? What else can they use to trace the necklace back to you?”
Maria frowned and tried to recall the necklace’s design, but even she couldn’t remember the details. It was just a company appreciation gift given to her by the division head.
“I still can’t lose it. I need to wear it to the company party.” Maria pursed her lips and sunk into a sea of concerns. She suddenly got up and walked toward the door. “I have to go back and look for the necklace; maybe it’s still in the shop.”
“Go back? Are you out of your mind?” Ansen stopped her. “You don’t even know where you lost it, if you lost it. It could still be around here somewhere.”
Maria closed her eyes and said, “You are right. It could be anywhere.”
That night, Maria dreamed about herself back in Manfred’s basement. She saw Manfred standing in the back of the shop where the sewing machine was. The sewing machine’s intricate design looked so inviting; she traced the outlines with her eyes, and her mind stirred. The more she stared at it, the more the machine drew her closer. As she moved forward, she felt Manfred’s presence. Manfred waved at her and called her name. She observed Manfred in his old, torn clothes, wearing a weathered smile. She heard her name called again by him, but the sound was coming from her mind. Come along; I need to show you something.
As she got closer, Manfred reached out with his hands and long, yellow fingernails rooted out from his fingertips. Manfred pointed behind her and said, Careful, my girl, things are never what they seem. She turned and saw Ansen standing behind her; his face gleamed like ivory, and he looked back at her as if she were an object. His eyes were searching for something on her. She tried to call out his name, but her mouth was shut. She then heard her name getting called again by Manfred. She pivoted her body and saw Manfred holding a butterfly in his hand. He gently blew at the butterfly’s wings, and it danced away, revealing a necklace inside his right palm. She reached in to grab the necklace, but Manfred clamped down on her wrist like a spring trap. A shot of pain ran down her spine, and she woke up in her bed, drenched in sweat. Ansen moaned and turned, muttering to himself in his dream. She looked over at the nightstand, and the clock was blinking 3:03 a.m.
3:03 a.m. That number looked familiar to her, but she could not recall where she last saw that number. Maybe it was in a dream, but then it occurred to her that the time was exactly when her dad would come into their bedroom for their punishments. How could she have ever forgotten that? She would never want to go back to that dark corner of her memory. She tried to force herself to go back to sleep, but she tossed and turned and didn’t fall asleep until almost 5 a.m. Her mind drifted to the sewing machine and wondered what secrets lay hidden inside. Somehow she felt that the sewing machine was a living thing related to her, and she wondered if that’s how people felt when they saw something they grew up with, like a grandfather’s clock.
13
Interloper
Ansen and Maria stopped by Gregory’s office to sign their papers but learned that he was not in. The front desk said Gregory left instructions for them to show their IDs, sign the papers, and pick up the sewing machine.
Have fun and good luck with the cabinet, read a small yellow sticky note tagged on the front page of the legal packet.
Not sure if this inheritance was really worth the trouble, Ansen almost wanted to leave, but Maria convinced him to stay.
“It’s a good cabinet, and it has character. Let’s keep it for a week and see what happens. Maybe I will have it assessed.” Maria said it convincingly. There was something about the cabinet that attracted Maria. When she was near the cabinet, it felt like a grandparent’s cozy piece of furniture that she knew a long time ago. That sense of familiarity was hard to describe or to understand.
They moved their SUV to the pickup location. It was a nice, well-kept storage facility. They drove up to the foreman and handed over the papers. Minutes later, the foreman and a helper slowly rolled the cabinet out from the facility and onto the curb next to their car.
“Hi there, the name is Hutch.”
Hutch was in his fifties and looked like a man that was hiding a melon under his shirt. His round face was scruffy and dour with bloodshot eyes beading out like two counterfeit rubies. He pointed vaguely in the direction of the other man with this thumb. “That’s Luke.”
Luke was a young man in his twenties––tall, with a head full of red hair who wore a nervous smile. “How are you two doing?” He reached out his hands to shake Ansen's.
Hutch nodded at the cabinet before him. “I hope you got some muscle here; this thing is heavier than my ex-wife. Sure sings better than her. By the way, I was checking this cabinet out, and I thought I saw insects crawling inside. You should get it checked out. But I’m pretty sure I thought I also heard the singing.”
“What do you mean it sings?” asked Ansen suspiciously.
“Well—I don’t really know.” Hutch tugged on his greying tuft of mustache. “It sounded like crickets. If you have wood crickets, it can damage your furniture. Better get an exterminator to have it checked out.”
Ansen cringed and exchanged a look with Maria.
After they took the cabinet home, they safely stored it in their garage storage area. The debate was where to put the furniture. Maria was intrigued by the cabinet, but Ansen didn’t want the cabinet inside the apartment if there were any bugs.
Standing next to the cabinet in the garage, they wondered what to do next.
“You think the movers really meant there were crickets?” Ansen said with hesitation.
“There is only one way to find out.” Maria bent down and looked in the direction where the foreman pointed at the cabinet back in the warehouse.
