Vessel

The locket swayed gently in a pool of darkness, barely awake as they rocked back and forth in darkness’s cradle. A dull lullaby, they thought, one they had grown far too used to.

They thought.

The locket hadn't thought in years. How many years had it been? How long had this darkness been their home?

Suddenly, they sensed a presence beyond the darkness. They clung to it, dragging themselves to full awareness.

“Look at this,” a voice vibrated, creating waves that crashed against the edges of the dark. The waves crashed over the locket, nauseatingly, dizzyingly, as their home swung through the air.

“Try it on,” another voice echoed. The waves ebbed, replaced with a new energy, a desire that the locket had forgotten in the darkness.

Yes. Try it on.

The darkness vanished. The locket blinked, remembering eyelashes, skin, light. She looked down at her hands as they pulled away from her neck. Hands. A manic laughter emerged from her without thinking. Throat, tongue, lips. Sound. Memory. Centuries. It had been so long. And now she was free.

She turned to the other voice, a woman with wide eyes. She wore a single set of clothing, clean and well ironed. Indecent, but boring.

“It’s very pretty,” the woman said. The locket stared for a moment, letting the other memories from her vessel settle in.

“Thank you,” she said, reaching up to touch the metal of the locket, to feel the reality of her situation under her fingertips instead of as the bars of a cage. Her finger traced the heart shape in a moment of satisfaction. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel well,” she said. She sifted through her second set of memories, the ones from her vessel. “Why don’t we continue this tomorrow, Hunter?”

The woman nodded. “Do you need me to walk you home?”

“Oh, no,” the locket said, letting the words slide through her mouth, like honey. How she had missed talking. “I’ll be okay.”

The door chimed as she left, “Thank you for your purchase.”

Purchase. The locket gritted her teeth. So she had been sold like a cheap trinket, a lucky find. If only they knew what she contained, the lives she had lived, the things she had accomplished. She flexed her new fingers, the bones and muscles stretching deliciously. So much to do.

She moved silently down the street, searching her mind for her vessel’s home. There were too many distractions in this new world to concentrate on the two in her head. Screens flashing everywhere without pause, images she didn’t recognize, words she didn’t know. The noises overwhelmed her. Men and women alike wore the same boring clothes, one-set clothes. How she missed ball gowns.

It was easier than she had expected to stay out of the way. No one even took a second look at her. They just stared forward, unblinking, their stride unwavering. There was no vibrance here, no red as red as the brick house, no green as green as her forest. There would be no evenings listening to stories that had been passed down for centuries, waiting for a fable spun from a moment that she was a part of.

And of course, she suddenly realized, no Georgy.

After walking past the same building for the fourth time, her vessel paused. Something felt at home on this part of the street. She sank deeper into her vessel, trying to access the memories when, of its own accord, the door opened in front of her.

“Welcome home,” it chimed. Her vessel has no reaction to the door, but she couldn’t help the discomfort in her mind. She shoved away the urge to look for a servant holding the door open, she knew she would not see one.

The locket drifted into her home. The room was faded just like everything else. While her vessel had painted the walls in a bright blue she could appreciate, there wasn’t a single art piece in sight. Where had it all gone? Painters and sculptors used to pile their work on streets, more canvases than they could sell. Even commoners had been able to hang a piece of creation on their walls. But here, she saw none.

This was not the world the locket hoped to wake up in, but it would work for now. It was better than the darkness. Even with the noise.

Weeks passed; quickly at first as she adapted to this new era, but eventually slower than the darkness had. She let her vessel guide her to an inane job every day, tapping buttons without a thought in either of their minds. Occasionally, she met up with her vessel’s supposed friends for dinner or shopping at markets that sold old trinkets. And trinkets they all were. They were nothing like herself, no spark to be found no matter how many hunting knives or pocket watches she handled. She longed for her days travelling the world with Georgy or drinking in taverns with their friends. Where she had been Matilda, when the sunshine promised it would never end.

The sun was elusive in this world. She’d leave this city if she could, but she had walked to the edges only to find it blocked off. Her new friends whispered that those who tried to escape didn’t return, although she had never mentioned her intention to leave out loud. Her vessel wasn’t that type of person. Some of her friends were a bit more outgoing, outspoken. She should have seized their bodies instead. The city was damned, they said. The city had been forgotten, they said. Curse Hugo, they said, but only while they were drunk.

Curse Hugo.

It didn’t take the locket long to figure out who Hugo was. The ruler of the city, though he didn’t call himself that. A king was a king, and this king was her way out.

