The Ruby Necklace

I remember vividly the day that Catherine Newfield died. I had just gotten home from my hellhole of a job and turned on the TV. As I was flipping through programs, I came across a news channel that displayed the words, “Catherine Newfield found dead- Suicide suspected,” accompanied by a picture of her wrinkled, smug face. I had to read the caption a couple of times for it to fully register in my brain. The Newfields were the richest family in America, but nobody knew why. Catherine was, by far, the richest of the Newfields. I hadn’t the slightest idea why she had killed herself; she had everything! Everything I didn’t, I thought as I looked around the small, drab apartment I called home. I daily wished for more money but my dinky little job as a small-town journalist didn’t pay much. The thought of my depressing life my only companion, I went to my bed, laid down on my rock-hard mattress, and drifted off to sleep.

I was awoken by a phone call. I picked it up to see who it was, and let out an exasperated sigh when I saw that it was my boss. There were few people I hated as much as him in the world. He underpaid me, expected too much of me, and treated me like garbage. But, I’m his best writer and he’s the only person who'd hire me, so we were, for better or worse, bound together. 

“Just heard the old Newfield died. It’s a good story. Unfortunately, I don’t have anyone else to do the job. Come to the office right now, John. You’re going to write it.” If there was any trace of sleep left flowing through my veins, it was gone now. His gruff, loud voice does a really good job of waking you up. 

The office where I worked was essentially a bigger version of my apartment. More rooms, and yet just as plain and boring. There was a moldy water cooler in one corner of the entryway, a half-dead plant that had been here as long as I had in another corner, and a couple of beaten up chairs strewn about.

“Get in here, Smith,” I heard his voice say from his room. I opened the door and went inside, not surprised to find him, a desk, and nothing more. He looked up at me, handed me a small stack of papers, and gestured for me to leave. I did as he asked, not risking his anger, and sat down at the small square table I called my office. As I leafed through the papers, I found that they contained no new information. Catherine Newfield found dead. Suicide thought cause of death. Funeral to be held at 4284 Olive Street. I took out my laptop and opened a blank document. I started to write something and then erased it. I tried looking something up, only to find a dead end. There was, quite literally, nothing to write about. The story seemed so cut and dry, so why did I think there was anything more?

A spur of the moment decision led me to stand in my boss’s office again, this time to ask for permission to leave town and visit Mrs. Newfield’s funeral. He looked up at me from whatever he was working on and said, “Sure, why not? It’s not like you do much around here anyways,” in his signature voice and looked down at his papers again.

I was happy for the first time in weeks. I felt a sense of adventure I had never felt before as I boarded an airplane to go to New York. The hours I spent on it felt like weeks in anticipation of getting a good story. I dreamed of what I might find. Was Mrs. Newfield involved in something dark? Was it murder made to look like suicide? So many possibilities, and all of them excited me.

When the plane finally landed, I got out and started my search for a cheap hotel. Living on a journalist’s wage, and an underpaid one at that, I couldn’t afford anything fancy. When I came across one that didn’t look too nice, I made my way inside.

The receptionist saw me enter the door and stared at me as I walked to her desk. I asked for a room, to which she responded, “Fifty-five dollars a night.” I gave her fifty-five dollars in cash, she counted it out, and she handed me a key. I thought that she and my boss would make great friends. 

I put the key in the corresponding door and it opened with a sad creak. I peered into the room and was reminded of my apartment back home. As I thought about it, my apartment might’ve been in better condition. I sat down in the one chair given to me and found that it was wet. Gross, I thought. I checked my phone and saw that it was the day before the funeral. I decided to head off to sleep, but not before brushing off burnt-out cigarette butts and crumbs from the bed. As I laid down I prayed that I didn’t catch any diseases over the night. 

I woke up feeling well-rested, which was strange given my circumstance. I checked my phone and saw that there were only two hours left until the funeral. Feeling a sudden surge of adrenaline and panic through my body, I got up, changed clothes, skipped my other morning routines for fear of stepping foot in the bathroom, grabbed my bag, and left.

The funeral was held at her mansion. Her family had elected to have a public funeral, which was why there were so many journalists there aside from me. That was disappointing, although I would not let it ruin my mood. I was too excited to be here to let the threat of other people having a better story than me frighten me.

