The Box

By H.A. Larson

Heidi Sloan's marriage is over, and the stress is eating her inside. A phone call to her beloved Grandmother Olivia results in what Heidi hopes will be a therapeutic visit to the old farmhouse that Olivia and her deceased husband, Matt, raised their family in.

One afternoon, while going through some old things in Gran's attic, Heidi comes across an ornate box that she hasn't seen since childhood. When she last saw it, she was a child playing in the attic with her cousin Sammy. Her grandfather took it away from her hurriedly, and, now, much like then, Gran takes the box from her again. Heidi, still curious as to the box's contents, confronts her grandmother who refuses to reveal what's inside.

Heidi's curiosity, a visit from Sammy, and some buried memories change, not only her visit with her grandmother, but her life. What will happen to Heidi? More importantly, what's inside The Box?

• Language: English
• Publisher: H.A. Larson
• Release date: Nov 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370872367

H.A. Larson

I publish my own paranormal/horror thriller ebooks. In addition to writing, I love to cook, bake, and figure out how to make things from scratch. I dream of living in a foreign locale, I have a passion for beauty and makeup, I am a world traveler-in-training, I spend a lot of time in nature, I'm a closet rock star, and I consider myself an amateur photographer. I much prefer a book over television, and I am a music fanatic.

Book preview

Chap 1: Phoenix Rising

White hot tears streamed down her face as she resisted the urge to fling her phone across the room. FUCK YOU! she screamed. Her angry voice echoed off the walls of the nearly empty, otherwise silent, house.

She paced hard through the hallway, her heart beating so fast that she could feel the pressure begin to build inside her head. It was times like these that made her wish she hadn’t quit smoking. The sweet inhale of tobacco vapor had always soothed her. Instead, she ground her teeth: a terrible habit she had acquired recently.

She remembered something her grandmother had taught her years before. Honey, when you feel ready to burst, breathe in deeply through your nose and exhale through pursed lips. She had paced her way to the back door, and so she stood there staring at the back yard while breathing like she had been taught. A few breaths later and she could feel herself approaching the shores of normal after the emotional wave she had been riding. 

As she released her feelings, she wished to be anything other than married. Anything.

She couldn’t even count all the times she had hated her husband with all her being. The hate had grown into a monster larger than herself, and she had found herself wanting to punish him for his transgressions more than she wanted to get along. 

She had been so ready for divorce for so long that, as a consequence, she had become emotionally detached years before. So why, then, lately was she starting to have second thoughts? It didn’t make any sense, and the monster was breathing down her neck, chastising her for being weak.

Things hadn’t always been like this. Once, they had been very much in love and couldn’t bear the thought of being apart. Over the last two years though, things had changed drastically, and while they shared a bed only inches apart, it might as well have been miles. She hated everything about him: his smell, his breathing, the way he chewed his food, and how he farted every night when she went to bed. 

They had agreed months ago to get divorced, against his wishes. A few weeks ago he had finally moved out of the house, and she had been ecstatic. Then, when she was downtown three days before, she had seen him. He had been holding hands and laughing with another girl, and her world came crashing down around her. She had called him today to say that maybe she was having second thoughts, and he had told her that he didn’t want to be married anymore.

So here she was standing by the back door practicing deep breathing like her grandmother had taught her to do. Her thoughts turned to that of her grandmother. She hadn’t talked to her grandmother in awhile. Maybe it was time to call her. Feeling considerably calmer, she grabbed her phone and dialed the familiar number. Her grandmother picked it up after the third ring, Hello?

Hi Gran, she greeted.

Heidi! her grandma returned excitedly. It’s been so long since you called. How are you, honey?

I’ve been better, Heidi admitted as she basked in the familiar comfort of her grandmother’s voice.

Well, maybe you could get away this weekend for a visit? I’ve been going through some of my things, and could use some help. I think I’m ready to downsize from this old house.

Sure, Heidi replied, I don’t have any plans, and I could really use a weekend away from here.

Oh could you? That would be so wonderful. I’d love to see you, and we can talk about everything over a good cup of tea.

Heidi smiled at the thought. Okay, I’ll head out Friday morning.

See you then darlin'.

Bye grandma.

Goodbye.

Heidi Sloan hung up the phone feeling immensely better than she had not more than ten minutes before. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, releasing all her emotions with it. She was going to be all right. Maybe not necessarily today, maybe not even all the time, but eventually she was going to be just fine. In fact, tomorrow she would go file for divorce and request to have her maiden name back. She would petition to be Heidi Harris again…to be herself again.

She stared out the back door window, gazing upon the flowers that were starting to open their petals. Winter had been officially over for a few weeks, and the grass was green again. The sky was slightly overcast, and as she looked upwards to the clouds, she could see raindrops as they began to gently fall. 

She took in the scenery for another moment before turning around to get back to what she had been doing before she had talked to Liam on the phone. As she moved into the dining room, something caught the corner of her eye off to the right. She turned her head to where she thought she had seen something, but there was nothing there but the dining room table.

She moved into the living room where she had been sorting some of Liam’s things. She sat down on the couch, determined, now that she would be gone over the weekend, to pack up the remainder of his things and leave them on the front porch for him to collect. She was on vacation through the end of next week, and she needed to get these things done. Besides, the last thing she wanted to see when she got home from her grandmother’s house this weekend was a reminder of her failed marriage.

