Chapter 3

Last Item in the Safe

The safe stood open. A black void gaped in the paneled wall. On the floor before it sat the anomaly. It was small. In the dim lighting of the study, the box looked like a discarded paving stone or an ancient hymnal. It measured four by six inches. It was a rectangular block of pitted iron that absorbed the light around it. Jennifer sat on her heels. Her breath caught in the quiet. The iron box was not only scarred. It held a face. A raised carving of a woman’s screaming mouth stretched across the top panel.

The features were distorted. The lips were pulled wide. The teeth were uneven. The eyes were squeezed shut as if bracing for impact. The metal around the face looked warped, as if it had once been molten and had frozen in the middle of a cry. The edges of the carving were rubbed down. Someone had tried to scrape it away. The apotropaic marks cut across the cheeks and forehead. They formed a cage of jagged lines around the trapped expression. The single riveted eye sat above the carved face like a blind sentinel. The silver wire crossed over the mouth. It pinned the scream shut.

The iron looked older than any artifact she had ever seen. Layers of corrosion formed dark bands across its surface, each one a different shade of black or red, as if the metal had aged in geological epoch instead of human years. Deep pits marked the sides. They looked like the cavities left by ancient erosion. Thin fractures branched across the lid like dried riverbeds. The carved female face sat at the center of this damage. The warped metal around it made the frozen scream appear stretched by centuries of pressure. Faint geometric lines circled the face. They were almost erased. They did not match any alphabet she recognized. The box smelled like cave dust and scorched stone. The heat rising from it felt dry, as if it had been buried in a desert long before her father was born.

The carved face drew her attention at once. The scream was frozen in the iron, but the closed eyes seemed to open when she looked at them. They did not move. They did not shift. They simply aligned her gaze. She felt a sharp pressure in her chest. Her breath thinned. A cold sweat formed along her spine. The carved features were only lines and shadows, yet she felt exposed. It felt as if the face could see through her skin and into the soft parts beneath. She tried to look away. However, her eyes did not obey. Her muscles locked. The room faded. The face held her in place. It was only a carving. It felt older than language. It felt alive in a way that made her stomach hollow. She stared at it. She could not stop.