Heart in her throat, Gwendy uses her thumb to slowly slide the coin across the desk, closer to her. Then she leans down for a better look. The silver dollar is in mint condition and she was right—it’s an 1891 Morgan. Anna Williams smiles up at her with unblinking silver eyes.
Pulling her hand back, Gwendy absently wipes it on the sleeve of her blouse. She gets up then and slowly wanders around the room, feeling as if she’s just awakened from a dream. She bangs her knee against the rounded corner of the coffee table but she barely notices. Abruptly changing direction, she stops in front of the closet door, the only place where someone could possibly hide. After taking a steadying breath, she silently counts to three—and yanks open the door.
She recoils with her hands held in front of her face, nearly falling, but there’s no one waiting inside. Just a handful of coats and sweaters hanging on wire hangers, a tangle of dress and running shoes littering the floor, and a brand-new pair of snow boots still in the box.
Exhaling with relief, Gwendy pushes the door shut and turns to face her desk again. The silver coin sits there, gleaming in the overhead lights, staring back at her. She’s about to call for Bea when something catches her eye. She crosses to the filing cabinet in the corner. A bronze bust of Maine Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain sits on top of it, a gift from her father.
Gwendy pulls open the top drawer of the cabinet. It’s stuffed with folders and assorted paperwork. She closes it. Then she does the same with the second drawer: slides it open, quick inspection, close. Holding her breath, she bends to a knee and pulls open the bottom drawer.
And there it is: the button box.
A beautiful mahogany, the wood glowing a brown so rich that she can glimpse tiny red glints deep in its finish. It’s about fifteen inches long, maybe a foot wide, and half that deep. There are a series of small buttons on top of the box, six in rows of two, and a single at each end. Eight in all. The pairs are light green and dark green, yellow and orange, blue and violet. One of the end-buttons is red. The other is black. There’s also a small lever at each end of the box, and what looks like a slot in the middle.
For a moment, Gwendy forgets where she is, forgets how old she is, forgets that a kind and gentle man named Ryan Brown was ever born. She’s twelve years old again, crouching in front of her bedroom closet back in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.
It looks exactly the same, she thinks. It looks the same because it is the same. There’s no mistaking it even after all these years.
From behind her, there’s a loud knock at the door. Gwendy almost faints.
9
“ARE YOU OKAY, CONGRESSWOMAN? I was knocking for a long time.”
Gwendy steps back from the door and lets her receptionist into the office. Bea’s carrying a small tray with the turkey club lunch on it. She places it on the desk and turns back to her boss. If Bea notices the silver coin sitting next to the keyboard, she doesn’t mention it.
“I’m fine,” Gwendy says. “Just a little embarrassed. I was doing some reading and I guess I dozed off.”
“Must’ve been some dream you were having. It sounded like you were whimpering.”
You don’t know the half of it, Gwendy thinks.
“You sure you’re okay?” Bea asks. “If you don’t mind my saying, you look a little rattled and a lot pale. Almost like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Bingo again, Gwendy thinks, and almost bursts out giggling. “I went for a longer than usual run this morning and haven’t had much to drink. I’m probably just dehydrated.”
The receptionist gives her a long look, clearly unconvinced. “I’ll go grab a couple more waters then. I’ll be right back.” She turns and heads out of the office.
“Bea?”
She stops in the doorway and turns back.
“Did anyone stop by the office when I was at my meeting this morning?”
Bea shakes her head. “No, ma’am.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She looks around the room. “Is something wrong? Do you need me to call security?”
“No, no,” Gwendy says, escorting the older lady the rest of the way out of the room. “But maybe you should call a doctor, since I can’t seem to stay awake past lunchtime these days.”
Bea once again offers a faint smile, not very convincingly, and hurries off.
Gwendy closes the door and walks a direct line back to the filing cabinet. She knows she doesn’t have much time. Bending to a knee again, she slides open the bottom drawer. The button box is still there, practically sparkling in the overhead lights, waiting for her.
Gwendy reaches out with both hands and hesitates, her fingers hovering an inch or two above its highly polished surface. She feels the hairs on her arms begin to tingle, hears the faint whisper of something in the far corner of her brain. Steeling herself, she carefully lifts the box out of the drawer. And as she does, it all rushes back to her…
10
WHEN GWENDY WAS A young girl, her father hauled the old cardboard box marked SLIDES out of the attic every summer, usually some time around the Fourth of July. He set up his ancient slide projector on the coffee table in the den, positioned the pull-down screen in front of the fireplace, and turned off all the lights. He always made a big deal of the experience. Mom made popcorn and a pitcher of fresh lemonade. Dad narrated every slide with what he called his “Hollywood voice” and made shadow puppets during intermission. Gwendy usually sat on the sofa between her mother and father, but sometimes other neighborhood kids would join them, and on those occasions, she sat on the floor in front of the screen with her friends. Some of the kids grew bored and quickly made up excuses to leave (“Oops, I’m sorry, Mr. Peterson, I just remembered I promised my mom I’d clean my room tonight.”), but Gwendy was never one of them. She was fascinated by the images on the screen, and even more so by the stories those images told.
As Gwendy’s fingers close around the button box for the first time in fifteen years, it’s as if a slideshow of vibrant, flickering images—each one telling its own secret story—blooms in front of her eyes. Suddenly, it’s:
—August 22, 1974, and a strange man in a black coat and a small neat black hat is reaching under a Castle View park bench and sliding out a canvas bag with a drawstring top. He pulls it open and removes the most beautiful mahogany box…
—an early September morning, and Gwendy stands in front of her bedroom closet, dressing for school. When she’s finished, she slips a tiny piece of chocolate into her mouth and closes her eyes in ecstasy…
—middle school, as Gwendy stares at herself in a full-length dressing room mirror, and realizes she isn’t just pretty, she’s gorgeous, and no longer wearing eyeglasses…
—sophomore year of high school and she’s sitting on the den sofa, staring in horror as images of bloated, fly-covered corpses fill the television screen…
—late at night, the house graveyard quiet, and she’s sitting cross-legged in the dark on her bed with the button box resting in her lap, eyes squeezed tight in concentration, using her thumb to press the red button, and then cocking her head at the open window, listening for the rumble…