Black Box

by Cassia Leo

  With my hood pulled tight and no makeup, I have a good chance of not being recognized.

  We slide into the cab in front of the hotel and I pull my feet up onto the seat to hug my knees. It’s freezing out here and this cab is not much warmer.

  ‘You cold?’ Crush asks as the cab makes a sharp left on Park Plaza, pulling me toward him. He laughs as the inertia holds me against him. ‘I guess that’s a yes.’

  I roll my eyes as I scoot back to my side of the seat. ‘You wish,’ I reply, my teeth chattering.

  He smiles. ‘It would be my honor to keep you warm.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Why?’

  The driver takes the curve onto St James Street and I hold onto the door handle to keep from sliding. ‘Because you’re making me feel weird.’

  ‘Weird? Like you may start discussing your toe jam at any moment or weird like you’re uncomfortable with this conversation?’

  I narrow my eyes at him. ‘Both, and . . . weird like my insides are all tangled up.’

  ‘I know that kind of weird. I like that kind of weird.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  He smiles and my insides become even more knotted. The driver makes a right at Dartmouth then another quick left on Newbury, and I don’t bother fighting gravity. I allow myself to be pulled toward him and his expression is serious as he wraps his arm around my shoulder to keep me from sliding back. I hold back my tears as I lay my head on his shoulder and he lays a soft kiss on my forehead.

  Ten seconds later, the cab pulls up in front of the McKim Building entrance on Dartmouth and I don’t want to get out. Reluctantly, I push myself up so Crush can pay the driver. Once we’re on the sidewalk, I’m feeling weird again, like I can’t look at him.

  He places his gloved hand on the small of my back, then leans over and whispers in my ear. ‘I want to kiss you, but I want to do it when you’re least expecting it. Is that okay?’

  I nod, pressing my lips together to suppress my grin. He plants another kiss on my temple and I try not to melt into the sidewalk. How sick is it that I love knowing he killed someone for me? I don’t know the answer to that question. All I know is that I’m feeling pretty high on Crush right now. I just hope I don’t crash any time soon. At least, not before that kiss.

  The pavement in front of the library has been cleared and most of the snow is piled up around the curbs, street lamps, the steps leading to the library doors, and the concrete platforms holding up the statues on either side of the entrance. A pathway has been cleared down the center of the six steps and Crush grabs my hand as we ascend.

  ‘Watch your step. It could be icy.’

  ‘You could be icy.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

  I shrug. ‘Just sticking up for the stairs. Somebody has to.’

  There are three sets of glass entrance doors and he holds my hand tightly as he leads me toward the one in the center. Maintaining his grip, he uses his other hand to open the door for me. I enter first and he scurries ahead of me again to pull me farther inside, but I’m rooted in place.

  ‘Holy shit,’ I whisper as I stand in wonder of the entrance hall.

  The floor, the walls, the ceiling, everything is covered in marble. On our left are a large bronze statue and a marble staircase leading up to another level. Directly in front of us is a marble staircase leading down through a marble archway into a vestibule, which, by the looks of it, is also covered in marble. On each side of the top of the staircase is a marble statue of a lion, each bearing a bronze dedication plaque.

  ‘This place is epic.’

  Crush chuckles and I realize I said that aloud.

  ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,’ I continue.

  ‘It’s a book lover’s paradise,’ he says with a proud look on his face.

  ‘Can we live here?’

  ‘Only if you do all the cooking.’

  ‘Fine by me, as long as you don’t mind eating muffin stumps for the rest of your life.’

  He smiles and nods toward the staircase on our left. We climb the steps up to the mezzanine level and I pull him toward the marble railing so I can peer down on the entrance lobby from this level. The space is bursting at the seams with silence. If I get recognized and whisked away from this library today, it will have been worth it.

  ‘When was the last time you came here?’ I ask, ogling the mural on the wall opposite the railing.

  ‘A long time ago,’ he says, pointing at the mural. ‘This mural has been here since eighteen ninety-five. It’s a replica of a painting by a French painter whose name I can’t remember right now. But even the door in the center of the mural is a replica of the door in the painting.’

  I follow him toward the archway on our left, trying not to roll my eyes. ‘Are you trying to avoid my question? How long has it been since you last came here?’

  He sighs as we pass through the archway. ‘I haven’t been here since before I gave you the book?’

  ‘Why?’ I ask as he presses the call button for an elevator.

