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when she brought a finger close to its surface an electric arc was generated between her skin and the object. It did not hurt so much as it startled her.
    Yani thought it odd that there was no packing inside the object's container and yet the egg didn't rattle around inside. It hovered like an angry hornet. The box itself seemed to be made of a kind of wood that she hadn't seen before... there were no hinges incorporated into the design yet it opened as if there were... she discovered that whatever edge that happened to be upright when she held the box in her hand would raise up all on its own as if it somehow knew what she desired.
    "It's magnetic."
    But the box wasn't magnetic. She tested it with one of the little toy magnets she used to hold important papers on the side of the old rusty metal desk that served her as a kitchen table... a gift from the previous occupant.
    Yani noticed that when she was around the box and the stone it contained—for it was more a stone than anything even while it appeared to be made of water too—she thought much more clearly than normal—she'd always been a bit scatterbrained—and she seemed to have a surplus of energy that had been lacking in her life for as long as she could remember.
    She thought of all the things the box might mean and what the stone inside could possibly represent but all her notions ran to the terrifying reality of her father. He'd brought it. Still, no one out in the world knew she lived here... she hadn't assumed a new last name as she once considered doing yet she used it seldom, she had no Texas connections other than with the Triple Six ranch, and she didn't even have a postal box to receive mail. The parcel had simply been left on her doorstep. She wasn’t sure who had delivered it or why.
    It had to be the man she called father. The man still wanted her, or perhaps the cult he'd given her over to. She remembered how Evalena talked of their father in the past tense as if he was dead but men like Hajdani didn't die. The mysterious package had to be from him though without a return address she couldn’t be sure.
    Another thing that made her uneasy was how the box glowed in the dark. In fact, it wasn’t the box so much that glowed but the object inside of it. It seemed strange to Yani how the light of the egg could permeate the solid wood and she worried that perhaps the box and its contents might be dangerous both to her and her baby.
    She took the box and wrapping up little Willem safe from the cold—not wanting to wake Maria—she went down to the creek bank where using a spade she uprooted a large rock, dug a hole under it, lowered the box into it, and covered it up. Satisfied with her efforts she took up her son and the spade and went back home.
    That night, however, she couldn't sleep for fear someone would come along and discover the box she'd buried. Had she rolled the rock back over top of it? She couldn't remember. As clearly as she thought with the stone close by, her thinking seemed that much more muddled with it gone.
    Dragging herself from the warmth of her bed and bundling little Willem up well against the cold again she picked up a lantern and the spade and made her way back to where she buried the box. For just a moment she panicked thinking someone had rolled away the rock but then she realized in her haste to get Willem back home she must've forgotten to do so. She'd started to replace the rock that night but then thought better of it.
    "What if someone's watching? They'll know I've buried something of value here. It's wiser to dig up the box and bring it back home with me where it'll be safe."
    As soon as she returned to the chabola, put little Willem back to bed, and tried to lay down herself, Yani began obsessing over the box again. Maybe it really was dangerous. Why had she brought it back into the chabola? What could she have been thinking?
    She got up out of bed her feet still cold from being out of doors, took the box, and set it