The Christmas Music Box

Halloween had always been Darren’s favorite. It was a shame, Rebecca thought, that he was no longer here to celebrate it. She thought about the last Halloween - how his sandy blonde hair had stood on end, pulled by the static as he slipped off his batman mask, blue eyes twinkling in the orange glow that permeated everything that night. She thought about how she was torn over celebrating, or not, as she hoisted tote bags full of his favorite peanut butter filled chocolates onto the counter. She knew he would want her to celebrate, how his smile would have crinkled into a mischievous smirk planning costumes and tricks to go with the treats, but her broken heart felt so empty now that faux tombstones had turned into real monuments of grief. Her melancholy escaped from her chest in a deep sigh as she looked around the quaint kitchen until her eyes found the trim around the door that led to the mud room. 

She made her way over to the gleaming white wood, trailing her hand along the surface that was perfect except for sporadic lines and dates that stopped just below her hip and marked three years ago. A single tear fell down her cheek, hot and angry, but never bitter. How could she have any regrets when her heart had been so full? She hurriedly brushed the tear away and set herself on her mission to find the candy bowl with the skeleton hand that grabbed at eager trick or treaters - it had always been Darren’s favorite. She hoped it still worked so she could use it, but first she’d have to find it, which meant going up into the attic she dreaded. 

It wasn’t that the attic was scary, per say, but the dark and the dim, the cobwebs and the creaky corners, and the collection of old things reminded her of cemeteries. Memories were left up here, traditions boxed into taped up cardboard coffins, and neither light nor eyes touched them. It felt lonely in a way that was almost as oppressive as the stale dusty air that caressed her face like a ghost as she pulled down the hatch that contained a rickety ladder that led up into the gloom. 

The attic smelled exactly as she remembered. Dust. Old wood. The faint mineral scent of insulation baking beneath the roof. Moonlight seeped through the tiny window at the far end, turning the boxes into crooked silhouettes. Rebecca reached up and flicked on the light. Nothing happened. She frowned and flicked it again. The bulb blinked once, casting a weak yellow glow across the rafters, half the illumination it should have been.

“Great.”, she mumbled, but began scouring the attic for the skeleton bowl, moving boxes and sneezing occasionally, her nose tickled by the dust that danced through the air as she searched. Her hands swept over boxes and Christmas decorations, passing by little pieces of a life she had carefully packed away without ever quite admitting that was what she was doing.

A plastic nativity set missing one of the wise men. A box simply labeled DARREN, age 4. A faded stocking with a crooked D embroidered across the top. She held the stocking up into the light. She remembered making it. It had taken her three evenings because she had never been particularly good with a needle. Darren had wanted silver stars sewn all over it, and she had pricked her finger so many times that she'd threatened to throw the whole thing into the fireplace. He'd laughed. “You can't burn Christmas, Mom.”

As she put the stocking down her eyes caught sight of a creepy hand that had been tucked behind it. “There you are!” she exclaimed, and grabbed the sought after candy bowl, which in turn, grabbed for her, causing her to jump. She laughed to herself, ready to retreat, victorious, fill the bowl, and pour herself a tall glass of wine. She pulled the chain for the light, her feet finding the ladder stairs, and as they did the attic’s silence was broken by a soft, metallic chime. 

Rebecca turned back towards the dark. The music box was somewhere behind the Christmas decorations. She remembered putting it up here, or thought she did. It had been years since she'd heard it play. She flicked back on the light and searched, finding it beside the artificial tree box, tucked behind a stack of old wrapping paper and a cardboard box of lights. She pulled it free, blowing off the dust that covered the lid.

It was smaller than she remembered. Dark walnut, polished smooth with age, with a tiny brass key on one side and a glass window set into the front that let you see the sparkling Christmas village inside without lifting the lid. She gazed fondly over the little white church, the three pine trees, the red cottage and it’s evergreen wreath, and four figures standing around a Christmas tree like the ending scene of the Grinch.

Rebecca smiled despite herself. “Look at you.” she whispered as she ran her thumb over the glass. Darren had loved this thing. Every Christmas Eve, he had insisted on winding it before bed. “Just once more” That had been his phrase. Just once more. And how she longed to give him just once more of everything. She had wound it so many times that the song had become inseparable from him.

She turned the key three times. The familiar metallic clicks sounded in the quiet attic. Then the soft pings of music began ‘Silent Night’.

