Forgotten Boxes (4 page)
Authors: Becki Willis
Grumbling to himself, calling himself a thousand kinds of fool,
Tarn kept up the self-degrading banter as he drove back to his mountain.
Back
where I belong.
Away from the crowds and the strangers and the pretty woman
with the big blue eyes and the strawberry blond hair. Away from the gossip and the
rumors and talk of the past. Away, where he could be good and alone. Until today,
it sounded like his very own slice of heaven.
But for some reason as his old truck climbed the hills and drove
further into the trees he so loved, it just sounded lonesome.
The man was right. It was simply delicious. Coming straight from
the jar, the texture was stiff and a bit coarse, but the flavor was sweet and pure.
She spread a little on a cracker and put it in the microwave for a few seconds,
melting the cream into a smooth, buttery texture. One taste of it warmed, and she
was hooked.
Would the mountain man taste as sweet,
she wondered. Did
his lips taste of maple? What would tickle the most, his mustache or his beard?
And where had these thoughts even come from?
Charity could hardly wait for morning to come, when she toasted
up her frozen waffles and tried one with maple cream, the other with Grade-A Amber
maple syrup. She could have been eating cardboard for all she cared; the sweet taste
of pure maple was all that registered.
Fortified with nature’s delicious treats, she tackled the cottage
with a renewed sense of purpose. She stopped back by Dan’s Market that evening,
hoping to run into the sugarmaker again, but his large form was nowhere to be found.
The next evening, she still did not find the man, but she did
discover a shelf full of delightful carved wooden treasures. She wanted to ask about
the artwork and the man she had met, but the register had a steady flow of people.
Somehow, her questions seemed too intimate to ask when surrounded by an impatient
audience.
She vowed to ask the next night, as a reward when she finished
sorting and cleaning the cottage.
After sifting through her aunt’s personal effects and meager
belongings, Charity selected the few items she wanted to keep for herself or save
for later perusal. The rest of the things she packed into boxes and asked the local
Salvation Army to haul away.
Without all the clutter, the small cottage could breathe again.
If she refused to think about the tattered set of clothes — still hanging in the
bedroom because she could not bring herself to touch them — the house seemed almost
pleasant. It would make a charming rental property and a much-appreciated second
income.
For a moment, Charity considered staying in the house herself.
After all, with her home-based business she could work from anywhere, as long as
she had electricity and internet service.
She could think of multiple reasons to stay. First and foremost,
Vermont was a beautiful state. She loved the quaint villages and the rural farmlands,
the wooded mountains and the cozy valleys. There would be no rent to pay. She had
no obligations in Baltimore, nothing there to tie her down. Sure, her father lived
there and she got along well enough with her stepmother, but since retirement, the
couple decided they wanted to travel. She was truly fond of her stepsiblings, but
they had their own lives. Charity acknowledged that a change of location might even
be good for her, to break her out of the rut into which she seemed to have fallen.
At twenty-eight, she was far too young to have such a stagnant life. And she had
certainly developed a new infatuation for the area’s major source of income, maple
syrup.
She could think of only one reason not to stay. She still did
not know the truth about what happened to her uncle.
What if he had died here at the house? What if his blood had
seeped into the floorboards or the fibers of the mattress? What if there really
had been foul play involved? What if he had been murdered? The mysterious note still
bothered her with its ominous tone.
Those very questions kept her at the little motel in town, even
though the accommodations were cramped and over-priced. It would make more sense
to stay here each night, yet she could not bring herself to do so. Instead, she
made the trek into town each day. At least it gave her the chance to ask questions
around town, for all the good it did her. Half the people had never heard of Kingdom
Parcel or her aunt and uncle; the other half were not talking. Charity knew there
was more to the story, but just like Hilda, the townspeople clammed up when she
asked about the past. And by staying in town, there was always the chance she might
run into the giant sugarmaker again.
By the fourth day, Charity was ready to tackle the ramshackle
shed at the edge of the property.
She went in armed with rubber boots and thick leather gloves,
flashlights and lanterns, a rake and a shovel. She worked her way front to back,
sorting through half-empty paint cans, gardening tools, a plastic tub marked ‘Christmas
Decorations’, and the usual assortment of odds and ends that resided in an outdoor
shed.
She found the bag late in the day, right before darkness set
in. The bulb in her lantern was beginning to dim, making it harder to keep the dark
shadows at bay. Dusk crept in from all angles, snuffing out the trickle of sunlight
that peeked through the cracks of the walls and the holes of the tin roof. Knowing
she was almost done, Charity pushed herself to finish, even when it was getting
difficult to see more than a few inches in front of her face.
