Treasure Box

by Orson Scott Card

  "I think you're my dear wife," said Quentin. "But going outside sounds like a good idea. You were going to show me the river."

  "You had enough breakfast?"

  "Full as a tick," said Quentin.

  "Grandmother, do excuse us to take a walk along the bluff."

  Grandmother's eyes followed Quentin as he rose to his feet and pulled back Madeleine's chair so she could also rise. But she said nothing.

  Simon's voice piped up loudly. "Everyone here who is actually real, please raise your hand!"

  Madeleine murmured to Quentin, "When they get to a certain age, I think they should be locked up somewhere."

  Quentin laughed and shook his head. "Why, when he's already locked up in a dream?"

  "Oh, you put that so beautifully." She squeezed his arm. "I love you."

  The library had only the windows to link it with the outdoors. They had to cross the entry hall and go into the official dining room in order to reach a door leading out onto the back portico. It was a broad expanse of flagstones with five wide steps leading down to the snow-covered lawn. The lawn itself, interrupted only by an occasional tree that was invariably surrounded by a circular bench, flowed on to the bluff overlooking the river. The river itself was, of course, below the level of the bluff, but in the clear, weary light of a winter afternoon, they could see the dark shadows of trees against stark and shining snow on the bluffs on the opposite side of the river. Miles and miles away, it seemed, though it could hardly be that far.

  "It's a little bleak," he said.

  "Imagine it with leaves," said Madeleine. "Imagine it filled with life. Imagine it when the country was still young and you might hear the tootle of a steamboat on the river below, and the sound of children laughing as they ran along the bluff."

  As she spoke, the pictures she conjured in his mind delighted him, and he smiled. "All right," he said. "I'm willing to admit that winter has its own beauty, too."

  "This house wasn't always filled with strange old people, you know," said Madeleine. "It was once alive and bright."

  "When you were a little girl here?"

  "I was a solitary child when I lived here," said Madeleine. "And Paul—he was no company for me."

  Quentin wondered again whether Paul might have molested her, or tried to.

  "But Mother told me what it was like when she was young. She and Paul were little here, and even though that was well after the age of the steamboats, of course, they knew the stories—Aunt Athena told them—and they'd play steamboat captain down by the river or up in their attic playroom."

  "The idylls of childhood."

  "Whatever that means. Exactly."

  "But Aunt Athena can't be old enough to remember steamboats, either."

  "Oh, of course not. Just a conduit for old stories. Family memories. She has to use her head for something. Keeping the old tales alive isn't a bad occupation for it."

  "Mad, you're so nasty about them."

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm always so frightened when I come here, I'm not at my best."

  "What are you afraid of?"

  She didn't answer and she didn't answer, and then they were at the bluff and the river scene unfolded below them. Even with patches of ice along the edges of the river, it was formidably wide. Quentin remembered paintings by the Hudson River School and tried to apply those magnificent pastorals and landscapes to the scene before him. It wasn't hard. Before the river was a highway, it was a habitat, and now that the traffic was gone, perhaps that old life was coming back. Some old docks still touched the icy river edge, but at other places the verge of the river had been given back to the woods. How many squirrels were living off stored nuts in those trees in the lee of the bluffs? How many coons and rabbits, field mice and weasels lived without the sight of man for months on end?

  Her hand stole around his waist and she leaned into him. "Oh, Quentin, I do love this place, I do love it. This is what brings me back, even though I hate who I become when I'm here."

  "So let's open the treasure box and go. I can buy you another place on the river with a view just like this. Or better."

  "There is no place just like this."

  "You don't want me to look for another Victorian mansion?"

  "Pre-Victorian, dear," said Madeleine. "Victorian is so... nouveau."

  They laughed.

  They walked on the path along the edge of the bluff. In a few places the drop-off was rather steep, and the path did skirt rather close. He couldn't help remembering Uncle Paul's jocular warning: Maddy's a pusher. And he was walking on the side by the river. But she wasn't pushing, she was holding him, and he loved the feel of the way their bodies moved, not quite together, but rubbing against each other, hip to hip, his arm across her shoulders, her arm around his waist. The breeze was a little chilly, but the sun was warm.

