``Its a lovely tea set,'' Grandmother said, ``your great great aunt hand painted it back in the old country.''
He looked at the horrible cups and saucers. He imagined some pathetic woman with her head tied up in a cloth and broken boots lugging the miserable treasure into steerage on some filthy immigrant ship. It made him tired to think of it.
``Its yours,'' grandmother said, ``I want you to have it.''
``Grandmother, I have no place for it -''
``Take it. You'll find room. Take it.''
Reluctantly he picked up the old card board box.
``Be careful!'' Grandmother called down the stairs.
``I will, Grandmother.''
They were very dusty. He washed each piece and set everything out on the kitchen table. Faded cream and rose and blue and brown. Delicate.
His girl friend thought the tea set lovely. She served tea for him and herself and her son Damon. Damon was ten. He had the eyes of a hawk but he had put on his mom's reading glasses just to be silly.
``Hey!'' he said, ``there's writing on these cups!''
No one else could see it.
``It ain't English,'' Damon said.
They took the tea set to the museum and a curator said it was a code. Who knows what it meant - for what it was intended? The curator could not guess, but she knew people who might know.
``Leave it alone,'' Grandmother said, ``it is from the darkness.'' Secret words, secretly written.
``There's a story here,'' he said, ``I want to find out -''
But he never did.