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‘Give me the box,’ I say to Mikki, and she quickly lifts the flap on her bag to retrieve the black box.
‘How about this?’ she whispers, holding the bag open so I can peer inside and see the spine of the book.
No one knows this book exists other than my family and Mikki’s family. And my family thinks it’s tucked away in a safe in my off-campus apartment. If this woman finds out I have a book written by Hugh Slayer, their most generous donor in the last fifty years, she’ll probably tie me to a table and torture me until I cough it up.
I shake my head and pull the flap closed on her bag, then I place the black box on the desk. ‘This was given to me by grandfather; actually, he left it to me in his will with instructions to come to the library on my eighteenth birthday to retrieve the key that opens this box.’
‘The Secret Garden key.’
‘What?’
‘The key was added to the exhibit the week before the entire exhibit was taken down, per Mr Slayer’s instructions. It’s one of the staff’s favorite exhibits, and a bit of a mystery around here as to why he wanted the exhibit taken down just one week after his estate’s donation of the 1911 copy of The Secret Garden and the key.’
‘What key are you talking about?’
‘The key to the secret garden on Slayer’s estate. That’s what the exhibit says the key is for. We’re dying to know what’s inside the garden.’
I chuckle at this. ‘There’s no secret garden on the family estate. That key is not for a literal secret garden. It’s for this box.’
I pause for a moment as I try to remember everything I can about the book, The Secret Garden. All I can remember is that, after I read the book, I realized that it didn’t really matter whether the main characters found the key to the secret garden. In fact, it didn’t even matter what they found inside the garden. All that mattered was that the garden brought them together and changed them.
‘Oh my God, The Secret Garden? Have you read that?’ Mikki asks me excitedly, then she turns to the woman without waiting for my reply. ‘Can you please just try the key on the box?’
The woman stares at Mikki and, for a moment, I’m nervous that her face may have already been featured on the local news this morning. But Mikki doesn’t seem to share the same worry. She turns back to the woman and meets her gaze, her eyes pleading with the woman to help us.
‘All the articles in that exhibit are housed in an off-site storage facility. Slayer’s instructions for the exhibit were specific. The only person allowed to view the articles without a formal request is his grandson, William Slayer. Is that you?’
‘It is, but I have no way of proving it,’ I reply, trying not to look at Mikki. I can feel her gaze pointed at the side of my face. She now knows my real name and identity. And now, just one Google search and she’ll know everything about me up to the night we ran into each other in that parking lot.
‘You have the box,’ Mikki says, her voice soft and reassuring, ‘William.’
Hearing her say my name makes my hair bristle. I always hoped that if I ever met her, she’d never know the person I was before she saved my life. It seems my desire to change my name isn’t so different from her need to dye her hair. I want to reach inside her and erase the name from her memory.
‘That’s not my name anymore,’ I say, turning to her.
Her green eyes are locked on mine, but the words that come out of her mouth are addressed to the woman behind the desk. ‘Believe me, lady, this guy is who he says he is.’ She turns back to the woman. ‘Please take us to the key.’
The woman eyes the box on her desk and presses her lips together as she considers our request. Finally, she lets out a defeated sigh. ‘Oh, okay. But if you aren’t who you say you are and something happens to that exhibit, I’m telling the police you threatened my family.’
Mikki chuckles. ‘You’ve been reading too many crime novels.’
The woman looks a bit embarrassed by Mikki’s overly honest remark, but she picks up the phone on her desk and dials a number. After a brief conversation, she hangs up the phone and shakes her head.
‘I can’t believe you all are going to open that box and I won’t be there to see what’s inside.’ She looks up at me and I know she finally believes me. ‘Please consider donating the box to the exhibit. That is, if your grandfather would have wanted you to. I don’t know what’s inside there, but all this mystery has got my wheels turning. And, yes,’ she says, turning to Mikki, ‘I read a lot of crime novels. I love a good mystery.’
Mikki smiles. ‘So do I. Thank you . . .?’
‘Mary,’ the woman replies.
Mikki and I exchange a look. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I just remembered the name of the main character in The Secret Garden: Mary Lennox. I shake my head. Total coincidence. It’s a common name.
Mary instructs us to head down to the orientation room on the first floor where we’ll meet a security guard named Jason who will take us to the off-site archival facility in Roxbury, nine miles away.
‘Roxbury,’ Mikki whispers as we settle into the backseat of the white SUV bearing the logo of a private security company.
‘I know.’
Roxbury is where most of Black Box takes place. It’s just a coincidence that it also happens to be where we’ll find the City of Boston Archival Center. It’s probably not a coincidence that Grandpa Hugh asked for the exhibit to be housed there after my eighteenth birthday. Roxbury was Jane’s home.