  ‘I used to come here almost every weekend with my grandfather before he died when I was ten. After he died, I didn’t have anyone to bring me. So, once I turned sixteen and got my driver’s license, this was one of the first places I visited.’ We step inside the elevator and he pauses to press the button for the third floor. ‘I saw the exhibit with the books my grandfather donated and there was no key in the display. That didn’t surprise me since his will said I could retrieve the key when I was eighteen. But . . . Jordan died a few months after that, and I never came back.’

  We arrive on the third floor and the silence is even heavier now. I want to say something to lighten the mood, but all I can think is, That fucking sucks, and I’m sure he already knows that. When we enter the rare books lobby, I’m surprised to find that it looks like it hasn’t been updated since the fifties. The room is long and narrow, with oak study tables and card catalogs running the length of the space. There’s only one patron sitting at the far end of the row of tables. Midway down, a woman sits at a desk reading a hardbound book and I can’t help but smile. This is a place where books are treasured – books that hold the sweetly magical smell of history; books that crackle when you open them and sigh when you close them; books that weigh heavy in your hands, not just your heart.

  ‘Stay close to me and don’t touch anything,’ he says, pulling me toward a doorway that appears to lead into a very dark room. ‘There are surveillance cameras everywhere and you will be severely reprimanded if you touch something you’re not allowed to touch.’

  We pass through the doorway and my breath catches in my chest. The room is dimly lit, probably to protect the books from UV damage. There are two levels of bookshelves surrounding the room, all enclosed in glass and dimly lit from within. A couple of glass cases in the center of the room display ancient books and manuscripts.

  ‘Many of the books in here are bound in animal skin.’ He lets go of my hand as he wanders toward the smaller display case on the other side of the room.

  This gets me breathing again, and that’s when I smell it. It smells like the first time I opened up Black Box. My stomach clenches and suddenly the messenger bag I have strapped across my chest feels as if it’s holding lead bricks instead of a book and a wooden box.

  ‘It’s not here.’ Crush’s voice is barely louder than a whisper, but it’s so quiet in here, the sound of it instantly pulls me back to reality.

  ‘What’s not here?’ I ask, going after him to see what’s inside the glass case he’s peering into.

  ‘The entire exhibit. It’s been replaced . . . with original music scores by Mozart.’

  ‘Let’s go ask that lady out there about it.’ I grab his arm and gently pulling him away from the glass case.

  Crush approaches the woman at the desk and she looks up from her book with a smile. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Can you tell us what happened to the . . . Slayer ex
hibit?’

  Slayer? Is that his grandfather’s last name? Is that his last name?

  The woman narrows her eyes at Crush, as if she’s sizing him up, and I wonder if she recognizes him. ‘The Slayer articles are part of the Jordan collection. They were rotated out two and a half years ago.’

  I watch Crush to see his reaction to this news. He appears confused, and I think I know why. His grandfather told him to view the exhibit after his eighteenth birthday, but it’s not here. Not to mention the fact that the stuff his grandfather donated is now part of the Jordan collection.

  ‘Can you show us where the articles are now?’ Crush replies.

  Again, she looks Crush up and down for a moment, then she turns her attention to me. ‘They’re no longer on display. Slayer requested the exhibit be put away on July 28, 2011.’

  His eyebrows scrunch up in despair at this news. ‘The day after my eighteenth birthday,’ he whispers to himself, and the woman behind the desk narrows her eyes at him again.

  ‘Are you his grandson?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply for Crush.

  The woman smiles. ‘Just show me some identification and I’ll have a guard take you there.’

  Crush shakes his head. ‘I don’t have identification. Well, nothing that will have my real name on it. I changed my name three years ago . . . the day after my eighteenth birthday.’

  My mind draws back to the first day I returned to school after Jordan died. The whispers filled the corridors and followed me everywhere; how fitting my name was considering I was responsible for his death. I got in a lot of fights and my parents were forced to get me a private tutor for the remainder of my junior year and my entire senior year. It worked out in the end because the one-on-one attention helped me bring my grades up after Jordan’s death and it gave me more time to focus on music. Even with mediocre grades, I still would have gotten into Harvard by flashing my dad’s alumni status and donations. But I wanted to make it in on my own merit, which is just one of the reasons why I changed my name before my freshman year.

  Mikki looks crushed by the prospect of not being able to see the articles in my grandfather’s exhibit. But the woman behind the desk makes no move to call a guard to take us to it.

  ‘Give me the box,’ I say to Mikki, and she quickly lifts the flap on her bag to retrieve the black box.

  ‘How about this?’ she whispers, holding the bag open so I can peer inside and see the spine of the book.

