Gemotions

Eliza surveyed the attic’s contents with a pinched expression. The previous inhabitants, the elderly couple who’d lived here for fifty years, had left behind a veritable museum of useless trinkets. She'd been meaning to get rid of it all for weeks.

A chipped porcelain doll, its painted eyes eerily vacant, sat on a dusty shelf. Eliza refused to even touch it. She’d sweep the whole room, bag it all up, and be done. No sorting, no pondering.

A wooden box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, caught her eye. It looked delicate, out of place. It wasn’t going anywhere, she told herself.

Eliza walked right over to it.