“I’ll be damned. There’s some kind of box embedded underneath.” Maria shifted her body on the ground to the left to get a better angle. She could now see that the box was a very delicately designed piece. The box appeared to be constructed of some type of metal and was covered with intricate patterns. The carvings added an Asian-style accent to its appearance. It reminded Ansen of the Asian calligraphy in many of the museum paintings he regularly saw. As Ansen followed the designs of the box, Maria noticed a long piece of paper stuck to the side.
“There’s something here––something that’s stuck to the side. I’m going to try to reach it.” Maria stretched her arms forward and felt around with her fingertips.
“Hey, Maria, maybe that’s not a good idea. Let’s leave it alone.” Ansen wanted to help, but he could not deal with the probability of creepy-crawlers.
Maria felt a prick, like a needle. She pulled her finger back and saw a small pin-hole-sized drop of blood forming at the tip of her index finger.
“You are bleeding, again!” Ansen examined her hand. “Seems like you your fingers have a bad habit of getting pinched by this piece of furniture. First it happened in the shop, now this––”
“It’s nothing––” Maria put her finger in her mouth and licked the blood off.
“That’s disgusting! Why didn’t you wipe it off with a tissue?” Ansen searched in vain for a tissue paper in his jacket.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.”
“How do you know? You could get tetanus. We should go to th
e hospital.”
Maria shook her head. “I’m fine, really.”
Ansen noticed a small piece of paper fall off from the bottom of the sewing machine. It was the size of a small fortune cookie paper. He picked it up and inspected it in his hand. It was an off-white piece of paper with some faded writings.
“Let me see that.” Maria reached over and took the piece of paper away from Ansen. It was a narrow strip of paper crawling with Chinese calligraphy. The paper appeared new and was not aged at all.
“What is this? A fortune cookie paper?” Ansen started laughing.
“Don’t know, but I’m not sure why it was on the box.” Maria flipped the paper around to see if something was on the back side of the paper, but the back held no answers.
“I wonder what this is saying?” Maria held up the piece of paper and let it sway in the breeze. She took a picture of the writing with her phone and put the paper away. “What was underneath the paper?”
Ansen bent down and tried to see what Maria was looking at.
“I don’t see anything….wait, I see it. There’s some gold-colored metal plate.” Maria reached in with her finger and then caught the edge of the plate. He used his finger and felt his way around the plate; then it moved. “Hey, this thing is moving. I think it’s coming off.” Maria wiggled her fingers around the plate and it came loose. A small, golden plate fell through and dropped onto her chest.
“What in the world is that?” Ansen picked it up and observed it carefully. “Is that made of gold?” He pinched the gold plate with his fingernails and made a small indentation. “It’s got the heft to it and also the feel. This is either lead painted gold, or it is gold.”
“Hey, I think there’s a keyhole underneath.” Maria pointed her flashlight at an angle and squinted her eyes.
“Keyhole?” Ansen looked around the sewing machine for clues. “Did you see any keys in the drawers?
“Not that I know of, but I didn’t really look. You are welcome to look inside the drawers.” Maria gave him a quick glance.
Ansen stepped back. “I don’t want to risk a cricket jumping on me––”
Maria rolled her eyes, then opened the front cover of the sewing machine and saw a platform frame lying flat in front of them. There was a small level next to the platform, so Ansen pulled on it, but it wouldn’t budge.
“I remember Manfred said his wife used to make sweaters for him, so there’s probably a sewing machine hidden inside. There must be a trick to open this,” Ansen said with an air of confidence.
“I bet the keyhole is how you get the sewing machine to come up,” Maria suggested. “That’s the easiest answer to this puzzle. Usually, the simplest answer is the right answer.”
Ansen felt his phobia brewing in the pit of his stomach. He never thought bugs might be lurking inside, but it would not be a wise decision to casually let the sewing machine into their apartment. On the other hand, getting an exterminator would not be too expensive. The antique and its history still was worth the effort to keep it. And the mystery around the antique tickled his fancy, even though he didn’t want to admit it.
By late afternoon when the sunset dipped below the horizon, things were back to normal. It was an exhausting day of work, but Ansen and Maria didn’t want to stay home. They went out for dinner to relax and reward themselves for the day’s hard work.
In the basement, when the footsteps died down, needle-thin pincers stretched out from the keyhole’s slit. The queen grated her nails together rapidly until a harmonic sound resonated from the small pill box she was trapped in. The rhythm escalated into a high-pitched fervor. This went on for a few minutes, then the ground vibrated. Hairline cracks appeared on the concrete floor and splintered toward the sewing machine. Everything then came to a halt. Just below the surface, Lão Chóng lay docile, waiting for her next command.
The sewing machine uncloaked, and Queen’s creature form rested on the ground next to the worm. She whispered into Lão Chóng, “My good servant, stay near, but stay clear of Ansen. It is not time to kill him, because I didn’t sense Ansen knows the location of our remaining boxes. It must be someone else. We will have to wait.”
14
The Exterminator
It was a Saturday afternoon when the building’s exterminator showed up at their doorstep. Looking past sixty, he was a skinny, tall man with an affable demeanor. He wore a brown, denim, overall and a set of large boots. He showed a constant smile without being creepy, and his greasy hair was sculpted like a bird’s nest.