“Can you try this locket on?” She sat on a man’s lap, her arm draped around him, his arm wrapped around her waist. He furrowed his eyebrows at her. He was wealthy and she could admit that the locket did not match the diamonds set into his watch. She didn’t care. He was rumored to be seeing Hugo’s wife on the side.

“Please,” she said, pouting her lower lip

“Fine,” he chuckled. The locket bent her neck down, smiling.

There was a moment of darkness, and then the locket found himself looking down at a very confused girl in his lap.

“You should get yourself home, honey,” the locket said, enjoying the taste of a new voice in his mouth, deep and rough.

The girl stood up, dazed. The locket felt nothing for his prior vessel. His next target was waiting for him.

It took only a couple of days for the locket to rendezvous with his new lover. And only a few minutes to convince the wife to wear the locket. A secret only they shared. Pathetic.

Curse Hugo, she thought, testing out her new body. It was the best one yet, like the rich girls in Paris she had so envied, the beauty in their well-fed cheeks. She strolled into her home, a palace really, eager to see this man she only heard cursed. There was a familiarity about him that she could feel even in this new vessel.

The darkness had taught her patience and she made use of her new wine rack as she easily waited for her husband to return. And yet when the door opened and a large man walked through, a thrill ran through her. She held out her hand for him as her vessel always did and the two made quiet small talk as they made their way to a couch overlooking the city. She kissed him just as his wife would have but was surprised to find her laughter was genuine. And then, she made her move.

As motionless as she could, she drove a knife straight towards his heart.

Her husband moved quicker than she expected and blocked her wrist, letting his jacket sleeve slide up to reveal a silver bracelet with a small key charm. With his other hand, he grabbed the locket that had come untucked from her blouse.

“Why, my dear,” he said. “I see you found me.”

“Georgy,” she breathed, letting the knife fall forgotten to the marble floor. She cupped his chin in her palm and knew it was true. Her vessel felt nothing now, it was her mind that sang out.

“Matilda,” he said, running his fingers down her face. Her heart longed to hear him say it again, for the time she spent as that girl, but Matilda was gone.

“You should call me by the name of this body, now,” she said, unable to ask him to call her the locket. He wouldn’t understand. He would chastise her for identifying more with the trinket that trapped her than the bodies that freed them.

“As you wish, Frieda.” He drew his hand away from her face and she caught it with her free one. She needed to feel the energy between them. He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I suppose you should call me Hugo. Georgy and Matilda lived a very long time ago, didn’t they?

It was supposed to be a peace offering, but Hugo felt wrong on her tongue. But how many different names had she called Georgy? How many times had they started over? Maybe she missed the world they had created. The two sat in silence as the memories of that world drifted over them.

“You’ve let this world crumble,” the locket said.

“They let it crumble,” Hugo said, waving a hand at the buildings through the glass. “I simply found the best place to watch.”

“You could have saved them.”

“I’m not like that,” he smiled, a bright flash that never changed, no matter the body. “Neither are you.”

“I tried today,” she said.

“To save them? Or did you come here because you felt an inexplicable calling to me?” He walked his fingers down her jawline.

The locket gritted her teeth. She didn’t have an answer. He drew his hand away and she did not reach for it.

“What if we call a truce for tonight, my dear?” Hugo asked, sitting back and letting out a long sigh. The locket knew Hugo was tired. He had been free for decades, dancing these steps of theirs all on his own, where for millennia they had waltzed together. She nodded and the two stood up to walk to the balcony, neither of them having to speak.

They walked hand in hand as the locket made her final move, slipping her fingers in between his wrist and the silver chain, feeling his pulse quicken. Before he could stop her, she yanked the bracelet off and dropped it to the floor. The real Hugo whirled towards her, but the bullet was already in his temple. Guns were technology she understood. He stumbled backwards, but the locket had already moved on.

She reached up and unclasped the metal heart from Frieda’s neck.

What were they, her and Georgy? They had played this game for so long that the locket had forgotten. Gods? Cursed souls? No, the locket thought. They were ghosts. They passed through each era, leaving their mark without making a single memory. They no longer even had names of their own, only the names of the vessels they moved around like pawns.

Darkness swirled around the locket, the lullaby starting again. Someone would find her and Georgy. Someone would see that they were a matching set. They would end up as evidence and maybe eventually a museum. They would stay there for years, decades, maybe even centuries. And then someone would find them and try them on once again.

The locket had won this round. The city would recover. The world would start anew. That was the locket’s favorite part of the game. Waking up. Starting over.