He
brushed aside the cobwebs and scooped the pendant up into his hand. The pendant
was like a silver dish on a thin silver chain. Engraved upon the dish was a
lizard and a snake, the snake wrapped around the lizard’s body. On the back was
L.P., his mother’s initials.
He brought it out into the kitchen
and looked at it awhile longer. He never remembered his mother wearing it.
Didn’t know if his father ever mentioned it. He left it on the table as he
microwaved a dinner, and then ate with it on the table before him.
The way the kitchen light caught the
pendant, Robb could swear the steel alternated between having a blue or red
glow.
Even with his skeptical ideas of whether or
not things like jewelry even mattered, he saw that it was a beautiful piece of
craftsmanship. He felt sure that if his mother had ever worn it, he would have
seen it. He tried to remember what jewelry his mother wore and found himself
failing. Robb didn’t think his mother ever wore any rings or necklaces. So this
was the only thing she’d owned.
When he’d finished his microwave
dinner, and cleaned his fork, he cleared his throat. “What are you?” He asked
it.
He knew of an appraiser in town.
Robb had visited him on occasion when money was getting tight to sell some of
the old things in the garage. Perhaps he would know what to make of the pendant.
The old guy might even know where it’d been made. Robb felt like this thing had
been constructed locally. He hoped so at least. He didn’t like having it
without knowing what it was.
He put it into a paper bag and took
it out to his car. It was dark out, and he ran back inside to grab his jacket.
When he returned to the car, he almost expected the pendant to have vanished.
But it was still there. He sighed, and started the engine.
He tried desperately to remember why
the pendant was so interesting to him. Somewhere,
he thought, a memory will come back to me
and I’ll understand it.
He drove straight to the mall and
got there in ten minutes (Thanks, traffic).
Robb bypassed a crowd of grey-clad kids with dyed hair to slip inside. They
gave him looks. He didn’t bother giving them a look back. He might have, if he
hadn’t been so preoccupied with the pendant.
NEXT PAGE
NEXT PAGE
No comments:
Post a Comment