In This Town

2. Hallucinations

Imogen could have sworn she left the box full of her hoodies and jackets over by her new bedroom door. In the past two days, it had been the seventh time she found herself misplacing boxes or other objects – not that she was counting – and Imogen wasn't sure if she was going crazy or if the walls in the house were moving behind her back when she turned. Or, maybe, Imogen thought, the air in the Ashenfort was laced with a poison of some sort, and she was being faced with the side effects of a very prolonged, very irritating hallucination.

Imogen entertained the last idea as she opened up a new box and began unpacking it, figuring it would speed up the process of setting up her room. She imagined walking down the large staircase leading down to the foyer, intentions set straight on hauling up a new box to her room only to find her family had all turned into giant lizards. The thought made her giggle, and before Imogen knew it, she had imagined up a whole new, crazy world at the same time that she had unpacked a large majority of her own boxes. Imogen stared, wide eyed at her nearly finished room. She hadn't realized that her strange fantasy had taken up so much of her thoughts, but she was impressed nonetheless. Soon, she would get her mattress onto her currently-empty bedframe, and she would hang up some pictures on her empty walls. Maybe after that, Imogen thought, it would start feeling like a home.

It took a while for her to spot it, given the fact that she already had so many empty brown boxes scattered around her room. It was when Imogen sat on her floor, leaned against her bed frame – the only place in her room she was able to sit thus far – that something caught her eye. Looking past her open closet doors and into the generously large space, sat a packing box almost identical to Imogen's own. Only, this one stood out. Because instead of one of the boxes she had messily scrawled on the contents of, this read differently; "Bo's keepsakes".

At this, Imogen couldn't help the way her eyebrows pulled together. Could it have been her mother's box, possibly of things she owned as a kid? She'd never heard the nickname "Bo" for her mother, Brynn. In fact, the nickname didn't even make any sense at all! But, Imogen figured finally, who was she to judge?

With a grunt, Imogen was back up on her feet, moving to stand right in front of the box. For a moment, she paused to inspect the details of the object; the corners were worn out immensely, as if it had been kicked or pushed around a lot. There were marks about halfway down the center of the box, where it looked as if someone had begun to peel back the tape but then suddenly changed their mind and then tried to pat it back down into place. Imogen confirmed her own suspicions when she eyed the tape on one half of the closed flaps and saw it was just barely sticking to the cardboard.

On one hand, Imogen couldn't help the curiosity that plagued her. Sure, it was likely her mother's box, probably just full of old junk that would catch Imogen's attention at first but then eventually have her bored to tears. Although on the other hand, it looked so tempting. If she just peeled back a little more tape...

"Imogen! Get over here, now!" She heard her mom yell, seemingly right on time. Imogen rolled her eyes. By the tone that her name was called in, she knew she was probably in trouble. Imogen made her way out of her new room to navigate the loud sound of her mothers' voice, racking her brain to figure out what she could have done wrong. Though, her mother had a tendency to over-react so she wasn't too concerned.

"You rang, mother?" Imogen called as she turned a corner into what would surely be Lucy and Scarlett's new room. Imogen tried not to laugh as she peered into the room and it finally dawned on her what she had done.

"Imogen, do you think this is funny?" Her mom said, motioning down to the boxes labelled "Twin's games" and "Lucy misc." and etcetera that actually contained kitchenware – pots, pans, cooling racks, and really just anything else she could pass off.