The Man With The Small Clipboard Part:II

I sat in the tree completely still, and staring at the box. I could see it clear in the moonlight. It had silver tassels and purple bunting that were flowing in the wind, an intricately carved border along every edge, and on the top was carved a golden owl holding a fox in one talon and a spyglass in the other.

After a few minutes the person that had run off was back with a lantern and a shovel. They ran from tree to tree holding up the lantern like they were reading words on the bark. They lingered for a few extra minutes at one of the trees before hanging the lantern on a branch and thrusting the shovel into the earth.

It wasn’t long before the hole resembled a grave with dirt flying out of it one shovel-full at a time. The dirt kept flying and the hole got deeper and deeper until a loud hollow thump came from the bottom. A few more scoops of dirt got added to the pile next to the hole a little faster than the rest followed by the shovel itself.

A light began to glow from inside the hole, but it was too deep for me to see the bottom from my view point. I started to climb down from the tree as silently as I could to try and get a little closer. By the time I made it to the ground the box was nowhere to be seen.

I crouched behind a rock about ten feet from the glowing pit and waited. I didn’t know what I was waiting for, but it never came. Actually nothing happened for quite a while, just the whistle of the wind and the slow call of an owl.

I looked at the tree with the lantern hanging from it, and saw a small fox carved deep into it. Judging by how much the bark had grown back, it was carved many, many years ago.

Just when I started crawling closer to the hole, the light went out and there was a loud thump like a heavy door closing. I scattered back a little further than before, and hid behind a tree as three people climbed out of the hole.

TO BE CONTINUED