TT picture prompt 18th June

 

  

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Today is June's Picture Prompt day, and of the selection offered, I've chosen to go with this one...

 

Lucy gave the trunk pride of place in the window of her antique shop and surrounded it with a variety of other items, while she wondered about the strange man who’d brought it in two days ago.

“This is for you,” he’d said, and held her gaze until she’d nodded and opened the lid.

Less than two minutes later after sifting through the few objects and laying the letters on the counter surface, she’d looked up and he’d vanished. Almost immediately it came to her that he’d arrived as soundlessly as he’d departed. Not a young man, nor was he handsome, but he had an air about him, so why couldn’t she remember what he looked like?
Would her ‘Display only’ ticket on the chest entice someone to enquire about it? The contents were another matter; they remained in her safe upstairs in her flat. Of the two dozen or so faded letters, she’d skimmed through three of them after discovering the birth certificate in a pristine brown envelope at the bottom of the chest.

Why, she wondered as she did a final tweak to her display, would someone slip an old birth certificate into a new envelope and conceal it beneath the rest of the contents? 

Well, not that old, she conceded. The dates and details on the certificate, apart from the parents’ Christian names, were identical with hers.

In just a few minutes she could close the shop for the weekend and set off to the town named in two of the letters she’d read so far. She backed out of the window area, replaced the protective glass panels and reached the door seconds after it opened.

Another new customer.

One glance at the man hesitating in the doorway convinced Lucy she wouldn’t forget his face anytime soon. 

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