The Secrets my Mother Kept

Alexander Anderson spent five years believing his mother's death was an accident. Just past midnight on his eleventh birthday, while dust motes danced in the beam of his flashlight, he discovered the truth in his grandparents' attic. He wasn't supposed to be up there - Gran had made that clear enough but the dream had led him here, as surely as if his mother herself had taken his hand, and on this night she might as well have.

The attic floorboards creaked beneath his feet despite his careful steps. His heart pounded so loud he was certain it would wake his grandparents sleeping below. 

The dream had been different this time more urgent. Instead of just seeing his mother's necklace fall, he'd seen her writing in a blue notebook, tears falling onto the pages. When he'd woken up gasping in the dark, he knew where he had to look.

His flashlight beam caught the glint of an old mirror, sending shadows skittering across the walls like startled spiders. A distant church bell marked half-past midnight. Cold moonlight filtered through the small attic window, casting strange shadows among the ancient trunks his grandparents had brought from their previous home in the old country.

That's when he saw it. 

Half-hidden behind a stack of yellowing newspapers, a cardboard box marked 'Airi's Things' in his grandfather's neat handwriting. His mother's name. Alexander's hands trembled as he set down the flashlight. The box wasn't sealed with tape or string just its own dusty lid, as if waiting all these years for this moment.

Alexander wiped his sweaty palms on his pajama pants. Every ghost story he'd ever heard chose this moment to crowd his mind. But this wasn't about ghosts;this was about his mother. With trembling fingers, he lifted the lid.

The scent hit him first; lavender and old paper, so suddenly familiar it made his throat tight. Mom's perfume. He hadn't smelled it since... since before. He wasn't exactly sure when, just sometime before. Before everything, it almost felt like. The flashlight beam revealed stacks of notebooks, their blue covers faded but unmistakable; exactly like the one from his dream. Scattered among them lay other treasures: a silver hairbrush, a half-used bottle of perfume, and there, propped against the notebooks, a red teddy bear with a worn velvet bow and underneath the teddy, a small glistening pearl sat in a silver cage around a single piece of silver string strung across the bottom of the box.

His breath caught. Mr. Stuffings. He'd thought the bear was lost in the move after... after everything. Mom had given him the bear on his fourth birthday, and now here it sat, like a guardian watching over her secrets.

A floorboard groaned downstairs.

Alexander froze, one hand stretched toward the bear. He held his breath, counting heartbeats. One. Two. Three.

Another creak, closer this time someone was on the stairs.

He had seconds to decide: leave everything exactly as he'd found it and hide, or grab what he could and risk discovery. The notebooks seemed to pulse in the flashlight's glow, promising answers to questions he'd never dared to ask and the bear was still so inviting, he took his moment to truly decide as a second creak from the stairs below slithered across his eardrum and echoed in his head.

A floorboard groaned downstairs.

Alexander froze, one hand stretched toward the bear. He held his breath, counting heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Another creak, closer this time someone was on the stairs.

In a quick decision, Alexander grabbed the red tattered teddy bear and the top notebook. Unknowingly grabbing the necklace on the way out of the box, hearing it clatter on the attic floor as he quickly stuffed the bear under his shirt and the notebook under his armpit. Alex closed the box softly, but quickly and scooped up the necklace as he quickly shut off his flashlight and hid behind a tall stack of boxes in the darkened attic.

The footsteps grew louder, more deliberate now. A thin beam of light swept across the attic floor - another flashlight, this one moving with purpose. Alexander pressed himself deeper into the shadows behind the boxes, clutching Mr. Stuffings through his shirt. The pearl's chain was warm in his clenched fist, and he could feel the notebook's hard edge digging into his side.

'Hello?' His grandmother's voice, soft but clear. 'Is someone up here?'

Alexander held his breath. Gran's flashlight beam crept closer to his hiding spot, illuminating dust motes in its path. He could see her slippered feet now, pausing just yards from where he crouched. Another step and she'd-

A loud creak from somewhere else in the house made her stop. 'Marcus?' she called down, a note of concern in her voice. 'Is that you?'

Alexander's heart thundered in his chest as he waited, praying his grandfather had actually made a noise downstairs. After what felt like forever, Gran's light swung away. Her footsteps retreated, slow and uncertain, until the attic door clicked shut behind her.

Only then did Alexander dare to breathe again, his fingers still wrapped tightly around his stolen treasures. But were they really stolen if they'd belonged to his mother? If they might finally tell him the truth? Alexander shook the guilt away and hurried himself out of the attic and back into his room.