  They reached the end of the family property and turned back to the house. They took a different path this time, and it led around a small stonewalled graveyard with an arched entrance. "Isn't it kind of morbid, keeping the family dead here on the property?" asked Quentin.

  "It depends on how you regard the dead," said Madeleine. "They were part of us in life. Shouldn't they be part of us in death?"

  "Will you be buried here someday?" he asked.

  "I intend never to die," she said.

  "Statistically, almost every woman who marries is signing on for widowhood at some time in her life."

  "Do you want to be buried here?" she asked teasingly.

  "Not unless I'm really dead," he said. "No fair burying me while I'm still snoring."

  "You admit you snore?"

  "Everybody snores," said Quentin. "But they only hear the other guy's snoring."

  "And sleep through their own," said Madeleine. "Isn't that the way it goes."

  "Does my snoring annoy you?"

  "I think it's sweet," she said. "And when it keeps me awake, I pinch your nose and then you think you woke up to go to the bathroom and while you're in there trying in vain to aim somewhere near the toilet, I fall asleep very very quickly."

  "What an efficient system. By the way, I may miss sometimes, but I've never yet peed on my feet."

  "Or if you did, it didn't wake you," she said.

  "You're as gross as a kid," said Quentin.

  "It's one of the things you love best about me, though."

  "Maybe," said Quentin. "But you have to promise to act shocked when our children talk gross. It's no fun if your parents can match you, ick for ick."

  "I promise to be shocked."

  They were back at the house. The dining room was empty. So was the library, and the table had been de-leafed and turned the other way, so it didn't take up the whole space between the vast walls of books. It wasn't as warm and inviting as the library in the grande dame's house had been. Instead of ladders, there was a balcony around three sides of the room, with a narrow spiral staircase leading to it. It all looked cold and uncomfortable, like a high canyon that you could only scale by taking your life in your hands climbing up a rickety narrow ladder. He went to the shelves to examine the titles, but Madeleine caught his arm almost at once. "Quentin, there's nothing readable there."

  "In a house this old," he said, "there are bound to be some real finds."

  "There aren't, trust me. Nobody actually reads. When this room was remodeled into a library, they bought books by the yard."

  "Oh." Quentin was disappointed. He had once held a first edition, first printing of Uncle Tom's Cabin. In his hands, a book that started a war and changed the world, perhaps one of the very copies that had done it. But if the library was recent instead of old... still, even books bought at estate auctions sometimes had gems.

  Nevertheless, he understood that Madeleine was more eager to open her treasure box than she wanted to admit. He let her lead him out into the entry hall and then into a parlor in the northeast corner of the house. It was lighted only by the windows, which on a winter afternoon meant the room was dim indeed, especiall
y because heavy brocade curtains were closed at the top and swagged open near the base, so they more than half covered the glass.

  Everyone was gathered here, though all but Uncle Paul and Grandmother seemed to hang back as close to the walls as the furniture allowed. Grandmother stood firmly, despite her shrunken, ancient appearance, her hands atop an intricately engraved mahogany box that stood on a small table in the middle of the room. Uncle Paul hovered near her, looking down at the box and then up at Madeleine and Quentin.

  "Oh, darling, do hurry," said Uncle Paul. "I'm so eager to see what's left for you in there."

  "I can bet you are," said Madeleine dryly. "Try to contain yourself."

  Nevertheless, Paul's hands kept darting down toward the box, though he never quite touched it.

  Grandmother's eyes stayed fixed on Quentin.

  "Tin, dear," said Madeleine. "Why don't you open the box?"

  "Oh, it's really not my place," said Quentin. "Your treasure, after all, and wanting to open it all these years."

  Grandmother's eyes bored through him.

  "Tin, I know it's silly, but now that it's come down to it, my hands are trembling so much I—isn't it silly? I guess this meant more to me than I thought. Won't you please help me out?"

