.... She reached inside again and felt a little clasp at the top of the back wall of the drawer. Carefully she slide it sideways with her finger and the back of the drawer fell forward - she could feel the box inside! ....
It took a bit of maneuvering to get her fingers around the box because it was such a tight space, but finally she eeked her finger in along the side and wiggled the box out. Taking it gently, she removed it from the drawer. The box was wood, probably hand-made, with a design of a flower of some kind burned into it. And under the flower, "AJ" ... Annabelle Jessup? or someone else?
The moment had come ... to open the box. Then she would know for sure.
She found the little button and pushed it and the top popped open. She lifted the lid - 3 pictures, a piece of folded paper, a pin of some kind, a silver ring with a white glass stone in the center and a coin. She took the photos out and examined them. One was a black and white picture was of a young man in uniform, standing proudly with a rifle in his arms. Looking closely, it seemed there was a swastika on the upper part of his sleeve. She turned it over. All it said was "Freddy" on the back, written in a definitely female hand. The second one was of a tree, a path and a dog walking ahead on the path. There was nothing on the back. Odd. And the third one was of a young woman standing beside the boy from the first picture, except he was wearing a formal suit and she was in a beautiful gown. On the back, there was a date - December 5, 1914 - in the same writing a the first picture.
Sarah opened the paper, and it was obviously a love letter. It was addressed to FM and signed "with all my love, AJ". The writing was not the same as what was on the back of the photos. Puzzling.
Suddenly, she heard a creak from beneath her. She put the items back into the box and the box into her backpack with hardly a sound and listened carefully - an animal? a person? the house? there was another creak ... she had no idea what was beneath her.
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