The Ladies in the Locket

The Ladies in the Locket

“Bring her here.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Rabbit, I told you to call me ‘Sire’”

“Yes, Sir”

“Aah, Forget it”.

Rabbit exited through the crumbling brick opening which had been a door before The Great Destruction, which had occurred decades before anyone in this crumbling and roofless hall had been born. He returned, leading a dirty disheveled person who resembled a stick more than a girl. More or less dressed in rags and barefoot, she stood no more than five feet tall, and that only if you could stretch the measuring stick.

“Who are you?”

She looked down at the floor and softly mumbled something.

“Look at me. And speak up.”

She raised her head, “Yes Sir.”

“You will call me Sire!”

“Yes Sire,” with emphasis on the Sire.

“Now answer the question, who are you and why did you come here?”

“I answer to Heyu, and I did not come here. I was taken off the street in Leabug by bad men and brought here.”

“What do you have to pay for your freedom?”

“Nothing, Sire. I own only what is on my back and live by digging through rubble to find things to trade for food. I sleep wherever I am when my body tires.”

“What is that around your neck?’

Heyu suddenly looked frightened as she understood she was in danger of losing the heart shaped locket around her neck. She protectively drew her hand to cover the locket hanging on a cord around her neck and nervously responded, “My family, Sire”

“And pray tell, how can that be?”

“Sire, before my mother wasted away, she gave me this locket. She told me how her mother had given it to her as a child, and how my grandmother had originally received it from her mother back before The Great Destruction. She told me the spirits of all those who wore the locket before me lived in the locket and would help me through life when I needed them. She told me to always keep them near because they were my family and my protectors.”

“Give it to me.” he said, reaching toward her.

“No, no, please? It’s the only family I have,” Heyu said, drawing away in fear and desperation.

“Rabbit,” he commanded. “Bring me the locket.

Rabbit, with two others helping, forcefully pulled the cord holding the locket up over Heyu’s head, and handed it to his gang chief.

“Harumph, he muttered while examining the locket and putting it into a pouch he wore around his neck.

Heyu, all the while, was wailing and crying, “My family, My family,” between sobs.

“Put her back on the street where she belongs. We have no use for her.”

Rabbit took Heyu a block down the street. Heyu’s wails dwindled to sniffles. “You need to go away and stay away, he told her. “My boss is not a nice man. You are lucky to have had the locket to give him for your freedom.”

“I gave him nothing. He stole my locket, and he will be sorry,” she shouted through her tears as Rabbit retreated.

That night the chief lay on his bed of rags in a corner of the room. Tired from a long day of tormenting both his victims and his followers, he slept soundly with a self satisfied grin on his face, his pouch of valuables secure around his neck.

At one A.M an apparition emerged from the locket. Heyu’s mother then helped her mother’s apparition out, and she in turn took Heyu’s great grandmother's hand and helped her into the realm of the living. The three semi-solid beings, saying not a word, silently gathered around the sleeping chief.

Looking at each other, Heyu’s mother softly croaked, “We are family”, the others nodded in affirmation. Together they fell upon the chief, two pinning him to the floor and the third strangling him with the cord from the pouch around his neck. Just before he died, Heyu’s great grandmother said, “She told you we were her family. You should have listened.”

He was dead before she finished her sentence.

The next morning Heyu woke up and instinctively reached for her locket. It rested as always on the cord around her neck. She kissed the locket and said, “Thank you family. I love you.”