Iris stepped back and Evelyn reluctantly let her go. Once she’d got herself into the car and done her seatbelt up, she started the engine and reversed off the drive. Iris then wound the window down and Evelyn walked closer.
“Let me know when you get home.”
“Yes, mum! I always do!”
“No, you don’t. I usually end up calling you before I go to bed to make sure you did actually get home and you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“Ok, that’s true. But I just forget! And I have handsfree. Why not just call me in two hours? I’ll either be stuck in traffic and can talk to you or I’ll be home and can tell you that!”
“Or you could be an actual adult and remember to call me?” Evelyn said with a smile.
“But that sounds like hard work!” Iris replied. “I love you, mum.”
“I love you too. And I’ll see you soon, yes?”
“Hopefully! But who knows what my life is going to be like now with this cabinet?”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” Evelyn sighed and leant into the car to kiss her daughter on the cheek. “Call me when you get home!”
“Yes, mother!” Evelyn stepped back and Iris blew her a kiss before checking her mirrors and pulling away.
After just under 2 hours she pulls off the motorway and joins the A road towards her house. Iris calls her mother to let her know that she’s almost home and they talk until Iris pulls onto her own driveway. She got the cabinet out of the car and took it straight to her bedroom. She was thankful her house had a drive and a staircase that goes straight up with no corners, otherwise there’s no chance she would have got it into the house and up to her bedroom by herself. It was fine to carry the cabinet the few steps between bedrooms at her mother’s house, and her mother was there to help with the loading, but carrying it all that way by herself was another thing altogether.
She got it into position next to her bed and moved her other bedside cabinet to the side of the room. She transferred everything from her old cabinet across to the new one, lay down on the bed and started googling ‘magical bedside cabinets’. The first results were all furniture stores and kids furniture designed to look enchanted or with a plain old moon and stars design all over them.
She then looked up ‘mythical cabinet’ and discovered something called Polybius, some urban legend about an arcade game that was supposedly used by the CIA to brainwash kids. It all started when 4 kids in the US got sick within a few weeks of each other playing arcade games, one kid even died. It was definitely not related to this cabinet but she found it strangely fascinating nonetheless.
After wasting a couple of hours on that conspiracy theory black hole, she got back to what she was actually looking for. Iris searched for ‘curiosity cabinets’ and only found vague references to Harry Potter and magician acts. She then reluctantly accepted that searching on the internet wasn’t going to solve this mystery. She decided to call her mother after dinner and make a big family tree of who had the cabinet and when. Maybe knowing when and where the cabinet came from would shed some light on the kind of power it held.
She sat at the dining table with an A3 pad of paper, some pens and pencils. The person furthest back that they knew to definitely have had the cabinet was Iris’ great-great-grandfather. They could only assume that one of his parents gave him the cabinet and that he had it because he was the oldest child. So, Iris added on the next generation to the family tree but after that, they struggled with names. She decided to look into their family more so Iris set up an online genealogy account to see what she could find. She input what she already had as a starting point. She found the people she already knew about and matched them with official records but had trouble finding anyone much further back than them. She went back to the 1800s but couldn’t find any records to link more names to. The 1801 – 1841 censuses would be extremely handy but she couldn’t find them online. She looked at the national archives website and while they have a lot of records, she didn’t know where to start or what to look for. She decided to see if she could get some help from an expert. After all, tracing your family tree has become extremely popular lately, especially with programmes like the one on the BBC with the celebrities and their families. Iris watched it from time to time when it was on but she didn’t go out of her way to watch it. Even though she paid almost £100 for her TV package every month, she was rarely home from work in time with enough evening left for dinner and time to watch TV.
She found a reputable looking company online and sent them an email before she went to bed. At least if she could get someone to look into her family tree, they’d know where to look and what to look for. And maybe they could even trace the history of the cabinet for her. Can family antiques even be traced, she wonders? She got into bed and was asleep within a few minutes, exhausted from the craziness of the weekend and glad to once again be back in her own bed.
The company got back to her the next day and they agreed to help her. She gave them the information she had on her relatives under the guise of creating a family tree as a present for her mother’s birthday. They told her they’d get back to her within a week or so with their first round of research results. It seemed like a reasonable time frame so Iris paid the requested fee and waited to see what they’d come back with.
Chapter 9
The genealogy company got back to Iris 4 days later with their first round of research results. In the meantime, the objects from the cabinet had been fairly mundane. Monday morning, she got a packet of crayons which she gave to a very bored looking child in the waiting room of her office. She printed off some colouring pages to go with them and got some biscuits from the office kitchen. The kid’s dad, who turned out to be a potential client, was so grateful and thanked her profusely for keeping his daughter entertained. He explained that he’d had no choice but to bring her as it was a teacher training day at school and his mother, who usually looked after her, wasn’t very well.
