This was the part of the junk shop she really liked. This was the area out at the back of the shop where the stuff that wasn’t going to look good on display or was pretty much rubbish was put. The back room was packed with ‘everything in this box’ for £30 type offers.
She loved it back here, going through the boxes trying to work out whether the collection had come from a single owner or had been assembled by the shop keeper. There were such strange things that often it was a matter of trying to work out what an object was but, for some reason, these boxes held a fascination for her. Perhaps it was the fact that they held the rejects, things that had no value on their own, reflected how she felt about herself.
For as long as she could remember she had been Bill and Sheila’s daughter then, as her sister began to achieve great things, she became Cathy’s sister. Now as the date of her wedding approached she knew she’d become Peter’s wife. There was a nagging part of her brain that said she was getting married for that very reason and not for love.
She shook her head to dispel the thoughts and began to unpack the box she had chosen to look at today. It wasn’t always a waste of time, she had found some ‘gold’ amongst the boxes of rubbish but it took a lot of sieving and in the long run wasn’t worth it financially. But that wasn’t why she did it really. It was the detective like feeling of trying to understand why such a disparate set of objects should find themselves together.
A voice from the front of the shop drifted into her consciousness.
“You alright back there?’
‘Yep,’ the shouted back, “all fine, just looking through the boxes.”
She heard something muffled back but whatever he said she chose to ignore. He was the one thing about this shop she didn’t like. His unnerving gaze, his habit of creeping up behind her, his insistence of lifting out and checking everything when she bought one of the boxes as if he didn’t trust her.
She checked her watch. She still had at least fifty minutes until she needed to be back home to prepare dinner for the family get together. Plenty of time for a box of this size.
She settled into her comforting routine. Lift, inspect, value - place to the left if truly rubbish and to the right if of some interest. No order to lifting things out, just what comes to hand. No dwelling, methodical and machine like. Mind focused.
She began. First five objects all went to the left, the sixth hovered in her hands for a moment before settling to the right. Unless this improved this was going to be a very disappointing box. The only thing that kept her interest was that the objects were clearly much older than the usual and there was none of the brightly coloured plastic that haunted so many.
As she carried on her routine she decided this was from a single person. There was no way that the shop owner would have spent any time selecting items of the same age to put in a box so this was someone’s collection.
Ten minutes gone, nothing of value found, she carried on her well rehearsed inspection. A metal candle holder, clearly not silver, placed to the right as it might have some value, a paper weight with faded picture to the left. Next out a tatty leather case with battered edges. A single clip to the front was stiff but popped open after some forcing. The lid was easier to lift but in doing so it ripped from the worn fabric hinges. ‘Damn,’ she muttered to herself. Although nearly everything was worthless she still treated every object with respect.
The lining of the box was clearly silk but so old and damaged to have lost any semblance of the wonderful fabric it once would have been. The objects inside had also clearly seen better days. A pair of thin fine gloves of indiscriminate pale colour. She lifted them towards the yellowing bulb that illuminated where she stood. Against the glow they seemed to hold no colour in the gossamer like fabric
She had no idea what possessed her, because it was not part of her routine, but she decided to try one on. Carefully, so as not to damage, she drew the glove onto her hand. It was a bigger size than her own and went on easily but so thin and delicate it seemed to weigh nothing. She wriggled her fingers and used her other hand to gather the strange fabric at her wrist. Holding her hand up to the feeble light the glove seemed as a ghost on her hand. She turned to place the glove’s partner on her other hand.
The same fit, loose, light and ........... it was then she noticed. The first glove was no longer loose it was clinging to her skin, tight but not compressing. ‘It must be the heat from my hand’ she rationalised as she saw the colour of the material was that of her own skin. She looked at her other hand in time to see the fabric, whatever it was, mould itself around her fingers and palm.
Suddenly it felt wrong, terribly wrong. She scrabbled and scratched to pull off the gloves but could no longer feel where her skin stopped and the gloves began. It was no good and the light was too feeble to see such detail.
In a panic she made her decision. She put everything including the old leather case into the cardboard box and made her way out to the front.
“Found another fortune out there,” said the shopkeeper as she placed the cardboard box onto the counter keeping her hands from view. She glanced down but even in the better light of the shop she could not see a join or indeed that she was wearing any gloves.
“Everything in this box for £35,” read the shopkeeper deliberately slowly.
She reached for her purse to draw out the notes and speed up the transaction.
His words struggled to puncture through the fuzziness that was clouding her brain, “You not even going to bargain, that’s not like you,’
He was lifting and inspecting every object from the box and placing them to the side. She could feel beads of sweat beginning to run down her temples and her hands felt clammy.
“One leather box,” she could hear from somewhere in the distance, “empty ..... lid detached.”
......
Later at home with the box now hidden at the back of her wardrobe she began to inspect the leather case. Peter would be angry with her if he found out that she had been back to the junk shop again after what he had to told her. “Those places are not for us.’
The case turned in her hands before she realised that the fabric inside the lid was loose in one corner with a small frayed ribbon faintly visible. She pulled at it and the material came away to reveal an inscription.
She didn’t hear Peter let himself into their flat.
‘The skin contained within this box was taken from the hands of Muriel Rose Strange hanged in 1862 for the murder through strangulation of her husband, parents and sister.’
.........
“Did you hear about Bill and Sheila’s daughter?”
“I did, it’s just unbelievable. What could have possessed her?”
“God only knows. Apparently when the police got there she was trying to scrape all the skin off her hands with a knife.”
”And she was the quiet one, not like her sister.”
”Oh she’s a lovely girl, what’s her name?”
“Cathy.”
“And the man in the junk shop.”
“Unrecognisable the man from the Dry Cleaners said.”
“Strange.”
”So strange.”
