Olivia's words, "Something like… 'A.J.'? Or was it 'A.G.'? So hard to tell with old silver," hung in the opulent air of the Vance limousine like a poisoned dart. My blood, which had run cold, now thrummed with a frantic urgency. A silver box, heart-shaped, with initials. Found in Grandmother Annelise's lesser-used silver. Destined for the attic. It had to be the lock Penny Featherworth had alluded to, the counterpart to my A.G. locket. And Olivia, with her feigned casualness, had just dangled it before me, a taunt wrapped in an innocent anecdote. The game hadn't just escalated; Olivia had thrown down a new, treacherous gauntlet.
The drive to the Atherton Gallery was a blur of city lights and forced pleasantries. I complimented Caroline on her sapphire necklace, engaged Olivia in a vapid discussion about the upcoming debutante season, all the while my mind was a maelstrom. Had Olivia truly found it by chance? Or was this a calculated move, a way to gauge my reaction, to see if I knew anything about the locket or Arthur Grimshaw? Her "A.J. or A.G." remark was too precise to be accidental. She was testing me, playing with me. The attic. I had to get to the attic.
The gallery was a cacophony of modern art, champagne flutes, and the low hum of a hundred self-important conversations. I moved through the rooms like an automaton, nodding, smiling, my pearl-grey gown a demure counterpoint to the vibrant, often jarring, canvases. My senses were on high alert. Olivia, resplendent in her emerald green, was holding court, her laughter a little too bright, her eyes, whenever they flicked in my direction, holding a predatory gleam. Caroline, a regal ice queen, networked with effortless grace, but I felt her gaze on me more than once, coolly appraising.
My "headache" from the museum visit had conveniently resurfaced, providing me with an excuse to periodically retreat to the quieter periphery of the event. During one such moment, I found myself near a less crowded corridor leading to the restrooms. Olivia, detaching herself from a fawning admirer, followed.
"Feeling alright, Eleanor?" she asked, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "You look a little pale. Perhaps all this… modernity… is a bit much for you?"
"Just a touch overwhelmed, Olivia," I murmured, pressing my fingers to my temple. "So many new faces, so much to take in." I had to know more about the box. "That silver trinket you mentioned earlier, the heart-shaped one? It sounds rather charming, despite its lack of value. Did you happen to see what became of it? Sometimes those old pieces have a certain… character."
Olivia's smile was a masterpiece of insincerity. "Oh, that? Mother had one of the maids take a few boxes of old silver up to the main attic yesterday, the one above the west wing. Said she'd sort through it properly when she had a moment. Probably just gathering dust up there now. Why the sudden interest in dusty old silver, Eleanor? I thought you were more taken with the… Impressionists." Her emphasis was a subtle jab, a reminder of my earlier, feigned artistic pursuits.
The west wing attic. Specific. Too specific. This wasn't just a taunt; it was an invitation, a trap, or both. She wanted me to look for it. But why? To catch me in the act? To lead me on a wild goose chase while she did something else?
The charity auction began, a tedious parade of overpriced art and ostentatious bidding. I made a token bid on a small, inoffensive landscape painting, enough to satisfy Caroline's expectation of participation. My mind, however, was already back at the Vance estate, scaling imaginary ladders to a dusty, forgotten attic.
Returning home late that night, the house was quiet, cloaked in shadows. Caroline and Olivia retired early, no doubt pleased with their social performance. Father was, as usual, in his study, the low murmur of a late-night business call seeping from under the door. This was my chance, perhaps my only one before Olivia or Caroline "remembered" the box and spirited it away.
The A.G. locket felt cool against my palm, its tiny, keyhole-shaped aperture a silent promise. I changed into dark, soft clothing, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. The west wing attic… I knew its general location from childhood explorations, a place of cobwebs, discarded furniture, and the ghosts of Vance generations past. The main staircase was too exposed. I slipped out through a little-used service door, my stockinged feet making no sound on the polished oak floors, then ascended the narrow, creaking back stairs that led towards the servants' quarters and, ultimately, to the attic access panel I vaguely remembered.
