The Music Box: Chapter One

IT was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Emerald green, etched with fantastical figures, writhing in twisted consort. Jade faces peered back at Emily, their sharp gazes piercing her very soul. As she watched the box seemed to cast a light of its own, a subtle glow that danced on Tabitha’s smiling face.

“Want to see inside?”

Emily had lost her voice but nodded vigorously.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course of course!” she burst out, surprising herself with the urgency of her desire to see within. She realised her nails were digging into her palms, leaving on each four perfect crescent moons.

As Emily watched with widening eyes, Tabitha slowly opened the lid. Her breath stopped. A miniature kingdom was held within, a tiny, mountainous world. As she looked more closely she saw little villages spread across the landscape, each inhabited by a population seemingly oblivious to her staring. Smoke wafted from various chimneys and the golden light and length of shadows suggested the day was drawing towards night.

Then she heard it. An angelic choir whose unearthly voices rang with a purity and drama the likes of which she had never heard. This music was not that of Bach, or Wagner, or even Mozart – it was beyond even the imagination of these tortured musical geniuses who conversed daily with the gods.

Emily let these angels lift her by the shoulders and succumbed to weightlessness. She felt herself sweep down into the box, passing over the plains from village to village, soaring over the foothills and around the mountainside. As she whirred by she could feel the tumbling mix of cool evening air and the heat being released by the earth, she could smell the moist grass, the flowers releasing a last burst of perfume before closing up for the night, the assorted animals in their pens. She could hear the children giggling as they chased each other around corners, the weary admonitions of mothers beating dust from bed covers, the scuffing of boots of the men trudging back from the fields, hands blistered and stomachs growling.

A sudden whoosh and a heavy clap – Tabitha had closed the lid on the box. Emily slowly regathered herself, still somewhat dizzy and decidedly flushed of face. She quizzically appraised her friend. Tabitha’s family certainly weren’t well-to-do enough to explain the genesis of this music box – any music box really, let alone one so unusual.

“Where did you get it from?”

“I’m not supposed to say.”

“Oh come on, you know I won’t tell anybody.”

“I really shouldn’t.”

“Tabitha, we’re best friends. I promise I won’t say anything.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I just do is all.”

“Okay, but you have to swear – not a word to anybody.”

Emily could not bear to tear her eyes away from the box. Still it glowed, a pulsing light that seemed to follow the still rapid beating of her little heart.

“I swear.”

“Well, you know Mr Crouch?”

Of course Emily knew who Mr Crouch was. All the children in Seaforth knew who Mr Crouch was. A tall, deathly pale man who seemed to have had every last ounce of blood drained from him. He was forever frowning from behind his monocle and was never seen without a crisp black suit, top-hat and cane, his shiny black boots coming to the cruellest of points.

Mr Crouch had a shop in the high street and its windows were entirely blacked out. The children were all terrified witless of him and only the boldest dared sing the skipping song that some of the older ones had devised:

Old man Crouch
Is a one-eyed grouch
With a heart that’s black as soot
If he sees you stare
He’ll eat you then and there
Leaving nothing but your foot!

She shuddered with a wild but petrified glee whenever she heard the song or caught sight of Mr Crouch in town. Once she had asked her mother about him but her mother told her to hush and never say that name again.

“Of course I know him,” Emily said, wary of using his name even without mother around.

“Well that’s who I got it from.”

Emily’s eyes opened wide. She couldn’t believe what she had heard. Tabitha was always a bit braver than she, that was true, but Emily knew she had always been as terrified of Mr Crouch as any of the other children.

“How?”

“From his shop.”

“But how could you pay for such a thing?”

“I didn’t have to.”

“What do you mean?”

“He gave it to me.”

“But surely you had to give him something?”

“Not a thing.”

“Why would he just give something like that away?”

“Who knows? Maybe he’s lonely and just wanted somebody to like him.”

Emily’s brow furrowed. She couldn’t think straight while the music box was still there, the faces still watching her so intently, as though to hear what she might say to Tabitha next. But they were going to have to wait, as at that moment Tabitha’s mother loomed in the doorway. Emily turned to see what Tabitha’s mother would say about the music box, but looking back at Tabitha she saw the box was gone.

“Emily, Tabitha’s having tea now, I think it’s time you headed home – your mother will be most worried.”

“Yes Mrs Tibbits.”

Emily stood from Tabitha’s bed and walked slowly towards the door. She looked back and saw Tabitha had retrieved her music box from beneath the blanket under which she had hidden it when her mother appeared. Burning envy took hold.