She sighed, and the urge to cry was strong. She would have cried too had she not seen something else out of the corner of her eye. This time it came from her left, over by the front door. She felt uneasy and quickly jerked her head in the direction of the door. She closed her eyes, began to count, and chanted: It’s not real, there’s nothing there. It’s not real, there’s nothing there, over and over again until she had counted to ten. 

When she opened her eyes she looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want any of that nonsense to start all over again. It had been a long while since she had seen the shadows, and she sure didn’t want to go down that road again.

Memories of childhood flooded her mind, taking her to another time and place. She could see the ceiling of her old bedroom as she stared at it in the dwindling daylight that streamed through the window. She lay there, unable to sleep, as she listened to her parents argue and fight somewhere within the house. It was there, in her childhood bedroom, that she first saw the shadows in her peripheral vision. 

She continued to see the shadows periodically as she grew up, especially when things weren’t going well. As her parent’s own marriage deteriorated and their arguments escalated, so did her anguish, and the presence of the shadows increased. In time, Heidi blamed the shadows for her parent’s divorce. 

As she grew older the shadows would return whenever the going was tough, and, as such, she began to acknowledge the shadows with dread. Wherever the shadows were, bad times were sure to follow. She kept the shadows a secret until she was nineteen when she made the mistake of telling her mom. Her mom thought she was crazy and committed her to a mental hospital for a month.

When she left the ward, she promised herself two things: she would never mention the shadows to another person, and she would never talk to her mother again. The only good things that happened on the ward were meeting her friend Sandra, who she still talked with weekly, and having Dr. Mansell for her psychiatrist. Dr. Mansell helped her understand that the shadows were only in her mind, and gave her better ways to cope with her stress. It’s where she learned to count to ten with her eyes closed and tell herself that the shadows weren’t real.

The memories melted away and she began sorting through Liam’s things again. She ran her hands along the raggedy scarf she had made for him the year she decided to take up knitting, before putting it in the cardboard box. 

Next were a few of the key chains he liked to collect from places he went. She never understood why he collected key chains as one could only use so many. She smiled as she thought of their trip to Mount Rushmore five years ago, and how she watched him sort through commemorative key chains with all the glee of a young kid. He had left three of them in random places throughout the house, nothing unusual, and she looked at them. Two were from travels they had made through a couple of states on previous trips, but the last one was notable for being a metal phoenix pressed against a metal backdrop of fire as it stood among metal ashes.

She put the other two key chains in the box, but something prevented her from putting the phoenix in to join them. She stared at it in fascination. This phoenix reminded her of how she was feeling right now: ready to rise from the ashes anew and begin a new life. It felt like a comforting sign that she was going to be okay. 

She got up and fetched her key ring from her purse. She took off the old key chain and replaced it with the phoenix. It was hers now.

A shadow danced just out of sight off to her right, but if she saw it, she didn’t acknowledge it.

Chap 2: To Grandmother’s House We Go

Spring rain was lobbing the car with large, lazy raindrops as Heidi made the three hour-long drive to Gran’s house. She had finished sorting and packing the last of Liam’s things the night before, and she had put the boxes out on the front porch for him to collect. When she called him afterwards to let him know, he hadn’t answered, and she imagined him holding his new girlfriend. 

The thought made her stomach sink and she had willed herself to think of something else. She clutched the steering wheel tighter thinking about it now. She reminded herself that her feelings were only leftover ones and that she was going to be okay. She stared down at the phoenix keychain that now held her keys and took a deep breath. She was going to rise anew.

The drive was going faster than she remembered, and she tried to rationalize why it had taken her this long to go visit her only living grandparent. Olivia Wilton was the only grandparent that Heidi still had, and at the age of 40 she considered herself lucky. None of her peers, at least none that she was aware of, still had living grandparents. 

Grandma Olivia was her mom’s mom. Heidi’s mom, Betsy, had always had a strained relationship with her own mother, and Heidi could never understand why. Now that she was older and had her own strained relationship with her mother, she realized that maybe there was more to it than her mom just being easily offended. No matter, Olivia had always been a perfect grandmother to Heidi.

Every summer Heidi would go spend a few weeks at her grandparent’s house out in the country. She always looked forward to going-at least she did most of the time-and would eagerly await the end of the school year. Her dad would always drive her halfway there, to a small town, where her grandparents would always be waiting for them at the ice cream shop. Her dad would load her suitcase in the trunk of her grandparent’s car, hug Heidi goodbye, and drive away. The three of them then-Heidi, Olivia, and Grandpa Matt-would go have their first ice cream of the summer before heading to the Wilton’s.

The memory was a bittersweet one as Grandpa Matt had passed away seven years earlier. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer six months before that, and his death had come swiftly leaving everyone shell-shocked. No one was ready, especially Betsy. Betsy had avoided seeing her dad for years in an attempt to punish her mother, and Heidi knew that she felt guilty about it. She had broken down so acutely that Heidi had to leave the room when they learned of his passing. Betsy hadn’t really been the same since that day, but at least made some amends with her mother. The same couldn’t be said of Heidi and Betsy.

When she arrived at the hospital to pay her last respects to Grandpa Matt, Betsy had come to Heidi with her arms open wide, but Heidi was still mad at her mother for committing her, among other things. She had