Page 62 of Pandora

“You went behind my back.”

“I...”

Another step.

“Why?”

And then something shifts in her face.

“Why?” She grips the countertop, and Hezekiah watches the skin of her knuckles turn white. “Why did you keep it from me? Why did you keep all of them from me?”

Hezekiah stops at this, stares at the implication, is confused now for it seems, perhaps, they speak of two completely different things.

“All of them?”

Dora’s eyes flash with something he cannot name. “Yes, Uncle,” she says, “all of them. I have seen the crates on the shelves, seen what is in them.”

Oh, that defiance. So like Helen. Beautiful, scheming Helen! Hezekiah feels his control slipping and he takes a deep breath, reigns himself in.

“I made no secret of them.”

“You did not tell me of them, and that is just the same,” she shoots back. “You are storing genuine antiquities down there when you could have been selling them up here all along.”

Hezekiah glowers, shifts painfully on his bad leg. “That is none of your business.”

“I am a Blake!”

And in the tortured turn of her voice he suddenly recognizes the emotion behind her eyes. Anger—pure, unadulterated. It shocks him. Scares him.

“It has always been my business as well as yours,” Dora continues. “Father would be ashamed of what you have done to the shop.”

Hezekiah curls his hands into fists. “Your father was too soft, Pandora.” He only ever uses her full name—that ridiculous name—when he wishes to exert authority, when he feels he is near to losing it. “I will run this place however I see fit.”

His niece shakes her head, points to the basement doors, a sharp stab in the air.

“For years the basement was closed to me. I never questioned it before since it was closed to me as a child, but then that crate arrived and you were so desperate to keep me away from it! Now I know why.”

“Do you?” he asks. Wary.

“The black-market.”

Dora says the words in an almost-whisper. There is hatred in her eyes now, but in the face of her words Hezekiah almost laughs in his relief. Is that all she thinks? He conceals his relief quickly, strokes the scar on his cheek, turns his voice sickly sweet.

“Do you understand what you’re accusing me of, my dear?”

“I do.” Dora lifts her chin. “You mean to sell the pithos, all the pottery in the crates. Illegally.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because you have not acquired them by legal means. It is the only explanation. If you had, why would you not sell them up here?”

She makes a good point. Still, she only has half of it. Hezekiah takes another small step forward, breathes heavily through his nose.

“I am restoring them. Nothing more.”

Dora glowers at him. “You lie. They need no restoration. Certainly the pithos is in perfect condition considering its considerable age.”

“Its considerable age?” Hezekiah echoes.

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