The locket

    Samantha did not want to go the country for the weekend. It would mean an entire three days of no cell service and no contact. She was pretty sure that Grandma didn’t even have a phone out there in what she liked to call old bat country. This was not a kind thought, she knew, but Sam didn’t care much. She just wanted three things out of life. She wanted to be famous, adored and never bored. This had become her catch phrase and she would strike a pose, as if for a photo, snapping her fingers and making ‘the face’.

Coming here would mean she was cut off and very, very bored. She sighed heavily and shifted position; her leg shoved awkwardly in the back seat behind the driver. She had been banished to the back of the car due to the amount of luggage her Aunt had decided to bring along. The car was packed to with in an inch of its life and her Aunt was not even driving in with them.

When they arrived the sun was already on the horizon, nearly ready to call it a day. Sam stretched as she got out of the car and tried to duck down before her mother could notice her. She thought that if she could just stay out of sight her mother wouldn’t ask her to…

“Samantha? Can you start bringing your aunts things into the house?” Her mom asked in her ‘I’m only going to ask once’ voice she reserved for when she was already frustrated. Samantha supposed the 8-hour drive took its toll but she hated lugging things and resented her mother for forcing her to work.

 She hauled suitcases, boxes, and various loose clothing into the shadowy house. Her Aunt was not the neatest or most organized of people and Samantha vowed to never make any one help her move in the future. As she worked, she imagined herself a princess kidnapped by three cruel and selfish witches. They were going to sacrifice her and steal her youth and beauty. She imagined that they would lock her up in the tower, but only after she finished all the chores.

She would wait in her lonely room for her prince to appear…wait, she thought what prince? Who on earth would she want to come rescue her from this nightmare? None of the boys at school were very cute, and though she still had a few of her old heartthrob magazines from when she was 12 those just didn’t hold the appeal they once did. They were just pictures and she longed for some one to talk to. Some one to impress with her Samantha-ness.  She sighed again; would she never meet any one interesting? Would she end up like her Aunt? All sad and alone and abandoned. She shuddered at the thought. Maybe it was better that she didn’t have a prince she thought and adjusted her fantasy.

The three witches would be cackled as they prepared the large cauldron in the center of the living room. She could imagine it clearly now, the smell of the smoke, and the sour taste in the air from what ever putrid concoction that they were brewing up. She herself would be suspended from the ceiling in one of those big cages she had seen in the pirate movies. The ones that looked like giant bird cages only filled with people. Then, another thought occurred to her. What if, she thought, I was the rescuer instead of the victim? In her minds eye, her kidnapped self would reach down into the dirty straw at the bottom of the cage, she would find a key, or maybe a piece of bone that could serve as a key. It would be small, and cold and wickedly sharp.

“Don’t forget the trunk” Her mom called from the porch, breaking Sam out of her daydream.

“Yes” she said before quietly adding “Mother.” She knew her mom hated being called that. She had always said it was way to formal and preferred Mom or Momkins. Secretly Samantha thought of her as Mamra, the giant moth that attacked Godzilla.

Feeling bitter and miserable Samantha stalked back to the car and opened the trunk. This was to be a ‘girls weekend’ which meant that it would be just her Grandma, her aunt, her mom and of course herself. This was going to be the first of many such trips and Samantha couldn’t wait until she was old enough to ditch the lot of them.

She knew quite well that the reason for the trip was her Aunts divorce, she knew too that her Aunt was depressed and that this whole thing was an attempt to cheer her up, but Samantha didn’t see why she needed to be involved. After all, Sam was only 14, what did she know about heartbreak and divorce. She wasn’t even allowed to date. What good would she be here? She huffed at the injustice of it.

That night they had dinner at the large oak table that dominated the dinning room. There was a lot of food and Grandma had even put out the wine for the occasion. Not being big drinkers and having been on the road all day, it did not take long for all the adults to scatter to their bedrooms for sleep. Sam was left to wander the large house alone.

The house was lit by a few small table lamps, and a merry fire blazed in the fireplace, but other wise the house felt dark and gloomy. Shadows creeped about chased by light across the ceiling as the occasional car passed by close enough to see the place.

At first, Sam tried reading. She sat in the big overstuffed lazy-boy chair, reading the same line over and over again, as the information slid from her brain, like water poured onto glass, it just washed away not even leaving a streak. Bored, Samantha put the book down and slid down from the chair. She examined Grandma’s library and poked around in the fire for a bit. She searched through the couch cushions hunting for loose change but found nothing. Grandma kept the house so clean even the occasional spider knew better then to make its home here.

