Very Special Properties

It was burning her chest again, even through a thick cotton turtleneck. Annelise loved the beautiful gold heart pendant with a blue opal on the front, but she could not wear it comfortably, nor could she take it off. It was a gift from her husband, Dan, who’d been working on the DigitPet project overseas. She was moved by the locket. The couple never bought presents for each other preferring shared adventures. Still, this locket was so beautiful, and it was the last thing he gave her after a business trip, that horrible trip that changed him into an angry, silent person. She immediately put it on so that her husband could see how much it, and he, meant to her. She wore it 24/7 at first.

“Oh, Annie, what did you do to deserve this?” her best friend of almost 20 years said while trying to open the locket on Annelise’s neck. “Is there anything inside?”

“Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I love it so much. Besides having the most beautiful opal on it, he took the time to put a tiny photo of us and one of James inside.”

Amy leaned toward her. “I can’t seem to open it. Maybe it’s my fat fingers,” said the champion rider who met Annelise at a horse ranch when they were seven and nine years old.

“You don’t have big fingers,” Annelise tried to open it. “Wow, I can’t do it either,” she mumbled while pressing her thumbnail against the crack at the top. “I’ve done this many times with no problem. Maybe I’ve worn it so long I glued it shut with body heat and moisturizer!”

They both chuckled. “That’s not a pretty mental image, Annie.”

“Seriously, though.” Annelise pulled down her turtleneck revealing what looked like an oddly shaped burn mark just above her breasts.

“Holy shit, what is that!” Amy focused on the area. “It almost looks like a cigarette burn. Is there something you haven’t told me?” Her joyful expression, in an instant, changed to a familiar look of concern. She pulled away from her friend and continued, “you said he’s been angry since he got back from that trip to DigiPet land. Did Dan do this to you?”

“No, Amy! God no!” she straightened the turtleneck and covered the locket with both hands. “No, he’s mostly been giving us the silent treatment. Both of us. It’s starting to affect James. I think I need to get him a dog or something. We both try to watch Dan’s body language and tiptoe around him when he seems exceptionally grumpy. I’m getting worried about how it’s affecting James. He’s so young.” Amy took Annelise’s hand, sandwiching its paleness between her sun-blessed, well-muscled palms. Annelise immediately wrapped her long, soft fingers around the strong hands, as if they were her lifeline. “Something happened on that trip, but I don’t know what.”

“Your hand is so hot. Are you sick?”

“No, it’s this damn locket! It seems the angrier Dan gets, the more this thing burns me.”

“That can’t be true. What, did he get a cursed locket? Oh, maybe he had a spell put on it.” Amy let go and pulled away. “Listen to yourself. Maybe you’re just tired from being super Mom for what, five weeks while he was gone?”

“Seven weeks, and no, I’m not tired. James is a great kid. I’ve got help at the gallery. I just don’t paint while Dan’s gone. My commissions know that.” She hesitated and looked out the window collecting her thoughts. “OK, Amy, I trust you almost better than I trust myself. I haven’t told anyone this because I had to make sure I wasn’t imagining it, but here goes.” She inhaled, looking straight through Amy as if searching for words in the puffy white clouds that captured her attention. “I wore this locket for a whole week, and when I finally took it off, I hung it on the corner of my dresser mirror. That night I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned enough to send Dan into the spare room. It felt like someone, or something, was in the room watching me.” She paused to look at Amy, who was spellbound, her brow still deeply furrowed. That was an expression that Annelise preferred not to see. Amy was a confident horse trainer who spoke her mind to horse or human. Those brows often meant that she wanted none of this bullshit.

“Continue, Annelise. I need to know the truth.”

“I finally got about five hours of sleep. The next morning everything felt fine, so I decided to give it a good cleaning and put it back on. I like the damn thing. It makes me feel closer to Dan somehow. Anyway, that night I tried to take it off but couldn’t, and neither could James. I wore it to bed, and everything was fine, so I decided the drama the night before was all in my head.”

“Well, that’s good to hear!”

“But it’s not. Dan can’t get it off of me either and said I should just wear it, but it burns me. So, I got some metal cutters out of his toolbox in the garage and tried to cut the chain the other day, but I couldn’t cut it either.”

“Let me try.” Amy pulled Annelise to her feet, maneuvering her to get access to the clasp. “This clasp is tiny. No wonder you can’t do it.” Taking hold of the closure, she squeezed the side that should open but failed. “Damn Amy, this is tiny! You have two options. Get me some needle nose pliers and I’ll try to open the clasp with them or bring that metal cutter and we’ll just cut it off. And buy yourself a chain that’s easy on, easy off.” Annelise rushed out of the room, returning in seconds with the requested tools. “OK, let’s do this.” With an index finger lifting the chain off of her friend’s neck, Amy noticed the turtleneck was scorched. “Man, you need to spend more time with me at the ranch. I need to keep a closer eye on you! Your shirt is burned.”

