“Okay,” I said, excitement rising, though I reminded myself not to get distracted. “But first we have to find the decorations.”
Tyler raised his phone so the flashlight shone on a pile of boxes in front of us, illuminating a label readingHanukkahin my grandmother’s handwriting. He circled the phone’s light so it took in a dozen similar boxes. “Uh, do you think it’s all of these?”
It took twenty minutes to carry the large plastic boxes downstairs. We brought down the wooden chest last, setting it on the marble countertop next to our tea. Tyler tried to pry off the top with his hands. “Maybe we can pick the lock.”
“Sounds aggressive. Someone probably hid it for a reason.”
“Yeah, like a hundred years ago. I don’t think we’re breaking anyone’s trust.”
I wanted to open it, I realized. I hadn’t been excited aboutsomething in a long time, not the way I had once been excited and enchanted by skating and piano. Sometimes I was sobored, and the afternoons stretched interminably, filled with homework and papers and studying. At least my job as a café barista, though mind-numbing, allowed me to lose myself in the pattern of button pressing and milk frothing.
It would be nice to be captivated by something again. I googledhow to pick a lockand both Tyler and I craned our heads toward the first result on my phone. “Apparently we need a tension wrench,” he read.
“There’s tools in one of the closets...”
A few minutes later, we’d secured a wrench, and with the help of bobby pins and a decent amount of cursing, the lock clicked. The box seemed to sigh as the lid released its death grip.
Tyler and I stared at each other. Then, ever so carefully, I opened the box.
I didn’t know what I’d expected: Something magical and instantly fulfilling? A treasure map, a pile of jewels? Instead, a jumble of items lay tangled together: an arrow, a piece of wood, an oval metal case, and a tiny glass bottle filled with seashells.
“Someone’s keepsakes,” I murmured. Some son or daughter of the house, probably a distant ancestor of mine, had hidden these away. I picked up the arrow; it was made of wood and had a long, thin tail. I frowned at it and handed it to Tyler to examine before lifting out the piece of wood. It was about eight inches long andfour wide, sharp and precise at one edge, ragged and broken on the others. Bits of two letters filled it, barely recognizable as part of anOand anS. “What do you think this is?”
“No idea.” He put the long arrow with its tiny head down and took the wood. “Looks like it used to belong to a way bigger piece of wood, given the size of the letters.”
Next, I reached for the oval case, about two-by-three inches and thin. It clicked open to reveal a miniature painting of a handsome young man. Tyler leaned close. “Think he was a Barbanel?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. But I think it’s more likely you’d keep a portrait of a—of someone you liked, not of yourself.”
He looked thoughtful. “You think it’s one of your great-great-grandma’s old boyfriends who didn’t make the cut?”
“Could be.” We both peered at the young man, who wore a white shirt with a wide collar and a tie with both tails hanging down his shirt. A dramatic mustache covered his upper lip. “Maybe she didn’t want to forget him, so she squirreled everything away. A breakup box.”
“A breakup box?” He grinned at me. “Sounds like something you give a friend. Filled with chocolate and alcohol and Amy Winehouse albums.”
I bit back a smile. “Sort of like those baby boxes Nordic countries give people. State-sponsored supplies for dramatic events.”
His brows rose, and he smiled at me. It was a different smile than the large, polished one I usually saw him flasharound—smaller, quirkier. “Exactly. A public service. I think people would pay real tax dollars to receive breakup boxes.”
I smiled, charmed despite myself, and looked back at the portrait. “When do you think this is from?”
He studied it, too. “Dunno. When were miniatures common? Probably before photography was invented, right?”
I pulled up the Wikipedia page. “Okay, photography got big after the Industrial Revolution—after the 1850s. It got really trendy in the 1880s. I’ll have to ask my grandparents who lived in Golden Doors before then.”
“You think they’ll know?”
I carefully placed the items back in the chest. “The house has been in the family since it was built, so yeah.”
“Right, I briefly forgot you were Nantucket royalty.”
“Please.” My family had been on the island since the early 1800s, true, but while the Quakers here had been much more open than the Puritans on the mainland, my Jewish family still hadn’t been entirely taken into the fold.
I pulled out the glass jar and unscrewed it. How old were these seashells? I felt nervous to touch them and carefully pulled a few out. An eclectic mix filled the jar: small white shells and large, colorful fans—rather like the gray scallops I often saw here but with the gold and orange of a sunset.
“Those don’t look like they’re from here,” Tyler said. “But I guess in the 1800s, people from Nantucket were going everywherebecause of whaling. Maybe it was a gift. Maybe the Barbanel girl’s lover was a sailor.”
Blushing at the wordlover, I looked away, glancing at our empty mugs. “Want more tea?”