Samantha checked the time, it was nearly ten o’clock, how she wished she would be at home, watching T.V. or browsing the internet. She looked at her phone but of course, there was no service. She kicked herself mentally for not even downloading any games she could play with out internet. Stupid, she thought and tossed the phone onto the couch. She stretched out beside it and decided to go back to her fantasy.

There she was, she thought, suspended from the ceiling in her human bird cage, a bone key in her hand. Already the witches looked nothing like her family, having taken on sinister new visages. Hooked noses and bushy eyebrows. Beady little black eyes that made them look almost alien. Triplets, she decided, as she watched them bustle around the room. Now, she thought how to distract them so she could escape. She saw one large bone on the worktable, it looked brittle, and sun bleached but she thought she could reach it if she really stretched. She waited until the closest witch to her, turned her back. Samantha lunged for the bone and managed to grasp it. She pulled it into the cage with her as it nearly fell apart in her hands. One large piece remained as the rest fell into small shards and splinters.

Heart pounding, Samantha hurled the bone as hard as she could into the open doorway to her left. The bone hit the wall in the other room with a satisfying thud which led to shrieks of surprise from the witches. They scrambled into the other room to investigate while Sam, brave and clever Sam, opened the lock with her bone key and slipped down to the floor. A sharp pain in her hand made her look down for a moment and she realized that she had cut her hand with the bone key. Blood dripped onto the ground, smelling sharply of copper and life in this dank place of rot and decay. Sam shoved the hand into her pocket and hid herself among the barrels just beyond the worktable to the right. The witched bustled back into the room, screeching inhumanly as they saw the cage was empty.

“If the little one escapes” the first said clutching at her heart,

“It will seal our very fates!” continued the second, one finger lifted in the air to accentuate the point.

“Swiftly now, my sisters, go. Fly we must or die alone.” The third finished as she handed out the brooms. The three mounted and awkwardly waddled over to the door. It flung open on its own and the three took off towards the sickly yellow moon. Samantha, freed now by their absence, bandaged her bleeding hand, and looked about the old workroom. Surrounded by drying herbs and old bones, skins and furs and sharp fire lit blades. Sam rummaged around until she found what she was looking for. A golden locket hidden among the treasures taken off those who had died. Inside the image of a pretty girl with a small white dog, painted in painstaking detail. Her mother’s soul, she thought as she hung the trinket around her neck. She bandaged her bleeding hand and escaped into the moonlit shadowland of night.

Samantha awoke on the couch. The room filled with early morning light, and tiny birds sang outside the window. She checked her phone, It was 6 in the morning and already Sam could smell the coffee pot in the kitchen. She yawned and stretched. And felt an odd throb in her hand. She looked down at it, a faint white mark against her palm looked like an ancient scar. She touched it, spell bound and though it did not hurt, it felt odd and Sam could not remember where it had come from.

“Sam Darling, would you like some tea?” Her grandma called from the kitchen. She always knew as soon as Sam was awake, ever since Sam was a child. Sam stood up and groggily made her way to the kitchen.

“Did you sleep well?” asked grandma as she brought over a steaming cup. Sam took it gratefully inhaling the aroma of the sweet tea.

“Ya, “she replied “had a weird dream though” Sam said trying to remember, “something about witches,” she said gazing down at her teacup.

“What’s that around your neck dear?” asked Grandma, a slight edge to her voice that made Sam pay attention. She looked down and saw a golden locket hanging on a chain. Sam stared in disbelief. Her Grandma came over and picked it up. Opening it with her strong work hardened hands. She looked at it strangely before closing it and letting it fall back against Sam’s chest.

“Where did you find that?” her grandma asked. Looking just a little paler than before.

“I-I don’t know “said Sam, confused and just a little creeped out. “I haven’t seen it before.”

Her grandmother eyed her for a moment before her face cleared and she went back to her cooking.

“That pendant looks just like the one that used to belong to your great, great, grandmother” she said, her back to Samantha as she worked. “It went missing when she did, long before you were born. Funny how things have a way of coming back.” She said more to herself this time.

Sam fingered the locket, opened it, and looked at the painting inside. A little girl with a white dog, she thought. Just like her dream.