Rebecca closed her eyes. For a moment, she was back almost a year ago to their last Christmas. There was hot chocolate on the stove, flour on the counter and Christmas lights reflected in the kitchen window. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor in pajamas, carefully arranging presents beneath the tree even though she had told him a dozen times that Santa was perfectly capable of handling it. She could hear his laugh. Feel his little hand slip into hers. She could almost smell his hair after his bath.

Rebecca opened her eyes as the music slowed, the attic empty. She looked down at the box, the little figures statuesque as ever. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and tucked the music box beneath her arm with the skeleton hand. “Guess you're coming downstairs too.”

As her feet hit the ladder once more, she heard it again, a solitary soft metallic chime. Rebecca stopped and looked down. The music box was silent. She waited.

Nothing happened. “Old mechanism,” she muttered.

That explanation satisfied her for approximately twelve minutes. By the time she reached the kitchen, she'd almost forgotten about it. Almost.

She placed the music box on the counter, the skeleton set beside it while she went about the business of making Halloween feel like a holiday. She put orange candles in the windows and hung the decorations Darren had made in preschool. A paper bat whose wings were cut outs of his feet. A lopsided glued pom pom ghost. A construction-paper pumpkin with one eye noticeably larger than the other and a crooked smile. She saved the pumpkin for last. It had Darren's name written on the back in faded crayon. Rebecca held it against her chest for a moment before hanging it on the wall.

“There.” She stepped back, admiring the space and how it looked almost normal. Almost.

She opened the bag of candy and poured the chocolates into the skeleton bowl.
“One for you,” she thought. “And, one for me.” She laughed softly, and mixed in with the foreign sound of her laughter was the clinking of metallic notes. Her laugh died suddenly and the house became quiet again. Too quiet. Rebecca glanced toward the music box, relieved when it was still. She shrugged it off, shoving another candy from the bowl in her mouth and decided she’d better go to bed if her mind was beginning to play tricks on her.

At 2:17 in the morning, she woke to the faint sound of twinkling music. She lay still for several seconds, her mind still lost in the fog between sleep, trying to determine if it was real. But it was, and the soft lamenting notes of Silent Night were filling the stillness.

Rebecca bolted up right and traced the melody downstairs, her heart racing. She stood in the shadowed hallway, listening as the music continued. Slow. Delicate. Almost painfully beautiful. In the kitchen, the wooden box sat exactly where she’d left it, the brass key unmoving as the music continued to play. She tiptoed to the counter, holding her breath. The music stopped.

She picked up the smooth box, it felt chilled from the night air, but the coldness made Rebecca shiver anyway. She peered into the music box’s window, searching for an explanation, a disconnected spring, something that would explain why everything about the box felt wrong, Her eyes passed over the tiny figures, the woman, the man, the little girl, and the boy, and frowned. Everything appeared just as it should. Then the figure of the boy turned its head.

Rebecca dropped the box on the counter and stumbled backwards. For several seconds she couldn't move, paralyzed by what she was certain she had just seen. She rubbed both hands over her face. “Okay. I'm tired, really really tired.”

She picked up the music box with trembling fingers and decided to open the lid. The boy was facing the tree again, exactly as he should be. “I'm losing my mind.” she chuckled, closing the lid and tossing the music box on the counter. She longed to return to her bed but she was now awake and coffee seemed like a better alternative than tossing and turning until the sun rose in a mere matter of hours.

As she scooped grounds into the filter behind her, something clicked. Rebecca froze. Another click. Then another. The brass key had begun to slowly turn, and the music began again, and beneath it, almost too faint to hear, the faint whisper of a child's voice humming along.

Rebecca turned around. The boy inside the box was looking outward towards her again, and smiling? She knew that smile. It was Darren's smile, the one that had always appeared when he knew he was about to get away with something.

Her throat tightened. She didn't touch the box. She didn't dare. Tears filled her eyes. For three minutes, neither of them moved. Then the boy pointed toward the little red cottage, and she watched as the door creaked open. Rebecca leaned closer. There was nothing inside. The door slammed shut, and Rebecca Jerked backwards. The music stopped, and the boy stood still as a statue facing the tree.

