The Box!

The Box!Click.....

The Box is as ordinary as anything. It has six faces, eight corners, and twelve edges, not counting the lid. For now, it is wrapped in a perfectly pleasant shade of puce and bedecked with a bold bronze bow. Like all gifts, the Box is at once giving and taking, at once known and unknown, but it is not scary. It has no lips to grimace or grin with; it cannot grumble, or growl, or lash out and grab with grubby little hands. It is ordinary: it can open, and it can shut. The only thing is, it really ought to remain shut.

This is what little Ava reminds herself in the brief penumbra between shattered dreams and the blurry bleakness that greets her when she wakes. Between her and the Box are several thick, stalwart walls and a pair of doors, the nearest of which is thrice locked. This is what is safe, and safe is what is good. Her father taught her that.

The girl swings her legs over the edge of the bed, wriggles her nose, and lithely tiptoes over soft pine to the attached bathroom. Scant light leaking through the porthole window casts a narrow cone of slate gray—just enough light that Ava can see herself reflected drearily in the cabinet mirror above the sink.

The same as every morning, she runs her hands over her body to make sure that nothing has changed. One cozy hand-knit sweater, every thread in its place. Ten fingers, ten toes, and one nose. Lastly, the cold kiss of metal on her chest assures her that the key is safe.

Next, Ava pats her head gingerly and frowns. Her hair is much too dark, and barely any longer than a boy's. No matter what she does, much of her pathetic mane seems to float and quiver around her, snootily, contemptuously, like a thick cloud hanging over a town that's desperate for rain. Perhaps she could tame it if she lit a candle and worked it all over in the mirror, but not for any longer than the next sleep. This is simply not worth the effort, and anyway, Ava does not have very many candles to spare.

The bedroom would be pitch black if not for the little light that follows Ava out of the bathroom. From memory alone, she can avoid the little hazards—toys and discarded fabrics, mainly—and hop up into her tea chair. Before she is a small table monopolized by her knitting project of the moment, as well as another chair, a match for her own. This one is reserved for Mr. Quimble, her stuffed friend. Ava would not know he is present if not for his eyes, two glossy black spheres faintly shimmering in the dark.

"How are we this morning, Mr. Quimble?"

Silence speaks volumes. Mr. Quimble, of course, does not reply, but the situation is graver than that. The old house does not settle; the wind does not whistle through the trees outside; and, apart from Ava's heartbeat and careful breath, no sign of life makes itself known.

"Oh," she says, smirking. "There's no need to be so dramatic."

More silence.

"You know, Mr. Quimble, one mustn't be a grump on Christmas Eve. Santa won't come for bitter children, will he? No, he won't. Nobody will. So be good, alright? Be happy."

It is only a short while later, as she is knitting herself a new sock from old blanket scraps, that Ava hears it: a brand new sound, or at least one she's forgotten. Distant, insistent... could it be... a knock at the front door?

"Yes... no, I know. You are probably right, Mr. Quimble. But what if it is a new friend?"

Ava reaches into a shoebox beneath her bed and retrieves one of the two remaining candles. She lights it with the first match from her last book of matches. The vibrant orange hue of the flame is the first true color she has seen in a long while, and it coaxes the colors out of her surroundings. For so long now she has been imagining the objects in this room in various shades of gray, the color palette of the pale, dark-haired girl she sees in the mirror. She wants desperately to put the flame to every nook and cranny, to see familiar things for the first time, but the wick is burning, and it won't grow back. She has to move on.

The knocking at the front door does not cease.

Click. Click. Click...................