“How are you doin, ma’am? Name is Tripper. Earl from downstairs sent me. Heard that you may have some varmints in your furniture?”
“Oh yes; it’s down in the basement.” Maria answered the door. “I thought you were not planning to be here until four?” She looked at her watch, which read 2:30 p.m.
“Oh? Earl told me to be here at 2:30. I have his text message here. Is this a bad time? I can come back.”
“Why don’t you wait and I’ll go downstairs with you.” Maria was slightly annoyed, but she was not about to take the chance to turn the exterminator away. She learned long ago that you never cancel a meeting with the plumber, electrician, or other handymen. But now she wouldn't be able to take a shower until Ansen came downstairs. She walked to the bathroom and poked her head into the shower. “Hey hon, I’m going downstairs; the bug man is here. Join us in the basement, okay?”
Ansen was surprised. “He’s here already? I’ll finish up and meet you downstairs.”
Down in the garage, Maria opened the door to let Tripper in. She turned the overhead light on, and the cold LED light showered down to the floor and made the garage space cold and uninviting. In the middle sat the cabinet. Its pale, yellowish paint took on a corpse-like skin tone. Maria was surprised to see the cabinet in this light. She didn’t recall that the wood had looked like this before––was this the same cabinet?
Tripper took out a black Maglite and clicked it on. He first walked around the cabinet for a quick survey, then nodded. “This is a true antique. Must be over a hundred years old. I have seen a lot of cabinets before, but this one is quite...different.”
“We don’t know how old it really is, but the previous owner said it belonged to his wife’s family and it was in an attic for a long time.”
Tripper ran his hand over the surface, searching for holes. “If it was stored in a place like an attic, it’s bound to have some critters hiding inside. Mostly spiders, carpenter ants, termites, roaches, or small rodents––the usual suspects. If you have a fine piece of wood furniture like this, I would also worry about wood-burying beetles.”
Tripper got in closer to the sewing machine and opened each drawer for inspection. He knelt down and crawled beneath the cabinet and illuminated it with the Maglite.
“Do you see this?” Tripper shone his light over on the right side of the sewing machine. “There's some real damage here.”
Maria came around and saw three long scratches along the sideboard. It looked like moving damage caused by some sharp object.
“You got insurance on this?” Tripper muttered. “This damage looks quite new. I imagine your moving company probably got careless.”
Maria shook her head. “I'm not sure; it could be. But these look like claw marks. Strange, I don’t recall we saw these scratches yesterday when it was delivered. None of us saw this.”
“Look, what is that?” Tripper flashed his light over to the middle of the cabinet. Streaks of clear liquid were slowly oozing from the marks.
Maria touched the liquid with her hand, and the liquid stuck to her finger like spider silk, stringy as she pulled her finger away.
“You have to get this fixed and call the moving company for a damage refund,” Tripper quipped.
“Don’t worry about it.” Maria waved her hand. “By the way, there is a keyhole underneath where we think the crickets are hiding.” Maria crossed her arms and held herself tighter. “The foreman at the warehouse told us that something
was singing at night from the sewing machine.”
“Cricket, huh?” Tripper nodded. “Well, it certainly is possible to have wood crickets in there.”
“What about roaches?” asked Maria.
“Hard to say, but roaches don’t sing, so if it was singing, it was not a roach. If it is indeed just crickets, count yourself lucky. If you got wood-burying beetles, then you are really in trouble.” He poked his head out from underneath. “Do you have the key to the lock?”
“No.”
“Mind if I poke around a little? I will be gentle.”
“Sure.” Maria was starting to wonder where Ansen was. She reached out for her phone in her pocket but realized she forgot to bring it with her.
“Hmm. I have to use my microscopic tube to take a peek inside, but the good news is there are no bite marks or bore holes in the wood frame.”
“What if there were?” Maria insisted to know.
Tripper poked his head out again. “There are solutions to everything, but they carry the risks of damaging the wood and paint. Any chemical, fumigation treatments, or heat treatments can damage the delicate wood frame, especially on antiques. Is this your first time owning an antique furniture?”
“Of course not, but never one this size, and this one was under unusual circumstances.”
Tripper pulled out his plastic stick and waved it in the air. “Looks like there’s a chamber. It is hard to see what’s inside, but I think we can put a trap around the keyhole to lure it out.”
“What do I do with any dead insects inside?” Maria shivered at the thought of dead anything staying inside an antique, especially if it turned out to be things other than crickets.
“If there was any dead bug, it is now mummified. If you haven’t smelled anything foul, then it’s not rodents. I think you are just dealing with a smidgen of small crickets. This is not a big problem. I’ll put a small trap around the keyhole, and if there’s any cricket in there, we’ll catch them.” Tripper then went to his van and came back with a small plastic container. He put several strips of Scotch Blue tape across the container to secure it against the keyhole. When it was done, Tripper stood up and wiped his hands on his pants. “There, it's done. Let it sit for a few nights and see what comes out.”