Fifteen minutes later, we arrive at a large, box-like building on Rivermoor Street, and Jason escorts us to the entrance of the facility. Inside, he speaks with a woman sitting behind a waist-high counter in a small lobby with walls so white they’re almost blinding. It dawns on me that, based on Mary’s comme
nts about her and her co-workers’ curiosity, at least a few of the BPL employees have driven out here to the archival center to view this exhibit.
‘The Slayer exhibit?’ says the girl behind the counter, then she cranes her neck to get a better look at us.
She’s young and average-looking, so I smile at her, hoping it will help get us back there quicker. She smiles back and beckons me with her hand. I grab Mikki’s hand as I approach the counter.
‘Are you William Slayer?’ the girl asks, and it sounds as if she’s trying to hide her Southie accent.
‘That would be me. Did Mary call you?’
‘Yeah, she called. You’re supposed to book an appointment before you come here, you know.’
‘I know. But our flight leaves tomorrow, so this is sort of an emergency.’
She sighs then she asks us a few questions about the box and examines it for a couple of minutes. Once she’s satisfied the box isn’t a bomb, she hands Jason a set of keys and he leads us back to the BPL archives. Jason guides us into a huge warehouse packed with rows of twenty-foot-tall metal shelving units, each one stacked with boxes and boxes of archived documents. He takes us past the rows of shelves and into a small room about as big as a walk-in closet. The walls are lined with bookshelves, enclosed in glass like the ones in the rare books room at BPL.
He walks directly toward the back wall of the room and unlocks the glass door on the left. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pair of latex gloves, and pulls them on before he squats down and reaches for something on the bottom shelf. My heart is pounding as he stands up and turns around.
‘Hand me the box,’ he says gruffly. I hand him the box and he carefully slides the key into the lock. ‘Seems to fit.’ He attempts to turn the key, but it doesn’t budge. ‘But it don’t turn.’
‘That can’t be. I know that’s the right key. It has to be,’ I insist.
Jason doesn’t acknowledge my protests, he continues gently in his attempts to turn the key, but it’s not working.
‘Let me try,’ Mikki says.
Jason shakes his head. ‘Nuh-uh. I can’t let you two touch this or I’ll be toast.’
‘But remember in The Secret Garden? It’s Mary who finds the key and opens the garden gate. Please just let me try.’
‘What the fuck is she talking about?’ Jason asks me as if she’s not in the room.
‘She’s right. It probably has to do with the pressure on the lock. Just let her give it a try,’ I say, trying not to punch him in the mouth.
He rolls his eyes and holds the key out to her. Mikki takes it from his hand and I get a pang of jealousy when I see her hand touch his. He holds the box for her as she inserts the key into the lock again, but it appears to go in a bit farther this time. She turns the key and, instantly, the lock clicks and the lid pops open just a quarter of a centimeter as the latch gives.
Jason catches the key in midair as it falls from my fingers. I can’t believe I’m about to see what’s inside the box I’ve been reading about for three years. I almost don’t want to know for fear it will be something ridiculous like a dry-cleaning receipt. I place my hand on the lid and Crush immediately places his hand over mine.
‘Wait. We should open it at the hotel,’ he says, and he doesn’t have to glance at Jason for me to know why he’s suggesting this.
‘Okay.’
Crush takes the box from Jason’s hands and we all head back to the security vehicle. Once we’re back at the library, Crush tells Jason to tell Mary that we’ll try to make it back to share the contents of the box with her when we get back from Los Angeles. As we exit the library and descend the stairs, I’m overwhelmed by a dark dread.
‘I don’t want to know what’s inside the box,’ I say as we approach the sidewalk to hail a cab.
‘What do you mean? You don’t want to find out tonight? We can wait.’
‘No, you don’t understand. I don’t want to know at all.’
I’m afraid if I find out what’s inside that box, I won’t want to go to L.A. anymore. I want to tell him this, but I’m still so afraid of being committed. He said he won’t do it, but he’ll change his mind at the last minute. I know it.
‘Why don’t you want to know?’
He waves down a cab across the street and the driver slowly maneuvers a U-turn to get to us. We quickly hop inside to escape the cold, but I don’t bother putting on my seatbelt.
‘Because I don’t want you to think that knowing what’s inside that box will change anything. I don’t want you to get your hopes up. I’m still me and my life is still my life. And it still sucks and everything still sucks. Just because you’re beautiful and you’re here when I need you doesn’t change anything. I’m still me! You can’t fix what’s inside here,’ I say, poking my temple. ‘Nobody can. That’s why they’ve all given up on me.’
‘Who’s given up on you?’
