Dangerous Temptations

His gaze shifted to me. “You know, when we found the box, I didn’t really pay attention to it. I thought it was maybe an initial or something. But now that I see it on the coin, I recall seeing it somewhere else.”

“Where?” Sydney asked, her voice loud and a little too excited. I took her hand in mine and gave it a light squeeze. “I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised. We’ve seen it in a few places in Salem. I wonder if it was some sort of group at one time?”

I couldn’t help but look at her. She was quite a good actress.

Tim nodded, a focused expression on his face. “It could be. Where have I seen that symbol before? I want to say it was in Boston.”

“In Boston?” Sydney and I said in unison.

“Yes! Tim! I remember. It was in that graveyard—remember you mentioned seeing it on the wooden box? I had completely forgotten about that.”

I could practically see Sydney bouncing with excitement.

“Wow, how interesting,” I said, letting go of Sydney’s hand. “Do you remember which graveyard?”

Tim shook his head. “No. We did a whole graveyard tour and visited a few different ones. I’m sorry.”

Sydney’s shoulders sagged in disappointment.

“Do you still have the box and spoon?” I asked.

Sue smiled. “Oh, of course. We have everything. Some items are displayed in shadow boxes, others in storage boxes for safekeeping. Let me go grab the box. It’s upstairs.”

Tim motioned for us to continue to follow him as he guided us through the rest of the small house and out to the backyard. The home was decorated in antique pieces, and I was impressed by how they had really restored the house to what it probably looked like back when it had been built.

“Now, the house had been closer to the ocean, but it was moved to this current location. Then they put in the road out front,” Tim said as he handed Sydney and me an iced tea.

“Here it is!” Sue said, carrying a white box in her hands. She sat down at the table, carefully opened the lid, and set it to the side. Then she took out an old wooden box. It was beautiful, with intricate carvings on all sides. When she handed it to Sydney, I could clearly see the Alchemist symbol on the top of the box.

Sydney looked over at me and then at Tim and Sue. “It’s beautiful. Whoever the artist was, they did an incredible job.”

I could tell Sydney was holding her breath as she carefully opened the box.

“Use the cloth to take out the spoon. You wouldn’t believe the trouble we had getting that thing cleaned,” Sue said with a chuckle.

“I bet,” I replied.

Sydney unwrapped the linen cloth, took the spoon out, and examined it.

“What do the numbers mean?” Sydney asked.

“I’m not sure. We were thinking it was a date perhaps?”

Sydney handed me the spoon, and I studied it. I read the numbers out loud. “One, six, six, zero.”

“Seems most logical that it is a year, don’t you think?” Tim said.

“Yes. May I look at the box?” I asked, placing the spoon in the cloth and then gently down on the table.