  No one knows this book exists other than my family and Mikki’s family. And my family thinks it’s tucked away in a safe in my off-campus apartment. If this woman finds out I have a book written by Hugh Slayer, their most generous donor in the last fifty years, she’ll probably tie me to a table and torture me until I cough it up.

  I shake my head and pull the flap closed on her bag, then I place the black box on the desk. ‘This was given to me by grandfather; actually, he left it to me in his will with instructions to come to the library on my eighteenth birthday to retrieve the key that opens this box.’

  ‘The Secret Garden key.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The key was added to the exhibit the week before the entire exhibit was taken down, per Mr Slayer’s instructions. It’s one of the staff’s favorite exhibits, and a bit of a mystery around here as to why he wanted the exhibit taken down just one week after his estate’s donation of the 1911 copy of The Secret Garden and the key.’

  ‘What key are you talking about?’

  ‘The key to the secret garden on Slayer’s estate. That’s what the exhibit says the key is for. We’re dying to know what’s inside the garden.’

  I chuckle at this. ‘There’s no secret garden on the family estate. That key is not for a literal secret garden. It’s for this box.’

  I pause for a moment as I try to remember everything I can about the book, The Secret Garden. All I can remember is that, after I read the book, I realized that it didn’t really matter whether the main characters found the key to the secret garden. In fact, it didn’t even matter what they found inside the garden. All that mattered was that the garden brought them together and changed them.

  ‘Oh my God, The Secret Garden? Have you read that?’ Mikki asks me excitedly, then she turns to the woman without waiting for my reply. ‘Can you please just try the key on the box?’

  The woman stares at Mikki and, for a moment, I’m nervous that her face may have already been featured on the local news this morning. But Mikki doesn’t seem to share the same worry. She turns back to the woman and meets her gaze, her eyes pleading with the woman to help us.

  ‘All the articles in that exhibit are housed in an off-site storage facility. Slayer’s instructions for the exhibit were specific. The only person allowed to view the articles without a formal request is his grandson, William Slayer. Is that you?’

  ‘It is, but I have no way of proving it,’ I reply, trying not to look at Mikki. I can feel her gaze pointed at the side of my face. She now knows my real name and identity. And now, just one Google search and she’ll know everything about me up to the night we ran into each other in that parking lot.

  ‘You have the box,’ Mikki says, her voice soft and reassuring, ‘William.’

  Hearing her say my name makes my hair bristle. I always hoped that if I ever met her, she’d never know the person I was before she saved my life. It seems my desire to change my name isn’t so different from her need to dye her hair. I want to reach inside her and erase the name from her memory.

  ‘That’s not my name anymore,’ I say, turning to her.

  Her green eyes are locked on mine, but the words that come out of her mouth are addressed to the woman behind the desk. ‘Believe me, lady, this guy is who he says he is.’ She turns back to the woman. ‘Please take us to the key.’

  The woman eyes the box on her desk and presses her lips together as she considers our request. Finally, she lets out a defeated sigh. ‘Oh, okay. But if you aren’t who you say you are and something happens to that exhibit, I’m telling the police you threatened my family.’

  Mikki chuckles. ‘You’ve been reading too many crime novels.’

  The woman looks a bit embarrassed by Mikki’s overly honest remark, but she picks up the phone on her desk and dials a number. After a brief conversation, she hangs up the phone and shakes her head.

  ‘I can’t believe you all are going to open that box and I won’t be there to see what’s inside.’ She looks up at me and I know she finally believes me. ‘Please consider donating the box to the exhibit. That is, if your grandfather would have wanted you to. I don’t know what’s inside there, but all this mystery has got my wheels turning. And, yes,’ she says, turning to Mikki, ‘I read a lot of crime novels. I love a good mystery.’

  Mikki smiles. ‘So do I. Thank you . . .?’

  ‘Mary,’ the woman replies.

  Mikki and I exchange a look. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I just remembered the name of the main character in The Secret Garden: Mary Lennox. I shake my head. Total coincidence. It’s a common name.

  Mary instructs us to head down to the orientation room on the first floor where we’ll meet a security guard named Jason who will take us to the off-site archival facility in Roxbury, nine miles away.

  ‘Roxbury,’ Mikki whispers as we settle into the backseat of the white SUV bearing the logo of a private security company.

  ‘I know.’

  Roxbury is where most of Black Box takes place. It’s just a coincidence that it also happens to be where we’ll find the City of Boston Archival Center. It’s probably not a coincidence that Grandpa Hugh asked for the exhibit to be housed there after my eighteenth birthday. Roxbury was Jane’s home.