At the back of the shed, stuffed into a corner behind an old
push-powered lawn cutter and a broken ladder, she found the over-sized black plastic
garbage bag. It was heavier than she imagined it would be, so she used both hands
to tug it forward. Whatever was inside had plenty of angles and corners that pushed
against the sides of the bag, making it awkward and difficult to manage.
Charity ended up dragging the bag across the dirt floor of the
shed, hoping the contents weren’t breakable. She set it outside the door and went
back for the broken ladder and other junk she needed to dispose of. By the time
she looked around the dim shadows of the shed, brushed off her clothes and hands,
and gave a satisfied nod, full twilight had set in.
As she shoved aside the plastic bag and latched the shed door,
she heard the old dusk-to-dawn light buzz to life out in the yard. She normally
did not stay this late — the secluded cottage was spooky enough in broad daylight
— but she had wanted to finish the shed. With the exception of this one mysterious
bag, she was done.
She tried to peek inside, but between the poor lighting and the
knotted ties, all she knew was that it held boxes of some sort.
Charity tugged the bag across the yard, hoping the cardboard
packing would protect whatever was inside the boxes. She reasoned that if the contents
were important, something fragile and valuable, Aunt Nell would not have stored
them so thoughtlessly in the corner of the rundown shed. Probably old decorations
and knick-knacks she hated to part with.
Or, judging from the weight of it
,
she reasoned as she heaved the bag up the front steps,
it could be old tax returns
or some such paperwork. Heavy paperwork.
By the time Charity reached the screened-in porch, she was out
of breath. She assured herself it had nothing to do with being out of shape and
fifteen pounds overweight. Okay, twenty. Twenty-five, tops, but she planned to start
a diet soon, right after the maple jars were empty. That bag was heavy, and she
had put in a full day’s work out in the shed. Dragging that stuffed bag halfway
across the county would rob the breath right out of anyone, in shape or not. Besides,
it was one of those industrial-sized, larger-than-normal trash bags.
She decided to reward herself with a break. She was hoarding
a soft drink she had tucked away inside the refrigerator, taking sips here and there
throughout the day. She would take a few minutes now to rest on the porch, finish
off the drink, maybe even open a bag of pretzels to munch on. Low fat, of course.
They were particularly tasty when dipped in maple cream, she had discovered.
After her much-needed break, Charity worked the ties loose on
the bag. She would see what was inside, decide whether it was worthy of keeping
or trashing, then call it a day and head back to the motel. At the rate she was
going, she would be done sooner than expected and could return home to Maryland.
And to what,
asked a voice inside her head.
A small
little duplex with noisy, disrespectful neighbors.
Her rent was going up again,
but she could find nothing else within her price range. Her choices were to stay
in the duplex or move in as Tanya’s roommate. Neither option was particularly appealing.
Rather than pull the boxes out one by one, Charity pushed the
bag down to reveal the haphazard heap inside. The smallest box tumbled free; the
others stacked one upon another in erratic disarray. She grabbed up the small box
and examined it.
Still taped shut, the box was addressed to a Carl Upjohn in Woodbury.
The return address was a St. Johnsbury jewelry store.
Puzzled, Charity turned the box around in her hands several times,
looking for new clues. The tape was original and fully intact, meaning the box had
never been opened. It bore the stamp of Kingdom Parcel in prominent placement on
two sides.
She looked down at the remaining three boxes. All were securely
taped and stamped with the same Kingdom Parcel shipping logo.
It slowly dawned upon Charity that these boxes were part of an
undelivered shipment. A quick glance showed they were all stamped March 14, 1984.
She grabbed her phone and refreshed a previously opened window,
left on the article about Kingdom Parcel. Sure enough, her uncle had died on that
exact date. Had these boxes been on his truck that day? Was he in the middle of
a delivery when he died? Harry Tillman was quite likely the last person to touch
these packages.
But, no, that wasn’t right, she realized. Someone had placed
them inside this garbage bag and stashed them away in the shed. More than likely,
that someone was her Aunt Nell.
Why? Why had the packages been stuffed into a
corner, undelivered, and hidden for all these years?
No matter how hard she tried, Charity could not imagine a convincing
explanation. After a full five minutes, she huffed out a defeated sigh. “I guess
I’ll never know,” she murmured aloud with a shrug of her shoulders.
Startled to see how dark it was, she stuffed the boxes back into
the bag, gathered up her trash, and went inside. She lingered only long enough to
shut the house up for the night. She left the trash bag beside the couch, hastily
turned off the living room light, and locked the door behind her.
