Heirloom

After two or so hours they had buried the last one, tamping down the dry friable soil which wouldn't quite cling together.

Audrey stood up and bent away from her outstretched hands as she slapped them together noisily.

The red dust whipped and twisted around her in unpredictable clouds and she turned her head this way and that to protect her face. She looked back down to Paul still sitting on the ground and saw that one of the heads had already pushed its way back up through the ground. Paul looked despondent.

'It's just what it does Paul. We know that now and it's not necessarily a bad thing.' Audrey forced a positive singsongy lilt into her voice.

'How can any of this not be a bad thing?' He got up off the ground and patted the back of his jeans. Audrey walked over and grabbed his arm, wrapping both of hers around it and pulling herself into his body. With her head against his chest she could smell the day on him, the landscape, the heat and fear.

She stared at the ivory head, no bigger than an egg, now proud of the surface. The crudely carved yellowing and expressionless face was turned upwards to the sky but it would follow the arc of the sun they had learned, it sinking once again beneath the soil when the day ended and the sun disappeared behind the mountains and below the distant horizon.

This place was new. Nearly two hundred miles west from Socorro and a hundred more from home. They had chosen it from the book and Paul had a good feeling this time he said.

They returned on State Route Seventy Seven and headed home, south west to Globe on the shimmering blacktop.

Paul was at the wheel, silent and contemplative, a familiar mood for him after the burials. Audrey hung an arm over the top of the car door letting the warm Arizona air wrap around her fingers. Her wrist would jolt backwards from time to time as the wind met the full force of her closed hand, and she playfully tried to push against it.

Paul spoke.

'I'm not sure I can do this for much longer Aud.' he turned his head meeting her eyes with an intensity. She saw his desperation, the guilt and loss had changed his face, remapped the wrinkles which once exaggerated a beguiling sparkle in his eyes.

'I know baby,' she said sliding a hand across his leg. 'We can do this though, together yeah?' She squeezed his leg to emphasise her point, show her love and hide her doubt.

Paul curled his hand around hers and lifted it to his mouth, kissing her fingers.

Audrey smiled. 'We've managed to lose three of them.'

'Are you counting that one,' Paul said gesturing behind him.

'Yes,' said Audrey hesitantly.

'It may come back Aud, I don't think we can be so sure this early. At least wait until we're home then we'll know.'

'You said you had a feeling earlier and I feel that too. I know the first two came back initially but that was before we found the book. We know what to do now and they will stay buried. And if they don't we'll just try again until they do.' She lifted the seatbelt up and over her head, turning her body towards him.

Paul shook his head. 'You make it sound so easy, Jesus. Like a fucking treasure hunt or something.'

Audrey frowned and squeezed his leg again. 'Hey, do you think I don't know how serious this is? But what choice do we really have. No one can help us Paul. We are utterly alone and I'm so frightened, we have to get on with this now, find Ellie and get as far away from here as we can.'

'But we'll never forget what we've done.' Paul was choked.

She unclipped the seatbelt that was still around her waist, and threw her arms around him wanting to shelter every inch of him in her embrace.

Paul slowed the car and turned into the gas station.

***

Audrey's aunt had died four years ago. In her will she had left a wooden box, an heirloom that belonged to and had been in their family as long as anyone could remember. Her uncle had brought it to the funeral telling Audrey that he wanted to pass it on now not knowing when he would see her again. Audrey wasn't around that much he'd said.

When asked, Audrey's mother knew very little about the box, just remembering it as a ornament in the family house. It remained locked but even as a curious child it never held any mystery for her she recalled, and she never knew what was inside.

With the dark wooden box, Audrey's uncle had given her a silver coloured key which was tarnished and pitted with age. When Audrey first held it, the fine electricity of its metallicness made her fingers tingle and when she slid it into the latch that secured the box it released the mechanism without a sound.

The day after the funeral she had opened the box and seen for the first time the six ivory statues wrapped in a heavy dark linen cloth. A few hours later Audrey's uncle was killed by a hit and run driver a couple of blocks from his house. Paul's father died the same evening of a massive heart attack and their twelve year old daughter Ellie after leaving for school the next morning, had not been seen now for nearly four years. A terrible thing had come into their lives.

Their grief had initially overwhelmed any thought that the heirloom was responsible, but as they gradually returned to normal life following the investigations and searches, bad things continued to happen and it was Paul who first raised the possibility and the coincidence. That their lives were being destroyed. 

Audrey believed it and took the box of statues to a thrift store. She had been keeping them in a cupboard under the stairs and the first time it took her three weeks to realise they had returned to the house. She had dismissed the strange incident as a moment of misrememberance; whilst imagining herself removing the box and delivering it to the Salvation Army, she hadn't actually done it. The second time the box returned  Audrey hid until Paul came home and he found her shaking and incoherent sitting among some old furniture in the garage.

They had found the book after a a couple of years during another attempt to dismantle the box. Paul had inadvertently pushed something and the base had fallen out revealing a secret compartment. Inside was a small clothbound book which held the answers Audrey and Paul had been seeking.

***

'Hey, do you want me to take over for a while?' Audrey stretched her arms above her head and let her hand drop to the back of Paul's neck which she stroked affectionately.

'No, I'm fine,' Paul replied. 'We've just passed Sharton, so only another half an hour now.'

'I can smell it, can you?' Audrey looked behind her to the rear of the car.

'Yeah, a bit. I don't think it ever quite disappeared from the last one.' Paul briefly took his hands off the steering wheel and grimaced. 'I want to change the car when this is over.'

'Definitely,' said Audrey. 'I was thinking, are these people really random? I know the book says it must be the first person we see after the burials but I can't help feeling it knows, is influencing us in some way.'

'You mean are they chosen by something, someone other than us?'

'Yes. Perhaps they are bad people Paul. Maybe, that is why we are being made to do this.' There was a desperation in her voice.

Paul turned to Audrey and smiled. 'That would help baby wouldn't it.'

Audrey began to sob. 'Yes,' she said covering her face with her hands. She looked at Paul. 'I just want Ellie back.'

Paul stroked her hair away from her eyes. 'I know honey and we will get her back whatever it takes.' He looked in the rearview mirror. 'Whatever it takes.'

 By Darren Seeley