literature

All for the Sake of a Jewelled Locket

Deviation Actions

Published: Nov 26, 2014

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Literature Text

Things were so much simpler when I was a child

Things were easy; I got cereal in the mornings, I wore frilly dresses, I played with Barbie dolls. The biggest concern in my life was making sure my night light didn't run out of battery, because I was terrified to death of the dark back then.

I live now in the same house as I did when I was younger; since then, my bedroom has transformed from a pink polka-dotted catastrophe to a quiet haven, thankfully in reach of the wi-fi. I suppose I have many privileges now. But I have so many unanswered questions.

Every kid goes through a stage in his or her life where they start to doubt adult authority. They still want to believe that grownups have all the answers, but they just aren't so sure anymore. Then they start to look for answers on their own.

When I was five years old, twins lived in the house next to me. Their names were Peter and Lily. The three of us would play in their yard because they had a sandbox; Peter would bring his plastic dinosaurs across the grass and bury them, and then the three of us would find them. Peter was always quiet and gentle; Lily was wild and bossy. They were a perfect contrast to each other. Many days we would fetch Mabel from the house on the other side of mine, because Mabel had a soccer ball. The four of us spent whole summers together.

Then one day, it was just Peter.

I remember climbing over the fence between my yard and theirs, and finding him sitting alone in the sandbox. "Where is Lily?" I asked him. He gave me a blank stare.

I never saw Lily again.

I asked Mabel and Peter where she went, over and over again, and Peter would just shake his head; Mabel would give me a condescending little laugh. "Lily was your imaginary friend", she used to say. "I guess you just outgrew her."

At the time, I bought the story, though I was a bit confused; Lily had always seemed real enough. She was perfect. She was beautiful. I adored her because she and Peter were a year older than me, and because she had a real locket with a diamond on the cover that Mabel and I always begged to look inside of. There were no photos in it, but the hinged doors mesmerised us.

I even went so far as to ask my mother where Lily had gone. She looked at my father funny and then told me that there was no Lily; Lily was not real, and I must have been imagining.

For years, I believed that Lily had been a figment of my imagination, that the tulle skirts and bows she had worn were not real, and that the bedroom next to Peter's had always been a guest room, had never belonged to Lily at all.

But last week, I found a photograph.

I was bored; I had read all of my library books, and couldn't find anything worthwhile to do on the internet. So I went into the attic to look for something to read. My father keeps a bookshelf there full of old paperbacks that won't fit in the shelves downstairs. Many of them are books from when he was younger: My Side of the Mountain, Where the Red Fern Grows, timeless classics such as those. I picked one out and, feeling lazy, settled on the wooden floor of the attic with my back against the shelves. However, when I settled against the planks, I felt something sharp hitting the back of my thigh. Upon further inspection, I found that it was a polaroid photograph, stuck between the wooden slats.

I managed to grab the white corner with my fingernails, and pried it out from between the floorboards. My eyes landed first in the top left corner, scanning downwards; I saw myself in foggy ink, wearing a pink dress with a crown on the chest. And then, on the right side of the photograph, hand in mine, locket ever around her neck, was Lily.

It should have been impossible. Imaginary friends don't show up in pictures. Figments of the imagination are not captured by polaroid ink. Yet there she was, grasped between my thumb and finger, smiling, with her front teeth missing and her baby doll in hand, just as I remembered her. The photo must have been taken soon after we met. There was only one explanation, and it sent my mind reeling: Lily was real, and everyone had been lying to me all this time. For ten years, I had believed them.

Mabel came to my mind first off; after Lily had disappeared, Mabel had been promoted to my best friend, as Peter had become subdued and silent, prone to outbursts of anger. If I could guilt Mabel into telling me the truth, I could find out what had really happened. As I walked to her house, it occurred to me for the first time that I had never been inside her room before.

I knocked on the door, and her younger sister answered. She told me she thought Mabel was probably upstairs in her bedroom, so I went. When I opened the door to her room, I found it empty, and walked inside to wait for her return; I could hear the shower across the hall and guessed that that was where she was.

Taking a look around Mabel's bedroom, I found that it seemed pretty normal; I saw her favourite t-shirt slung over a chair, the contents of a backpack scattered over the bed, and the necklace made of carved raccoon bones she had gotten on vacation a few years back. Then I noticed a silver glint in the corner of my eye, and turned towards the bedknob.

There I saw it: Lily's locket, a bit tarnished, but familiar. The diamond had caused the glint I saw earlier.

In a daze, I crossed the room and picked it up; I snapped it open. It was still empty, as always. It fit in the palm of my hand perfectly, cold and smooth.

Then I heard footsteps; I turned to see Mabel coming in the doorway behind me. She froze up for a moment when she saw me in her bedroom.

"Becca?...What do you think you're doing in my room?" She glided over to where I stood. "I didn't know you were here."

"Your sister let me in", I said. Then I cleared my throat and reminded myself why I had come there. "I need you to tell me the truth about Lily."

Mabel laughed in ridicule. "Come on, Becca. We've told you a thousand times. Lily isn't real. She - " Mabel trailed off in midsentence as I released the locket from my palm, dangling it before her. Now I had the upper hand.

"This was Lily's. She always wore it. There's something you're not telling me."

Mabel struggled to regain her footing. "That was mine. That's always been mine, Becca. You must be mistaken."

I showed her the photo. "I found this in my attic. It probably fell out of one of our old photo albums and never got thrown away. Please don't lie to me, Mabel. I deserve to know the truth."

Mabel could not find the words to explain away the photo. She shrugged and gave a harsh laugh. "You want to know the truth? Fine. Lily died when she was seven. In order to protect our fragile little minds, her parents told everybody that she had never existed in the first place. It broke Peter and that's why he's so bitter. I moved on. You should too." She pulled the locket chain from my fingers and turned away from me.

"How did she die?" I persisted. It hurt me that everyone had been lying to me all this time, but it didn't surprise me. It made sense that Lily was dead. But I needed to know what had happened to my best friend.

"You want the version that her parents believe? Or do you want the real story?" Mabel took a step closer to me. For the first time, I felt spooked in Mabel's presence. She had always been a bit bossy and condescending, but that was just a quirk that came with Mabel. Now she was being downright cold.

"The truth, please", I said, my voice wavering a bit.

And then I realised that I already knew the answer.

Lily's sudden disappearance. Peter's silence. Mabel having possession of the locket. The necklace of bones.

My eyes must have gone wide because Mabel rocked back on her heels and crossed her arms, giving me a subdued look. I felt cold.

"You killed her", I whispered.

Mabel nodded calmly. "I used my father's letter opener. Those things will cut straight through your belly."

My eyes fell on the necklace of bones on the dresser; I couldn't help it. Mabel followed my gaze and confirmed what I was thinking: "Those were hers. I took them to Austin and got them carved. It's to remind myself of what I've done."

"Why?" I whispered hoarsely. "Why would you do that?"

She shrugged. "I wanted the locket", she said simply.

I then realised that I was trapped in a room with a killer. However, when I started edging towards the door, Mabel stepped a side and watched me leave, silent as ever.

I barely slept that night for fear that she would come through the window and slay me as she had Lily; but it stayed quiet. A month passed, and Mabel moved out for college. Then I could rest easy.

The one fateful question I answered myself was: What had happened to Lily? Lily, my unreal reality, solid ground, and stable friend?

The answer I didn't want to hear was this: My best friend Mabel killed her with a gilded letter opener, all for the sake of a jewelled locket.

Things were so much simpler when I was a child.