The light from the porch threw shadows into the night. Charity
had no choice but to step into them as she hurried to her car. The security light
was no help; it had little effect on anything not within its limited twelve-foot
radius. If anything, the long, thin rays of watery light exaggerated the shadows,
making them appear more jagged. Definitely more menacing.
Charity slipped inside the safety of her car and immediately
locked the doors. She knew she was being ridiculous, but it did not keep her from
shifting into reverse the moment the engine roared to life. Within minutes, she
was out the hidden driveway and on her way back to town.
She knew what the problem was; she was lonely. With no one to
talk to for the past few days —only the occasional sales clerk and that one chance
encounter with the elusive sugarmaker— she grew tired of her own company. Her mind
raced to keep her entertained.
It was a terrible thing, she decided, to bore your own self.
She talked to herself each day to fill the quiet emptiness of
the cottage. By now she had sung every song she knew, recalled every funny story
in her mind’s grasp, replayed a dozen conversations, imagined a half dozen more,
contemplated her future and her past, worried over matters great and small, daydreamed
about the rugged sugarmaker, and had even resorted to recalling movie snippets and
silly commercials in an effort to entertain herself. In the evenings at the motel,
she read her book, surfed the internet, watched the limited selection of television
channels offered, or played Sudoku until her eyes crossed.
By this fourth night in Vermont, her mind had nothing left to
do but think.
For whatever reason, her aunt had kept the clothes her uncle
wore the day he killed himself. Charity could not imagine living with such a reminder
each day, staring at it each night from the bed they once shared. Perhaps Aunt Nell
did it to punish herself, Charity decided, believing she was somehow to blame for
her husband taking his own life. Keeping the clothes was a strange choice, however.
Creepy, in fact. But keeping the packages was just wrong.
What about the people who waited for them to arrive? Surely,
they had noticed. Surely, they had complained, if not to Kingdom Parcel, then to
the stores that had shipped them. Charity tried to recall where the boxes had come
from. The small box was shipped from a jewelry store, one of the larger ones from
a department store. It seemed like another came from an automotive source. She did
not remember how the last box had been labeled, but obviously, someone had sent
it. Hadn’t the senders ever wondered what happened, why their packages had not arrived?
Nowadays, there were tracking numbers and electronic trails that
shadowed a package almost from conception to opening. What sort of tracking system
was in place in the early eighties? Who was responsible when the box never reached
its destination? Did they offer insurance back then, or was the recipient merely
out of luck? The longer Charity thought about it, the more questions that
arose.
It was no wonder that when she finally fell asleep, she dreamt
of the boxes. At one point, she dreamed she was in a room filled with dozens of
them, and each one contained a new set of work clothes, free of bullet holes and
blood stains. The scene morphed into boxes filled with packets of seed, which spilled
onto the carpet and immediately sprang up into prolific offerings of flowers that
tickled her nose and ivy that wound round her legs. Charity woke up fighting the
covers, her face buried into her pillow. She fell back asleep, but her mind was
still consumed with the boxes. In one dream, she opened a large box and found another
inside. She opened the second box, only to find a third nestled within it. It began
a crazy cycle of box after box, one inside another, until finally she opened the
last one. Inside, she found a hand-written letter, a profession of undying love
with a simple diamond engagement ring attached.
In the dream, the letter was addressed to her, Charity. The signature
was smudged so that she was unable to determine the sender, but there was no denying
the heady fragrance of maple that wafted from the box.
She awoke with a start. Dreaming about the sugarmaker was almost
as troubling as dreaming about the boxes.
***
After a restless night’s sleep, Charity had breakfast at the
café. She ordered an omelet and snubbed all things maple, ignoring the little pangs
of withdrawal as she drove out to the cottage for what might very well be the last
time, at least for this trip. With the exception of the bullet-riddled suit of clothes
and the mysterious boxes, her mission here was done.
The boxes beckoned to her the moment she walked through the door.
She sat on the couch and examined them once more, searching for clues she might
have missed the evening before.
The box from the jewelry store was small, about the right size
for a bracelet. She shook it, listening for a telltale rattle. Earrings? Perhaps
a ring? Did people even order engagement rings through the mail? Her curiosity itched
to know what treasure lay into the box, but propriety demanded she not open it.
Not yet, anyway.
She moved to the next box, wondering what it could be. It was
heavy, and she thought she felt the shift of something liquid inside. A bottle of
wine? Maple syrup? Perhaps beauty products. There were hundreds of possibilities.
Thousands, in fact; so many of them swirling inside her head that it actually hurt
with the effort to think.
