Thomas wheezed in the dust, trying not to cough. The part of his mind not occupied with keeping the noise down had his watering eyes fixed on the glitter among the newspaper scraps and faded photos. A minute passed before he dared to move without causing more flurries of powdery decay. He stood up, very carefully, and stepped outside the closet and tried to shake the assorted gunk from his suit. The dust, accustomed to a lifetime of peace and quiet sitting in one place, put up little fight, and after a little effort on his part Thomas got himself reasonably clean. Ah, the wonders of cheap suits... It was only then that he reached inside the closet and picked up what had so interested him.
It was a medallion, made from, by appearance, silver. Thomas looked at the chest. No, not silver. Silver would have tarnished a long time ago, judging from the layers of dust on that chest. Thomas stared at the thing. You couldn't grow up as the son of two antique dealers without learning a little art appreciation. He knew his parents wouldn't give this little trinket more than a passing glance. He turned it over, and thankfully he couldn't find a name etched into it anywhere. In terms of money, it was probably worthless, but Thomas felt he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen something so beautiful.
It was quite small, it was silver(Silver colored, he reminded himself.) and it was a fox. That was about all you could say for certain, because viewed from certain angles in different lights, it could be a fox running from the side, or a fox head from the side, or a fox head from the front, or a fox on its haunches staring out of the metal. Thomas felt his breathing slowing as he turned the thing around, finding a new way of viewing it from time to time. It's a masterpiece, he thought. And the suggestion of those curves... God, I wonder who made it? From a distance, it must look like just a lump of metal, but up close it's impossible not to see the... the vixen. It certainly sets that old crone that turns into a young woman picture to rights...
A call from downstairs drew half of his attention away from admiring the medallion, and medallion it was. He hadn't noticed at first, but a little hole went through the silver fox without interrupting any of its facets. The chain must have rotted through. Reluctantly, he turned his attention away from the amulet heard the call. Apparently his family was leaving. Unthinkingly, he stuck the medallion in his pocket and went downstairs.
On the ride home, Thomas fingered the fox in his pocket constantly, thinking about how he'd simply taken it without asking. He couldn't help but feel a little guilty about it, but then again, the fox was simply too nice a piece to let sit without being appreciated in a dusty closet. He felt a little less annoyed with his parents when he thought about it that way, even if he knew they did what they did for the wrong reasons. They rescued art that was in danger of being forgotten, sold it to people who could appreciate it... Well, he thought, this is one piece that doesn't have to be sold to be appreciated.
An hour later the family van pulled into the driveway of their suburban house. Thomas evaded being drafted into helping move furniture again, and Katherine disappeared into her room. Thomas heard a modem fired up. His sister spent a lot of time on the internet... He walked into his room adjacent to hers and put the fox amulet down on his neat dresser, and quickly changed out of his suit, getting back into his usual clothing of blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a light overshirt. Then he unthreaded a shoelace from one of his pairs of funeral shoes(as he thought of them) and ran it through the hole in the medallion, knotting the ends.