The trunk sat in the middle of the living room on newspapers her mother
had spread out to keep the dust off her carpets. They tried to force the lid
open but no matter how they pulled or pried, it stayed stubbornly shut.
“There must be a way,” Mom said. “There’s no lock and no place to put a
lock so the lock must be in the box itself.”
They wiped the box, getting every speck of dust and cobweb off it. Then
they studied it from every direction.
It wasn’t a particularly beautiful box. It was longer than it was wide. It
had a slightly rounded top. There were two ribs in the top. The sides were
roughly carved with horses.