The Story of The Box

It was many years ago now when I was just a little girl. That’s when I saw this for the first time, stuffed secretly in my Grandmothers loft. We were playing, my brother and I, when we crept up there. It was dark and musty, and I remember there being a cold breeze drifting across from a tiny hole the bats had made in the roof to roost beneath the beams. We could see the light streaming in from outside through this tiny gap, illuminating a small wooden box.

We looked at each other and my brother, Eddie, picked it up. He carefully opened the lid to reveal a little ballerina twirling around and a twinkly tune playing. On hearing it, he swiftly closed the box so grandma couldn’t hear we were up there.

Eddie thought we should take it downstairs with us so we could see it properly, so we did. We crept down the stairs and ran past Grandma in the kitchen with it hidden under Eddie's shirt and out into the garden.

We sat by the pond. Grandma couldn’t see us here from the kitchen window so we knew we wouldn’t get into trouble.

Eddie opened the box again, this time the tune sang out merrily and we watched as the ballerina dressed in white twirled and danced on her stand. She began to slow down and eventually came to a stop. Eddie picked up the box and turned it upside down to find how to wind it back up again. As he did, the bottom flipped open as if he had triggered some kind of catch.

As the base flung open a photograph fell out. We looked at each other bemused as I bent down to pick it up. As I looked at it, I saw a young girl in the photo. She must have been about the same age as me, 8yrs old, maybe 9, with her hair in bunches and holding a teddy. The picture was black and white, so we knew it was old. She looked to be standing next to the same pond we were sat next to, only in the background, we could see a tree that was not there anymore. We looked to where the tree was in the photo but there was nothing, not even a stump. Then we heard Grandma calling us. We were curious as to who the girl was and wanted to know if the picture was taken in Grandmas garden so we decided to ask her, even if it meant being told off for going into the loft.

She was not happy with us, she snatched the box and made us go and sit on the stairs. Half an hour later she came to get us. She said she wanted to talk to us but that we should not have gone up into the loft. We certainly shouldn’t have moved the box. We were both curious as to why.

She told us that she had lived in the house all her life. Her parents lived there before she was born many years ago and she was born in the back bedroom one summers evening.

She tells us that she went up into the loft with her friend when they were young, Scarlett was her name. She recalls taking the box into the garden, just as we had done, and opening it. A photo fell out of the bottom she remembers, it was a photo of a little girl, one that lived in the house before her parents took it on. Grandma tells us that this little girl, Penelope, had sadly died from a nasty infection a few weeks after the photo was taken.

Grandma became noticeably quiet as she went on to explain. Her friend Scarlett had opened the box and taken it outside. A few weeks later, when playing in the tree that is in the photo, Scarlett fell out of the tree and knocked herself out. The doctors looked after her for three more weeks until finally, Scarlett's body could cope no longer, and she too died.

She then looks at us. The legend is that whoever opens the box, finds themselves in an early grave. Hundreds of years before a curse had been placed on the house by a spiteful witch, who had become pregnant by the husband of the owner of the house during an affair. The man had told the witch he would have nothing to do with the child. She had cursed the box and given it to the man's daughter, who opened it and had died within weeks. The box had to stay in the loft, secretly stored away where no one could find it. Terrified that history would be repeated, the parents of little Penelope told my great grandparents the story. They of course didn’t believe them, until Scarlett had died. This made them wary. They hid it well, not quite well enough as my brother and I had found it.

Within a week of Grandma telling us this story, my brother was hit by a car. He died on impact, just up the lane there.

And now I find myself telling you, my own grandchildren, the story of the box. I have told you so many times not to go up into the loft. And now you find the box. This photo is of my brother. I’ve not seen this box in so many years, I just hope that the curse is now over.