  "Is there a key or something?"

  "No key!" Uncle Paul offered.

  "Do keep your helpful information to yourself, Uncle P," said Madeleine.

  "Oh, I know, darling, it's your prize."

  "It is," said Madeleine. "There's nothing in there you can use. Count on it."

  "Oh, I know," said Paul. "But we're all just so... intrigued with it. Like Christmas—you're dying to find out what's in everybody's packages, not just your own."

  "Quentin," said Madeleine. "Please don't say no to me."

  Quentin sighed and stepped to the box and put his hands on it. The wood was warm and smooth, the surface clean and polished. The geometric etching was intricately done, almost lacy in places. It was a beautiful box.

  It was also a box with Grandmother's hands on it. Not to block him; her fingertips touched only the back corners of it. But her eyes still drilled into him, and even though she said nothing, he couldn't help but assume she was forbidding him to open it.

  "I don't think your grandmother wants me to open it."

  "Did she say so?" asked Madeleine.

  "She hasn't been very chatty so far today," said Quentin, "but as you said, she lets people know what she wants."

  "Quentin, everybody else here knows it's my right to open it. And my husband's right—what's in there is as much yours as mine, isn't it? You didn't ask me to sign a prenup, and I didn't ask you to sign one, either."

  "You know what just occurred to me?" Quentin said, laughing. "Wouldn't it be a kick if it turned out that the box itself was the inheritance? You know, a keepsake. Nothing in it at all, just the box itself. The magical dreams of childhood, preserved forever."

  "There's something in it, all right," said Madeleine.

  "It's just chock full of stuff," said Uncle Paul.

  "Something is chock full of something, anyway," said Madeleine. "You're not helping, Uncle Paul."

  "I'm not?" said Paul. "Oh, foo. Fum. Fee fie foe."

  "Tin, aren't you going to open it for me?"

  "Sure, of course," said Quentin.

  "Then do. Just open it."

  "I am," said Quentin.

  "You are what?" said Madeleine.

  "Opening it."

  "The evidence of my eyes says otherwise," said Uncle Paul, leaning close and looking him right in the eyes. "Open the damn box, you impotent lickspittle."

  The venom in his voice almost stung. Quentin took a step back, removing his hands from the box.

  Grandmother was still looking at him, but was she smiling a little?

  "Tin!" wailed Madeleine. "Just go to the box, take hold of the corners of the lid, and lift it up. There's not even a latch!"

  He stood there in embarrassment, unsure of why he couldn't quite bring himself to do this simple thing for his wife. "Is this a joke? Is something going to pop out at me?"

  Madeleine abruptly began to beat the air with her fists like a tantrum-throwing child. "Open it open it open it!" Her face twisted into a grimace of weeping.

  "Good heavens, Mrs. Fears, what a display!" cried Uncle Paul.

  "Madeleine," said Quentin. "What's going on? This is too weird for me."

  Abruptly she stopped the tantrum and was in control of herself, but the damage had been done. Quentin had seen a side of her he didn't know existed. Like a spoiled child. That's how she had acted ever since coming into this house. Like a bratty kid who was used to being able to say anything to anybody and no one would reprove her.

  "It's her stopping you, I know it," said Madeleine. "Grandmother won't let me have what's rightfully mine."

  "Madeleine, I just don't feel right about opening it," Quentin said. "Can I help that? If it's so easy, you open it, not me. I want you to, really. I'm just not part of this. Open it."

  She slapped at him, though she was too far for her hand to reach him. Bursting into tears she screamed, "Why did I marry you if you can't do the one thing I want most for you to do!"

  "Look, I'll open it!" Quentin said. "But I hope you know this isn't the most attractive you've ever looked in your life."

  "Open it!" She was frantic now, almost panicked.

  Quentin touched the box again. It was so warm. His ringers tingled. This whole business is turning me into a basket case, he thought. Obviously this box was far more important to her than she had let on. And yet she had kept it a secret from him through their whole engagement and these months of marriage. Plotting and planning. It meant that he had been manipulated and he hated that. Hated manipulating and being manipulated.