On Tuesday Iris woke up to a waterproof outdoor padlock and key, which came in very handy when she got to the office for her colleague Dan. He couldn’t find his padlock to lock up his bike and Iris could see he was in a rush. He still had to get changed before his meeting and couldn’t leave his bike without a lock as there had been a string of bike thefts in the area lately. Dan was speechless when she gave him the padlock and key and told her he’d been looking at buying one of these but thought they were too expensive. She made up something about buying it, not needing it and planning to return it after work but could see he needed it more. She was pleasantly surprised when she came back from lunch and Dan had left her an envelope with an Amazon voucher in it. She sent him an email thanking him and telling him it really wasn’t necessary but his reply told her that it meant more to him than she knew and he really appreciated her being so generous.
Wednesday morning Iris got a cable for a phone charger which replaced the one she had in the car, as she accidentally shut the micro USB end in the centre console and snapped it off. She figured it was obvious how it was going to be helpful, to charge her phone, but when she ended up giving Dan a lift to the train station with his bike in the back of the car, it was even more helpful than expected. The chain had snapped on Dan’s bike and the battery on his phone was at less than 10%. He didn’t bring his battery pack with him like he usually did and he needed to call his wife the other end to pick him up. She was also 9 months pregnant and could go into labour at any time. He needed to be contactable as he lived an hour’s train ride away. So Iris lent him the cable to take home as the newly upgraded train carriages had USB plugs at every seat. She figured that she’d get the cable back from him the next day anyway.
Thursday, that morning, Iris got a gift card for a free audiobook. She thought it was an odd thing, even for the cabinet, but she was looking forward to seeing what she ended up using it for. Once she got into the office, she started her computer and went to make tea as usual. Iris usually kept to herself before she had her tea bu
t felt the need to strike up a conversation with the quiet red-headed woman she saw from time to time. The woman was new to the company and worked in either accounts or HR, Iris wasn’t 100% sure either way.
“Hey, good morning.” Iris said, trying to sound happy and friendly, even though she was tired from all the late-night internet searches.
“Morning.” Said the redhead rather distantly.
“How are you?”
“Fine thanks, you?”
“Yeah, I’m good, you’re fairly new here, aren’t you? How are you finding working here?”
“Oh, um, yeah it’s good. Better than the last place I worked!”
“Well that’s good at least!” Iris said with a smile. “I’m Iris, I work in product design.” Iris held out a hand to shake.
“Martha.” She said, taking Iris’ outstretched hand and shaking it quickly but firmly. “I’ve just started with the projects admin team.”
“Oh ok, cool, that’s the resource pool team, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, we’re assigned to wherever needs help. It means the work is varied at least.”
“That must be interesting. Getting to work across the whole company.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good. And it’s 9-5 so leaves me plenty of time at home too.”
“Do you live far?” Iris asks, to keep up the conversation more than anything.
“No but it takes two buses to get here as I don’t drive. So, it’s a 40-minute commute each way. Gives me plenty of time to read though!” Iris could see where this might be going now and why she’d felt the need to strike up a conversation.
After a quick conversation about their favourite books, which actually took almost 30 minutes, they got onto the subject of audiobooks. Martha had always wanted to try audiobooks but couldn’t justify paying for them. So, Iris gave her the gift card. Martha was so grateful as a new book had just come out that she was dying to read and now she could listen to it on her daily commute on the bus. They made themselves a fresh cup of tea each, seeing as they’d already finished the first ones while they were talking, and made their way back to their respective desks.
The genealogy company called Iris in the late afternoon, just as she got home, to explain what they’d found and sent some files over to her via email. They gave her the details of a few more generations of her family tree, including some very early photographs from around 1850 when photography was first invented.
“Straight away this points to the family being well off as photography was very expensive when it first became popular.” The woman on the phone told Iris. Iris thanked her and the woman told her that she’d be in touch, as they’re waiting for a few more search results back. Iris puts the phone down and looks at the attachments to the email in her inbox.
The photos are mostly posed photographs of the men of the family but there’s one family photo that catches her eye. In the background is a cabinet that looked exactly like the one she has next to her bed. She sent the photo from her laptop to her phone and got up from the sofa, where she’d been sitting when she took the call, then headed upstairs to her bedroom to compare them.
The wood looked to be the same, although the photo was black and white, the grain pattern was visible and seemed to be identical. The cabinet appeared to be the same size and the handles looked to be the same too. So, now Iris knew that the cabinet existed at least as far back as the 1850s.
She went back downstairs to her laptop to see what else had been found. She saw there was another email from them in the last few minutes. They’d received the last search results they were waiting for. The company told her that they’d now gone as far back into her family history as they could but that her family appear to have emigrated to the UK from somewhere in Europe. They found a record of her 5 times great grandfather arriving on a boat in the early 1700s from Italy. They couldn’t find anything more in the UK and the little town in Italy where he said he came from doesn’t have digitised records for that far back. She needed to either send them to Bracciano or go there herself to find the records to take her family tree back further. Since the cabinet was clearly with the family when they came from Italy, maybe it came with them?