“The chain got hot when you took hold of it. My neck got hot, but the locket’s normal. Just cut it off. Forget the pliers!” Tears welled in her eyes. The sense of being watched had taken control of Annelise again. “I feel that same thing, whatever it is, like someone I can’t see is right here.” Amy recognized that look of terror, “I think they’re mad you’re touching the necklace. Get it off me, now!”

Amy regularly moved 140-pound hay bales. She could tear leather straps with her bare hands, this would be a piece of cake. “Annie, I’m going to try cutting this thing, so don’t move. I don’t want to poke or cut you.” She slid the wire cutter easily under the chain. Amy squeezed, first with one hand, then with two. “I can’t cut this. What in the hell! Do not move I said. I am going to give it everything I’ve got!” Amy breathed heavily as she concentrated on cutting the small, gold chain.

“Stop Amy, It’s burning me through my shirt! My chest is on fire, too. Stop, STOP NOW!” Tears flowed down Annelise’s flushed face and down her blistering neck. “Get me an ice pack. It really hurts!” She ran to the bathroom and got the Aloe Vera sunburn gel as Amy rushed to the kitchen, with an ice pack and a bag of frozen peas which she handed to her friend.

“I’m not touching your neck or that damn necklace. It is clearly cursed and doesn't like me.” She pulled a cell phone from her jeans pocket. “I am either calling 911, or I’m calling your husband. It’s your choice, Annie.”

“Not 911. If you can get Dan, go ahead, but he doesn’t pick up my calls during work anymore.” She said, rotating the peas between her neck and chest, finding little relief. Annelise sat on the couch and tried to take calming breaths, hoping that would help, but it didn’t.

Amy stepped outside and called Dan. When she came back in, Annelise was passed out on the couch. “What the hell?” Frightened to touch Annelise, she took the bag of warm peas to the kitchen sink and grabbed a kitchen towel. Using the towel, she lifted Annelise’s arm away from the locket and checked her heart rate. It was almost 140 – way too high for comfort! Amy was reaching for her phone to call 911 when Dan’s car rolled up and he walked inside.

“Amy, what is going on, why are you here?!” His face was as white as a sheet, something Amy had never seen before. “I was in a meeting, and my chest started pounding. I nearly passed out. Apparently, everyone noticed something going on with me. But I couldn’t drive to the hospital, my chest was pounding so hard, somehow I ended up here.”

“Habit,” was all Amy could say.

Dan’s shirt was soaked but only on one side of his chest. “Why is Annelise sleeping on the couch?”

“You tell me, Dan. That necklace you gave her burned chest, haven’t you seen it? Where did you get that damn thing? And what’s going on with you?! You’ve been a real shit to your family lately!”

“Amy, I don’t know what’s going on with me. I don’t remember stuff.” Looking dazed, he sat on the loveseat near Annelise and felt her forehead. “She’s warm. I think they fired me, but I can’t be sure.”

“I know, she passed out asshole. Is that why you’ve been a dick? Annie won’t care. She misses you.”

“No, I don’t know that I’m fired. It was weird. You know this started when I mentioned Jimmy’s DigiPet project for the imagination fair in a meeting three years ago. The tech geeks we were meeting with loved the concept. I talked to Jimmy, he was pumped, so I signed their contract.”

“I don’t care about your damn project,” she said feeling for a pulse on Annelise.

“Amy, in the last couple of years, I’ve gotten the feeling that they’re trying to control people as much as these electronic pets. I called them on that this trip.” Dan paused and unbuttoned his wet shirt.

Amy was attentive, taking in Dan’s words. “You’re dripping sweat. Are you feeling ok?”

“I don’t feel anything, Amy, not since we had drinks a couple of nights before I flew home.”

“What are you talking about?” Amy put the ice pack wrapped in the kitchen towel on his lap. Dan held it to his forehead as he continued. “After they jumped all over me for questioning the design changes, Jeffrey, the CEO who is usually silent at these things, suggested we take the rest of the day off. So, we all went for a nice dinner and drinks to chill out and reconnect.”

“That sounds fantastic, but I don’t give a shit! Why is your wife, my best friend, passed out on your couch?” She picked up the phone and began dialing 911 again. Dan pulled it out of her hand.

“Amy, listen. Jeffery the CEO and one of the Australians gave me that locket for Annelise at the bar. They said it was their way to thank her for all the time I’ve spent away from home. Somehow they knew opal was her birthstone and said this opal had very special properties. It was pretty so I gave it to her.”

“I’ll say it has properties. It has properties that will kill her! Dan, I think you’ve been duped, but that doesn’t matter right now. Help me get that fucking thing off her!”

He took the wire cutter from Amy. “I’ll cut, hold her hands out of my way.” As he touched the chain an energy surged through him. Dan collapsed, on his wife and the locket.