He brought me a box of darkness, intricate carvings adorned its
cover. He told me I would know everything if I had the courage to open
it. I ran my finger along every swirl and swoop while its hinges
glittered in the candlelight. He took a sip of wine and raised an
eyebrow. I gulped mine and looked down into my glass. I wondered what
hoard of ghosts might be trapped beneath its surface.
How
had I ever agreed to this meeting? I never trusted him, this Mr.
Hoffman, with his waxy skin and his reptilian eyes. There were times
when I stared directly at him that I could have sworn his pupils would
suddenly stretch into vertical black slits, but just as quickly they
would revert back to their typical rounded emptiness. This man had known
my father for many years yet I never understood their connection. In
fact I had always felt that my father had kept a distance between Mr.
Hoffman and myself because he knew that he made me uncomfortable. Lately
though, I had started to believe that is was much more than dislike,
that there was a danger that dripped off Hoffman under the guise of
forced sincerity. Every molecule in my DNA warned me to run, but I was
rooted in place despite the itching in my brain stem. He knew he had me
in this moment, fraught with tension and distrust, yet in spite of it
all I looked up and met his gaze. It was my turn to raise an eyebrow and
to tacitly convey what a smarmy little b*****d I thought he was.
But I was more curious about the box found on a shelf in my father's
office than I was in Hoffman's motivations. My father's disappearance
was still unsolved and I desperately hoped it held the key to what had
happened to him. There had to be answers hidden away in here, for if
there were not I might go mad. Not knowing was more of a burden than I
could bear. I had to know, that is who I had always been, and Hoffman
knew it. The only tangible clue left behind were my father's
fingerprints left in the dust on its cover. It sat there patiently while
he and it silently mocked me. A flame of hate burned inside me but I
could not quite explain its ignition. It's warning lost to me in the
moment, one that I would soon regret.
My face felt flush
with choices to be made, the pull was unbearable but not unpleasant. My
breath came in short shallow puffs and my mind whirled frantically. The
hour was upon me, I could no longer resist and so I took a polished nail
and raised the hasp with a nonchalance I did not feel. With both hands I
lifted the cold lid and inhaled the dense dark mist that rose to meet
me. It snaked around me inviting me in. I hesitated for just a brief
instant and then it completely enveloped me. I felt myself being pulled
far from this place as screams of those foolish enough to open the box
before me greeted my own cry in perfect high-pitched terror. It was in
that moment I knew with absolute certainty that some things should never
be known, because knowledge like this always came with a price, and
some answers were meant to be buried deep in the darkness.
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