Touched Ch. 03

"It's a box." He gave me a mysterious smile and handed it to me for closer examination.

"But it has no lid," I protested, turning it carefully in my hands. Each surface was as exquisite as the one before, but I saw no latch, no seams indicating where a lid might be located. "How can it be a box without a lid?"

"I found this two years ago when I inventoried the storage areas," Grant began, without answering my question. "The data file cataloging the contents of the storage rooms had been corrupted, irretrievable. I was assigned the task of going through everything in order to rebuild the record.

"The container it was in was here, in a far corner, under many others and one of the last I opened. When I removed the contents I found this buried at the bottom, just where you saw me remove it.

"Because of the numerous intricate designs covering its surface, I thought at first that it was a sculpture of some sort, a piece of art. It was so beautiful I had to examine it, if only to feel the texture of a rare wooden object. If you look closely you will see that the designs are created entirely out of wood of different types and colors."

My mouth dropped open. He was right; the triangles, the squares and all of the other shapes were painstakingly cut and arranged into designs fitting together so perfectly it looked like they had been imprinted.

"As I was marveling over the workmanship, by chance my thumb pressed against one the edges in just the right place." Grant reached over and placed his finger on one of the panels. "And to my shock a section of it slid forward."

"Oooh!" I gasped, stunned as I saw a thin strip of wood slide away from the other panels, revealing a plain, honey-colored surface beneath.

He took the box from my hand. "As I looked at it more closely, I realized the intricate designs and panels obscured a number of seams. By that point I was intrigued, curious to see if other pieces could be moved as well."

I watched in astonished silence as he carefully removed panel after panel, skipping from one face to another before coming back again. "That's when I discovered it was actually a puzzle," he concluded, rotating the final piece, "and the lid to a secret box."