The Christmas Gift That Whispers Your Secrets

 

The gift

I’ve never liked Christmas Eve at my parents’ house. Too many people, too much noise, too many memories crammed into one night. But Mom insists the whole family shows up, so every year I drive the four hours from Chicago with a bottle of cheap wine and a fake smile.

This year was different from the moment I walked in.

A small box sat on the pile of presents under the tree. Matte black paper, no ribbon, no tag. Just my name written on top in red ink that looked wet: SARAH.

Mom swore she didn’t put it there. Dad said the same. My sister Jess rolled her eyes and blamed Aunt Linda, who always brings weird thrift-store junk. Nobody claimed it.

I should’ve left it alone.

Instead, after dinner, when everyone was arguing over Monopoly and eggnog, I carried the box upstairs to my old bedroom. The paper tore like skin. Inside was a wooden music box the size of a paperback. Hand-carved, antique-looking, with tiny brass hinges. No key, no winding mechanism I could see. Just a lid.

I opened it.

A soft chime played—three notes, slow, like a lullaby from a nightmare. Then a voice. My voice. But not from my throat.

“Sarah still wets the bed when she’s anxious,” it whispered.

I slammed the lid shut. My face burned. I hadn’t done that since I was nine, and only Mom knew. She’d promised never to tell.

Downstairs, the laughing stopped. I heard Jess scream my name, furious.

I crept to the hallway. Jess stood in the living room, cheeks red, staring at Mom like she’d been slapped. Mom’s hand covered her mouth. Dad looked confused.

Jess turned to me. “Did you tell everyone about the abortion?” she hissed. “In front of Grandma?”

I hadn’t. I swear I hadn’t.

The music box was still in my hand. I opened it again, just a crack.

Another chime.

“Jessica paid for it with the money she stole from Dad’s safe,” my own voice whispered, loud enough for the whole house to hear.

Dad went white. Jess started crying. Grandma crossed herself.

I threw the box onto the bed and backed away, but the lid flipped open by itself.

“Robert cheated on his taxes in 2018,” it sang. Dad’s secret. The one he confessed to me drunk last Thanksgiving, begging me never to tell Mom.

One by one, it spilled them all.

Aunt Linda’s DUI she hid from the family.

Cousin Mike’s gambling debt.

Mom’s pain-pill stash in the flour tin.

Every ugly truth we’d buried under tinsel and forced smiles.

The room turned into a war zone of accusations and tears. Someone knocked the tree over. Ornaments shattered. Dad was shouting about lawyers. Jess ran out the front door into the snow without a coat.

I grabbed the box, ran downstairs, and hurled it into the fireplace. The flames swallowed it instantly.

Silence. Just the crackle of burning wood and the grandfather clock ticking too loud.

Then the smoke shifted. The flames turned green. And that same three-note lullaby drifted out of the chimney, soft as breath.

“Sarah still thinks about driving her car into the lake,” it whispered, everywhere and nowhere.

I felt every pair of eyes turn to me.

I don’t remember grabbing my keys. I just remember running to my car, barefoot in the snow, engine roaring before I even shut the door. I made it ten miles down the county road before I noticed the rearview mirror.

A tiny black box sat on the back seat. No ribbon. No tag. My name in red ink that looked wet.

I pulled over, heart hammering, and opened it with shaking fingers.

Inside lay a single brass key.

The lid lifted by itself.

“Merry Christmas, Sarah,” my voice purred from inside. “There’s room for one more secret this year. Shall we start with why you really came home?”

I looked at the key. Then at the dark road stretching both ways.

I still don’t know whose gift it was.

But it knows me.

And it’s waiting for next Christmas.