Charity picked up the third box, turning it over in her hands.
Oddly enough, it had no return address. The recipient label was smudged, but she
could make out parts of the name and address. It was about the size of a shoebox
but heavy for its size. With no clues to even begin guessing, she set it aside in
favor of the final box.
This box had taken up most of the trash bag, being by far the
largest of them all. It was covered in brown parcel paper, but the overlaying edges
were ripped and worn, revealing a green and yellow box beneath. She could see enough
letters and enough of the picture to recognize what she thought was a child’s kitchen
play set. The shipping address was from Montgomery Ward, a popular mail-order company
of the day.
Charity reluctantly set the boxes aside as she went about tidying
the house, making certain everything was in order. Still, the play set haunted her
mind. She went back and checked the box at least a half dozen times, thinking she
may have been mistaken. Each time, she tore the paper just a tiny bit more, revealing
one more sliver of the box beneath it. Had it been a birthday present? One more
tug. An early Christmas present? Another hairline rip. What color was it, for a
girl or a boy? She would just peek under the paper for a hint...
Thoughts of the unclaimed toy occupied her mind, even as she
faced the final and most difficult task of the day. It was easier, in fact, to concentrate
on the boxes than on the blood stained clothes. She forced herself into auto-mode,
performing the deed without thinking about it.
Using a large trash bag as a shield, she never touched the cloth
with her skin. She worked her fingers from behind the plastic, holding her breath
as she shook the dust off the tattered outfit. The khaki was at least two shades
darker without the thick covering. As the dust fell to the floor, Charity stepped
back in a fit of coughing and sneezing. She would have to sweep again.
She held the outfit at arm’s length as she wrapped it within
the bag and dropped it into a plastic storage bin. Her mind worried over the lost
toy, even as she packed away the final traces of her uncle’s last day on Earth.
Snapping the lid onto the box, she carried the whole affair out to the car and slipped
it into the trunk, out of sight and out of mind. It was hardly something she could
donate to Goodwill, and for some reason she was reluctant to throw it away, not
until she understood her aunt’s reasoning for keeping it all these years. Not until
she understood the truth behind her uncle’s death.
Charity swept up the mess she created, made another sashay through
the small cottage, and proclaimed herself done. After turning out all the lights
and packing the boxes back into the trash bag and into the car, she took a moment
to say goodbye.
“Aunt Nell, I have no idea why you lived such a sad, secluded
life. I’m sorry you and my mother were estranged. I’m sorry I never really knew
you.” She looked around the small living room. Without the shadow of the bullet-sheared
clothes, it was almost a pleasant, cozy scene. “I appreciate your generous gift,
but I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with it,” she admitted to the silent
room. “There’s a secret here, something to do with the clothes and the boxes. Until
I know what that is, I don’t think I can bring myself to stay here. So maybe I’ll
rent it out, maybe I’ll sell it. Whatever I choose, I hope it will please you. I’ll
try to do right by you, Aunt Nell, because I have a feeling you were done wrong
somewhere along the way.”
Even though she had never really known her aunt, sadness pricked
at her eyes. She blinked the tears away with a sniff. “Bye, now. Rest in peace.”
As Charity took the overgrown path out to her car, a sense of
apprehension slithered over her. She glanced around, but no one was in sight, only
the shaggy edges of flowering plants, trees, and that thick, overgrown hedge out
front. Her steps quickened.
Unlocking the car door, her eyes fell on the trash bag in the
back seat. She had to do something with the boxes before her duty here was done.
But what?
***
The boxes weighed heavily on Charity’s mind. Adding to the pressure,
a crazy thought tumbled around in her head. She tried to ignore the idea, tried
replacing it with a better solution. She even tried not thinking of the boxes at
all, but it was to no avail. By the time she pulled into the motel parking lot,
she knew what she had to do.
As crazy as it sounded, as impossible as it might prove to be,
she was going to deliver the boxes to their rightful owners.
Never mind that it was over thirty years later. Never mind that
the people may have moved or changed their names. Never mind that the addresses
— or the people— might no longer exist. Never mind that she did not know the area
or how far away the destinations might be. This was something she had to do.
She spent the afternoon researching the names and addresses.
She knew from experience that here in the mountains, GPS was not always dependable.
Between the directional system, internet, local library, and the helpful woman at
the post office, Charity found three of the four addresses on the cross-section
of maps she had accumulated. The fourth address was no longer viable, but she kept
digging, trying to track it down. She admitted defeat by evening, but she went to
bed content, knowing she finally had a solid plan.