The panel was high, set into the ceiling of a dim, unused linen closet. A rickety wooden stepladder stood forgotten in a corner. It groaned ominously as I climbed, each creak echoing like a gunshot in the silent house. The panel itself was stiff, coated with decades of dust. It took several agonizing minutes of pushing and prying before it finally gave way with a dull thud, showering me in a fine layer of grime.
Hoisting myself up into the pitch-black space, I fumbled for the small, powerful flashlight I'd secreted from the kitchen. Its beam cut a swathe through the oppressive darkness, illuminating a vast, cavernous space filled with the detritus of a wealthy family's history. Mountains of dust-sheeted furniture, trunks overflowing with yellowed linens and moth-eaten clothing, stacks of forgotten portraits whose painted eyes seemed to follow my every move. The air was thick with the scent of decay, old paper, and something else… a faint, lingering trace of my grandmother's signature rose potpourri, almost lost to time.
Olivia had said "boxes of old silver." It was a needle in a haystack. I moved cautiously, the flashlight beam dancing across forgotten treasures and discarded memories. An hour passed, then another. My hope began to dwindle. Dust coated my clothes, my hair, the back of my throat. Was this another of Olivia's cruel games? Had she sent me up here on a fool's errand?
Then, tucked away behind a towering, broken grandfather clock whose hands were frozen at a quarter past three, I saw them: a small stack of tarnished wooden crates, one of them stenciled with the faded Vance crest. Silver.
My breath caught. With trembling hands, I pried open the topmost crate. Inside, nestled amongst yellowed tissue paper, were various pieces of ornate, heavy silver – serving platters, candelabras, tureens. I rummaged through them, my fingers growing numb from the cold metal. Nothing heart-shaped. The second crate yielded more of the same.
Despair began to set in. But then, in the third and final crate, beneath a pile of mismatched silver cutlery, my fingers brushed against something small, smooth, and distinctly heart-shaped. It was heavier than I expected, cool to the touch. I pulled it out, my flashlight beam wavering.
It was a silver box, intricately carved, tarnished with age, and unmistakably heart-shaped. It was larger than the locket, perhaps three inches across. And there, on its lid, almost obscured by the tarnish but still visible, was the intertwined monogram: A.G.
My heart leaped. This had to be it.
I fumbled for the locket in my pocket, its familiar weight a small comfort. Holding my breath, I brought it towards the silver box. There was no obvious keyhole on the box itself, just like Olivia had said. But Penny's words came back to me: "The locket will only open for the one who seeks the truth… and perhaps, a little bit of Vance ingenuity." The locket wasn't the key to the box in a traditional sense. The locket was the key.
I recalled the tiny, keyhole-shaped aperture on the locket itself, revealed when the face rotated. What if… what if the box had a corresponding protrusion? I ran my fingers carefully over the surface of the silver box, searching for any irregularity. Near the pointed base of the heart, my fingertip snagged on a tiny, almost invisible raised nub of silver, no bigger than a pinhead.
With a surge of adrenaline, I carefully aligned the locket's aperture with this tiny protrusion on the box. It was a perfect fit. Holding my breath, I gently pressed the locket against the box, then, remembering the rotating face, I tried to turn the locket clockwise, using the 'A.G.' monogram as a grip.
For a moment, nothing. Then, a soft, almost inaudible snick.
The top of the silver box didn't spring open. Instead, a tiny, almost invisible seam appeared along its side, a seam I hadn't noticed before. It wasn't a lid; the entire box seemed designed to come apart in two halves, held together by an internal mechanism the locket had just released.
With infinite care, I separated the two halves. Inside, nestled on a bed of faded blue velvet, lay not a document, not jewels, but a single, small, intricately folded piece of vellum, yellowed with age and sealed with a tiny, unbroken wax stamp. The stamp bore no crest, no initials, only the faint impression of a single, perfectly formed rose.
My grandmother's rose.
Before I could reach for it, a floorboard creaked just outside the attic access panel in the linen closet below. My blood turned to ice. Footsteps. Soft, stealthy, but undeniably there. Someone was in the corridor. Had I been too loud? Had Olivia, or worse, Caroline, been waiting for me to lead them to this very secret? The flashlight beam shook in my hand, casting wild, dancing shadows across the forgotten relics of the Vance family. What was on that vellum? And would I even live to find out?