Iris mulled it over and decided to go to Bracciano herself to see what she can find. She was more interested in the cabinet than the relatives and realised that it might be challenging to explain to the genealogists. She had a few annual leave days left to use at work and there were 2 bank holidays coming up, so if she timed it right, she could get a whole 10 days away for just 5 days leave. Perfect. She’d need to make a few things work in her office and potentially put off a few projects until she came back though. She made a mental note to look at her calendar by month when she gets into the office tomorrow to see what can wait and what can’t be moved around. Going to Italy was something she’d rather do sooner than later. Getting to the bottom of what the hell this cabinet was and how it came to be in her family is something she wanted to do right now but life had to go on in the meantime.
Chapter 10
She woke up the next morning to find dog treats in the cabinet. It seemed pretty mundane but who knew how it would come into play at some point during the day. She was getting used to waking up every day to something new, almost like a new mini-mystery to solve every day. But this big puzzle of the cabinet’s origin was what she truly wanted to solve. Not to mention, if her great whatever grandfather emigrated to the UK, did he really bring this cabinet with him? Or did he pick it up while he was here? Is there even a way to find out?
Once she’d arrived at the office and after she’d turned on her PC, she made herself a cup of tea and decided to submit her leave request to her boss in person.
“I know it’s short notice but something has come up, a family thing, and I have to go to Italy. It’s crazy, I know, but I have to get some old documents and they’re not digitised so I have to go in person and I have no idea how long it’s going to take to get everything I need.” Iris explained in something that could only be likened to verbal diarrhoea. Her boss took a moment to process what she said before he responded.
“You’re right, it is a crazy request but almost half of the leave you have left is from last year, maybe it would be good for you to take a holiday for once? Why not take an extra 4 days and have 2 whole weeks off? We’ll be ok without you for a little while. Well, we’ll manage!” He said with a smile.
“Ok, thank you, I appreciate it so much!” She said, feeling the relief wash over her. ‘Awesome’, she thought to herself, ‘I’ll actually have time for a holiday and to relax and do all the touristy things I want to as well.’
She spent her lunch break searching for more information about the little Italian town. Even though it appeared to be a tourist centred place, it didn’t seem to have many hotels, only about 6, so she’d probably have to stay further out of town if they were all booked up. It was the beginning of May so still relatively quiet. Tourist season didn’t start properly until June so she should be able to miss the rush. The closest big town turned out to be…. Rome! Fantastic! She really could do some tourist stuff while she was there too. Hopefully what she was looking for in the record office wouldn’t take more than a week to find at most. Then the second week she could head to somewhere with a beach.
‘How far away is the Amalfi coast?’ She wondered to herself. She’d just started to look into the 6-and-a-half-hour train journey when she found out what that day’s object was for.
Her office volunteered to help train sniffer dogs for the local police college, so once every few months a new dog came round the office, looking for planted items. The majority of the time it was a little pouch of drugs or money that the dog handler would plant before the dog inevitably found it. The company liked the arrangement as it meant employees were less likely to do drugs if they might be inadvertently caught out by a trainee dog. She remembered that she had dog treats in her bag when the training dog was suddenly very interested in her handbag. The whole office, including the
police officer, knew he didn’t plant the drugs there so it looked like she might be in trouble.
Was this the start of the bad things happening? What if they weren’t dog treats at all but actually drugs shaped like dog treats? Why would the cabinet give her drugs if not to get caught by the police?
The police officer asked if he could search her bag. She, of course, complied, hoping to god that there was nothing suspicious in there.
“Dog treats?” The police officer asked with an air of suspicion in his voice.
“Oh, uh yeah, it’s a small bag of them. I forgot they were in there.” She said sheepishly.
“Do you have a dog?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then why do you have dog treats?” Iris sighed a little too heavily while she thought about what to say.
“It’s a funny story.” She had to lie as she couldn’t exactly say she got them from a magical cabinet. That would probably lead to some kind of mental health-related arrest. So, what could she say? Lying to a police officer is a crime regardless.
“Well, my friend has a dog and I bought her a new chew toy. These came free with the toy as a sample but the dog is on a strict diet so can’t have them. I put them in my bag to get rid of them and I must have forgotten about them. You’re welcome to them if the dog can have them.” The police officer looked at Iris for a moment, his eyes slightly narrowing.
“I appreciate that but this dog is also on a strict diet, bless her, and unfortunately I can’t give her just anything from anyone in case it’s poisoned or something.”
“Really? Do people actually do that?” Iris asked, surprised.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“That’s terrible!”
After a successful police dog training session, the dog and handler made their way out of the building and back to their police car. She saw the police officer come back into the building and assumed he’d forgotten something. She went to make herself more tea and just as she got to the little kitchen, she came face to face with the police officer. They made a little more small talk and then much to her surprise, he asked her for her phone number.
The Bedside Cabinet: The Cabinet Mystery Book 1 Page 4