  "Mad, I really think this isn't a good time to open the box," Quentin said. "You're upset and I'm upset and we need to have a talk about this first."

  She wailed at him, sinking to her knees. "There's nothing to talk about! It's mine!"

  "I know it's yours. But it's waited all these years, can't it wait till we talk this out?"

  "Do you think talking will help?" she retorted. "She's stopping you. She's getting her way and I hate her for it! I'll kill her, I swear it."

  "She's not stopping me, for heaven's sake, Mad!" But in a way she was, those fingertips on the box, those piercing eyes.

  "What do you know about it!" Madeleine wailed. "All this work, all these months, I'm so tired! All for nothing!"

  "I hope you're not referring to our marriage," said Quentin, trying to sound like he was joking. But of course he was not joking. He was frightened.

  "If you loved me," said Madeleine, rising again to her feet, her face a mask of fury. "If you loved me like you say, you would open this box right now. This minute. This second."

  Quentin turned to the box again, put his hands on the lid. The box trembled. "My hands are shaking," he said. "I don't think—right at this moment, Madeleine, I'm wondering—you make me wonder if our whole marriage is a sham, just so you could get me to open this box. Tell me that isn't true, Mad. This whole thing is so crazy, it can't be true."

  "Open," she whispered, her face a mask of fury. "The. Box."

  Quentin took his hands away from the trembling box and pressed them to his face. "Mad. Mad, what's happening to us?"

  She screamed. Not the scream of a child in tantrum, but a high wail that sounded like a woman keening with grief. He turned to her, reached out his hands in pleading. She recoiled from him, spun around, and ran, staggering, from the room.

  Confused and frightened and hurt, Quentin turned back toward the box. "I'll open it, Mad! Come back, I'm opening it, see?"

  But Uncle Paul's hand was on the box now. "Not without Mrs. Fears in here, Mr. Fears," he said, smiling. "It's in the will."

  Quentin looked around the room. Somehow, without his noticing it, all the others had slipped out of the room. Well, he wasn't surprised—this hadn't been a ple
asant scene to watch. Only Uncle Paul and Grandmother remained, both of them touching the treasure box. Quentin looked Grandmother in the eye. "Doesn't she love me, Grandmother?" he asked.

  The old lady's lips began to move. Slightly, no sound coming out.

  "I should follow her," Quentin said. "I'm going to follow her and bring her back and we'll open the box and then we'll get out of here and everything will be all right. That's what I should do, isn't it?"

  Her lips moved again. He leaned close, to hear her.

  "Babbling old woman," murmured Uncle Paul, but he removed his hand from the box and stepped back out of the way.

  Grandmother, almost nose-to-nose with him now, whispered to him. "Find me," she said.

  It made no sense at all. The woman was senile. She was no more in control of this house than Quentin was.

  Madeleine. Somehow she could explain it all. She could make sense of it. She was his wife, after all. She loved him, he loved her, they had everything in common, they had their lives together, she was his and he was hers forever. This was just some insane quarrel, some stupid misunderstanding.

  Where was she? He ran out of the parlor into the entry hall. He checked the library, the drawing room, the dining room. The door to the back portico was open, the winter chill already skimming the floor so his feet went cold as soon as he entered the room.

  He ran to the French doors leading out to the portico. She wasn't there. He cast his gaze out across the lawn of snow just in time to catch a glimpse of her, her hands at her face, as she ran awkwardly into the walled graveyard.

  Immediately he took off after her across the snow.

  8. Footprints

  Quentin couldn't see her in the graveyard. He ran among the headstones, looking left and right, but she wasn't kneeling anywhere, wasn't standing behind anything. There were bushes, but all of them were leafless. If she was within the graveyard walls, he would see her.

  There was no other gate. He ran to each of the far corners of the enclosure, to see if her footprints led to the wall, if by some chance she had climbed it.