The most dangerous people are the ones who have nothing to lose.
The box had my name on it.
Not my adult name.
The name I wrote across everything when I was nine, with the last letter curled backward because I hadn’t learned to make it properly yet.
It was sitting in the attic beneath a sheet.
I don’t remember putting it there.
The cardboard had softened with age and the tape across the bottom had yellowed, but someone had tied a black ribbon around it recently.
There wasn’t any dust on the ribbon.
I carried it downstairs.
Inside was a collection of things nobody else would have considered valuable.
A plastic horse with one missing ear.
Three polished stones.
A tiny brass key.
A dried flower pressed inside wax paper.
Four crayons.
A plastic ring from a grocery-store machine.
A photograph of the moon.
A small notebook.
And a silver compact.
I remembered almost everything.
That was the strange part.
I hadn’t thought about any of it in forty years.
I picked up the horse first.
For an entire summer, I had carried it everywhere.
I remembered drawing horses too. Hundreds of them. Horses with impossible legs and enormous eyes. Horses standing beneath purple skies because I hadn’t yet learned that skies were supposed to be blue.
Someone eventually told me I wasn’t very good at drawing.
I stopped.
The crayons were worn flat on one side.
Purple.
Black.
Green.
Red.
The blue was missing.
I searched the box twice.
No blue.
The notebook was stranger.
Most of the pages were blank.
The first few contained my handwriting.
Lists of things I wanted to become.
Things I wanted to own.
Places that probably didn’t exist.
There were drawings of stars and strange symbols I didn’t recognize anymore.
Then the handwriting changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
The letters became smaller.
Neater.
Eventually the drawings disappeared.
On the final written page there was only one sentence.
That’s not realistic.
I didn’t remember writing it.
I closed the notebook.
The compact was underneath it.
The silver had turned almost black.
I wiped it with my sleeve and opened it.
My reflection appeared beneath the tarnish.
For half a second, I thought someone was standing behind me.
I turned.
Nothing.
When I looked back, the mirror was empty except for me.
I put it down.
At the bottom of the box was a photograph.
There were six children standing beside a swimming pool.
I recognized five of them.
The sixth girl stood slightly apart.
She was holding the plastic horse.
I turned the photograph over.
Summer 2008.
No names.
I looked at her again.
She looked like me.
Not exactly.
Enough.
There was something written on her arm in black marker.
I found a magnifying glass in the kitchen drawer.
Three words.
DON’T LET THEM.
That was all.
I left the box on the dining room table.
For the next several days, strange things happened around it.
Nothing dramatic.
The kind of things easily explained if you’re committed to explanations.
The brass key moved.
The compact opened by itself.
The dried flower appeared on top of the notebook after I distinctly remembered putting it underneath.
Once, I woke at 3:17 in the morning and heard crayons rolling across the dining room table.
I didn’t go downstairs.
The following morning, all four were arranged beside the box.
Purple.
Black.
Green.
Red.
There were five now.
Blue.
I stared at it for a while.
Then put it inside the box.
That afternoon someone came over.
They noticed the box immediately.
“What’s all that junk?”
“Mine.”
They picked up the horse.
“You kept this?”
Apparently.
They laughed and dropped it back into the box.
Then they began talking.
About getting older.
About being practical.
About things people eventually have to accept.
They talked for nearly twenty minutes.
I noticed they were breathing heavily from climbing the stairs.
Their hands shook slightly when they lifted their sweet tea.
There was a yellow-gray cast beneath their eyes I hadn’t noticed before.
They finished talking and lit a cigarette outside.
Before leaving, they looked at the box again.
“You should throw that shit away.”
I didn’t answer.
That night I opened the notebook.
There was writing on the last blank page.
My handwriting.
The old version.
Large.
Uneven.
One letter curled backward.
Don’t take advice from things that are already dying.
I shut the notebook.
The next morning, the sentence was gone.
A week later, I found another photograph inside the box.
This one wasn’t old.
It had been taken recently.
My dining room.
The box sitting open on the table.
Me standing beside it.
I was facing away from the camera.
Behind me stood six people.
Five had faces.
The sixth didn’t.
I counted them again.
Then noticed something in the corner of the photograph.
A little girl.
Barefoot.
Holding a black crayon.
She was looking directly at the camera.
On the wall beside her she had drawn a small square.
Inside it was a keyhole.
I checked the wall.
Nothing.
Then I remembered the brass key.
I went back to the box.
The key was gone.
The compact was open.
For the first time, the mirror inside was perfectly clean.
I leaned closer.
The little girl was standing behind me.
This time,
I didn’t turn around.
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