The kitchen clock ticked and tocked. The coffee pot sputtered and hissed, signaling that it was finished brewing. Rebecca poured herself a cup, sipped it black with trembling hands wondering what was wrong with her. She sat down with her coffee determined to figure out what was going on with the box and began examining it from all angles. On the bottom she noticed a loose panel, like the back of a photo frame. She turned the tear-dropped shape metal bit until the wood slid off the bottom into her hand. There was a scrap of paper, yellowed with age, folded neatly with scrawling familiar handwriting on the outside “1974” - her former mother-in-law’s handwriting. Rebecca unfolded it. It was a newspaper article about a missing boy.

Rebecca read it over and over again, her stomach tightening. Then she searched through the cabinet above the refrigerator where she kept things she didn't know what else to do with until she found an old envelope of photographs. Most were Darren; Christmas morning, Birthdays, Halloween, School pictures. Rebecca smiled at each one despite herself. And then she found what she’d been looking for, a photograph of the music box sitting on a table beside a Christmas tree.

Rebecca turned the photo over. It was dated 1976.  She looked at the music box, and then back at the photograph. Something cold moved through her spine. She sighed, the picture really told her nothing, and she was about to toss them all back in the envelope when a picture slipped out of the pile dated 1974.

There was Margaret, standing in front of a Christmas tree looking so happy she was almost glowing, and she was holding the music box. Rebecca studied the picture - the window to the music box looked different. There was something near the glass. Rebecca brought the photograph closer to her face, struggling through the grain to make out what it was. Her squinting revealed a tiny figure. A boy, who appeared to be looking outward, directly at the camera, his expression terrified. On the back was simply written, “For Margaret, so he’ll never have to be alone”.

Rebecca dropped it, for several seconds she couldn't breathe. Then the music began again, but this time, from upstairs. She looked toward the ceiling. Silent Night. Then came a knock. Holy Night. Three slow taps from inside the attic. Rebecca stood perfectly still. All is calm. Another three taps. All is bright.

Then a child's voice. “Mom?”

Rebecca's heart shattered. She knew that voice. It was the voice of the little boy who had been afraid of thunderstorms, who had crawled into her bed after nightmares, who had called her Mama. Rebecca covered her mouth to hold in a scream, tears spilling down her face. Silent Night. Holy Night.  Then: “Mama, I've been waiting.”

Rebecca closed her eyes. Every sensible thought inside her screamed to leave the house, but she climbed the stairs instead. The attic hatch was already open with the ladder down. “Mama.” The voice called sing-songy from above, and she climbed. The attic was pitch black, and the light refused to turn on, but she could just make out the shape of the music box, somehow transported up here, in the middle of the floor, the lid open. She crawled towards it, shaking. The tiny red door to the cottage was open again, but this time a light was on inside and she could see a miniature version of her kitchen. Her Halloween decorations, even the candy bowl with the skeleton hand. She recoiled. “No.”

The figure of the little boy moved suddenly, and pointed toward Rebecca, and then to the open door. “Mama, come inside.” Rebecca froze. The little boy grew taller, and his head titled unnaturally, his smooth wooden face reflecting some of the light. The music stopped too and silence swallowed the attic. “Come play with me, Mama”, the little boy said, but his voice had grown darker and deeper.  The music began again, but it wasn't Silent Night. It was something Rebecca didn't recognize. A slow and somber lullaby. The boy pointed toward the little cottage, his arms and fingers disproportionately longer. Rebecca shook her head. “No.”

The boy pointed again, and grinned, his smile stretched wider than it should have been with teeth that gleamed too brightly. Rebecca leaned towards the glass slightly. “What if I do come inside?” She asked, her breath a ragged whisper.

“Then you won’t be alone anymore” The boy almost sneered.

Rebecca wound the key of the music box until the mechanism clicked, and closed the lid as the attic went silent and dark. 

2 years later…

Anthony and Georgia had just bought their dream house on Magnolia Lane, and the keys jingled along with their cheery hearts as they crossed the threshold into the sunlit living room. It was a lucky find, bought at auction for a steal after the owner had mysteriously disappeared. They’d bought it sight unseen and were anxious to explore every nook and cranny. When Georgia got to the top of the stairs she called to Anthony, “Honey I think we have an attic!”

Georgia pulled open the hatch and unhooked the ladder, climbing into the dusty gloom, and there, in the middle of the floor, she discovered a beautiful, wooden, Christmas music box. Georgia picked it up and turned the brass key. Silent Night began to play and she smiled as she peered over the holiday scene and the woman standing next to a young boy beside a Christmas tree.