The Box Beneath Eleanor’s Bed

The sound that came from Eleanor’s mouth belonged to no child I knew. It had none of her bright, quick inflection; each word landed level and lifeless, as though spoken by someone who had lived far too long.

Damp gathered along my hairline. “Who’s upset, sweetheart?” I asked. “Who do you mean?”

She raised one thin arm without hurry and aimed her finger past me, at the doorway. Greg stood in the passage, half swallowed by shadow.

“The woman without a face,” she replied. “Grandma said she would return me to her. Daddy is hiding me from her.”

My lungs seemed to forget their work. “Return you?” I managed. “What are you saying, Ellie?”

Her eyelids lowered, then lifted again. For a heartbeat, her blankness cracked, and terror showed through—raw and unmistakable. Her mouth quivered. “Mommy, she’s right behind you.”

My body went rigid. Cold swept through the bedroom in a sudden, brutal rush, and my breath emerged in pale wisps. The copper-and-lavender odor thickened until it coated my throat.

I could not make myself look back. Every frightened part of me demanded that I take Eleanor and flee, but fear had pinned me where I stood.

With painful care, I turned my face toward the window behind me.

Rain streaked the pane beneath the jaundiced glow of the streetlight. On the room-facing glass, fresh marks had appeared in the fogged surface, their edges wet and slowly slipping downward.

They weren’t Eleanor’s name. They weren’t words about Greg.

Three letters at a time, the droplets shaped a message that made my stomach clench:

IT IS TIME.

I lurched toward the bed, snatched up the dark box, and climbed onto the mattress beside Eleanor. I pulled her into my arms; she pressed her face against my shoulder and let out small, muffled sobs.

When I glanced at the doorway again, there was no one in the hall. Greg had vanished.

The box rested on the bed near my knee. Its iron fastening shook with a faint, frantic clink, like something trapped beneath the lid was struggling to break free.

The instant I lifted it, the noise ceased.

It didn’t dwindle or trail away. One moment it trembled; the next, silence—as if whatever it held had noticed my hand.

There was no time to try the clasp. I scooped Eleanor up around the waist and carried her against my hip, as I had when she was little. The box rode beneath my other arm, its weight pressing hard into my side.

She made no protest. Her head sagged against my shoulder, and her breaths came in an unnervingly even pattern. She seemed too cold, too slight.

I hurried downstairs, taking the last steps in a rush, and crossed into the living room. After lowering her onto the broad sofa, I spread a knitted throw over her legs.

I switched on the television and kept the sound barely audible. A colorful cartoon flickered across the screen, cheerful and senseless.

“Wait here for me,” I said. My voice shook despite my effort to steady it. “Don’t get off the sofa, Ellie.”

Her gaze never settled on the cartoon. She stared beyond me toward the unlit passage that led to the kitchen, her face still and unreadable.

I retreated without turning my back on her until I reached the kitchen’s tiled edge. The ceiling lights were already blazing.

Greg was beside the island.

An open black duffel lay across the countertop. He was stuffing it in a hurry: packaged granola bars, a medical kit, a flashlight, and a pair of thick sweaters. The tears were gone from his face. In their place was a look of panicked concentration.

“Greg, what is all this?” I asked.

His hand stopped above the bag. After a moment, he turned toward me. His eyes fell on the box beneath my arm, and the little color left in his face disappeared.

“I tried to tell you,” he murmured, his voice rough. “I was never meant to open it. You shouldn’t have touched it, Maya.”

Anger cut through my fear. I stepped into the kitchen and brought the box down onto the stone counter with a heavy thump. “You carried it into Eleanor’s bedroom in the middle of the night, then walked away and left it there. She woke up and told me a faceless woman was in the hall.”

Greg clamped both hands around the counter’s edge. His knuckles blanched as he fixed his gaze on the box, wary as if it might detonate.

“That wasn’t a dream,” he said in a near-whisper. His eyes dropped to the floor instead of meeting mine. “She didn’t invent it. That woman exists.”

Disbelief rose in me so quickly it almost felt like rage. I wanted to shout, to grab him by the shoulders and force an explanation out of him. “Have you lost your mind? Are you having some kind of breakdown? My mother has been gone for four years. There is no woman without a face, and you’re terrifying our daughter!”

“Maya, look at the box!” Greg shouted, his voice breaking on the words.

Then the kitchen fell into a silence so dense I could hardly breathe. The refrigerator hummed; rain beat against the window over the sink.