  Fifteen minutes later, we arrive at a large, box-like building on Rivermoor Street, and Jason escorts us to the entrance of the facility. Inside, he speaks with a woman sitting behind a waist-high counter in a small lobby with walls so white they’re almost blinding. It dawns on me that, based on Mary’s comme
nts about her and her co-workers’ curiosity, at least a few of the BPL employees have driven out here to the archival center to view this exhibit.

  ‘The Slayer exhibit?’ says the girl behind the counter, then she cranes her neck to get a better look at us.

  She’s young and average-looking, so I smile at her, hoping it will help get us back there quicker. She smiles back and beckons me with her hand. I grab Mikki’s hand as I approach the counter.

  ‘Are you William Slayer?’ the girl asks, and it sounds as if she’s trying to hide her Southie accent.

  ‘That would be me. Did Mary call you?’

  ‘Yeah, she called. You’re supposed to book an appointment before you come here, you know.’

  ‘I know. But our flight leaves tomorrow, so this is sort of an emergency.’

  She sighs then she asks us a few questions about the box and examines it for a couple of minutes. Once she’s satisfied the box isn’t a bomb, she hands Jason a set of keys and he leads us back to the BPL archives. Jason guides us into a huge warehouse packed with rows of twenty-foot-tall metal shelving units, each one stacked with boxes and boxes of archived documents. He takes us past the rows of shelves and into a small room about as big as a walk-in closet. The walls are lined with bookshelves, enclosed in glass like the ones in the rare books room at BPL.

  He walks directly toward the back wall of the room and unlocks the glass door on the left. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pair of latex gloves, and pulls them on before he squats down and reaches for something on the bottom shelf. My heart is pounding as he stands up and turns around.

  ‘Hand me the box,’ he says gruffly. I hand him the box and he carefully slides the key into the lock. ‘Seems to fit.’ He attempts to turn the key, but it doesn’t budge. ‘But it don’t turn.’

  ‘That can’t be. I know that’s the right key. It has to be,’ I insist.

  Jason doesn’t acknowledge my protests, he continues gently in his attempts to turn the key, but it’s not working.

  ‘Let me try,’ Mikki says.

  Jason shakes his head. ‘Nuh-uh. I can’t let you two touch this or I’ll be toast.’

  ‘But remember in The Secret Garden? It’s Mary who finds the key and opens the garden gate. Please just let me try.’

  ‘What the fuck is she talking about?’ Jason asks me as if she’s not in the room.

  ‘She’s right. It probably has to do with the pressure on the lock. Just let her give it a try,’ I say, trying not to punch him in the mouth.

  He rolls his eyes and holds the key out to her. Mikki takes it from his hand and I get a pang of jealousy when I see her hand touch his. He holds the box for her as she inserts the key into the lock again, but it appears to go in a bit farther this time. She turns the key and, instantly, the lock clicks and the lid pops open just a quarter of a centimeter as the latch gives.

  Jason catches the key in midair as it falls from my fingers. I can’t believe I’m about to see what’s inside the box I’ve been reading about for three years. I almost don’t want to know for fear it will be something ridiculous like a dry-cleaning receipt. I place my hand on the lid and Crush immediately places his hand over mine.

  ‘Wait. We should open it at the hotel,’ he says, and he doesn’t have to glance at Jason for me to know why he’s suggesting this.

  ‘Okay.’

  Crush takes the box from Jason’s hands and we all head back to the security vehicle. Once we’re back at the library, Crush tells Jason to tell Mary that we’ll try to make it back to share the contents of the box with her when we get back from Los Angeles. As we exit the library and descend the stairs, I’m overwhelmed by a dark dread.

  ‘I don’t want to know what’s inside the box,’ I say as we approach the sidewalk to hail a cab.

  ‘What do you mean? You don’t want to find out tonight? We can wait.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. I don’t want to know at all.’

  I’m afraid if I find out what’s inside that box, I won’t want to go to L.A. anymore. I want to tell him this, but I’m still so afraid of being committed. He said he won’t do it, but he’ll change his mind at the last minute. I know it.

  ‘Why don’t you want to know?’

  He waves down a cab across the street and the driver slowly maneuvers a U-turn to get to us. We quickly hop inside to escape the cold, but I don’t bother putting on my seatbelt.

  ‘Because I don’t want you to think that knowing what’s inside that box will change anything. I don’t want you to get your hopes up. I’m still me and my life is still my life. And it still sucks and everything still sucks. Just because you’re beautiful and you’re here when I need you doesn’t change anything. I’m still me! You can’t fix what’s inside here,’ I say, poking my temple. ‘Nobody can. That’s why they’ve all given up on me.’

  ‘Who’s given up on you?’