When the service started, it was pretty straightforward. The priest came up, said a few words, then some of her friends and family members did the same. Nothing story-worthy was being brought to my attention. As the end of the funeral drew near, I knew nothing more than I did beforehand. Scared of the prospect of returning home empty-handed, I left the room where the funeral was being held and began my search around the house.

I did not want to be caught, so I did my best to be sneaky. I made my way up one of the flights of stairs because I was certain there were no people up here. I tried some of the door handles, but everything was locked. The hallways themselves were laden with very fancy decorations and nothing more. No secret passageways, no hidden compartments, and nothing worth writing a story about. 

I was feeling very upset that nothing was being made clear to me when one of the doorknobs I tried unexpectedly turned. With a very welcome spike of curiosity, I turned it further and the door itself gave way. I found myself in a beautifully decorated bedroom which I assumed to be Catherine’s. 

I had never seen anything like this. This room had everything I had ever dreamed of in it, from a bed covered in expensive silk to crystal lamps adorning the many exquisite tables scattered around the room.

Despite everything else in the room, though, my full attention soon was focused on a small box, which I assumed held jewelry or something else of the same variety. As I went to open it, however, I found it was locked. A sudden surge of anger caused me to pick up the case and throw it against a wall with all of my might. The case crashed open, and something fell out.

Laying on the floor was a ruby necklace. It was more beautiful than anything else I had ever seen. I felt it calling me, urging me to pick it up. I happily obliged and went over to pick it up. As I took my first step, however, a piercing headache shot through my head like an arrow. It was so sudden and so powerful that it made me fall over backward. After a couple of seconds of agonizing pain, I stood up. That was weird, I thought. I hesitantly took the step again, and I found no pain this time. Thoughts racing through my head, I went over, grabbed the necklace, and put it around my neck. It felt warm. 

I picked up the jewelry box and set it on the table where I first found it, not wanting anyone to suspect that I was in here. I took one last glance around the bedroom, knowing I would never see anything more beautiful in my life. Taking a deep breath, I left the room to see what else I could find. 

As I stepped foot into the hallway, I realized that it was probably a bad idea to walk about wearing the necklace. I quickly took it off and shoved it into my pocket. As I did, though, it quickly heated up from a soft warmth to a blazing inferno and burned my hand. I dropped the necklace and pressed my hand against my leg to cool it down. I watched the smoldering pile of metal on the floor congeal and turn back into the beautiful necklace I found in the room. I tucked my sleeve over my hand and picked it up for fear of the heat, but none came. I dropped it into my pocket with a wince and moved on.

I found nothing more in the house. I must’ve searched for hours, because eventually someone came upstairs and found me. She must’ve thought I was mentally ill because she didn’t berate me for sneaking around in (what I assumed was) where she lived. She just told me to leave and find somewhere to stay the night. 

Outside it was dark. I couldn’t see a lot, much less my way back to the hotel. After wandering about for a few minutes, I realized that I had no idea where the hotel where I stayed was.

I searched for a few minutes, but nothing more. I realized that the veil of night would keep me from finding it, no matter how hard I searched. I looked for someone to ask directions from, but there was nobody around at this hour of the night. As I stumbled around, I bumped into a bench and decided that sitting down was probably a good idea.

It was after I had sat on the bench for a couple of hours that a man showed up and sat next to me. He made me feel a little uneasy, and so I tried not to engage with him, but he’s the one who talked to me first. 

“You found a necklace, huh?” After a couple of seconds of my mind racing, I nodded. How did he know about the necklace? I still had it in my pocket, so there was no way that he could have seen it.

“Can I see it?” He asked. I pulled it out of my pocket tentatively with fingers like iron bars around it. He stared at it, transfixed, and I grew more and more uneasy. It felt like his gaze was melting the only protection between him and my necklace. I put it in my pocket to ease myself.

“I have one like it,” he said as he pulled out an emerald necklace identical in design to mine. The only difference between the two was the color, but mine seemed better somehow. More beautiful, more appealing. As those thoughts dissipated, they left a seed of superiority in the back of my head.

“I was told to find you,” he said. “Come with me.” Told? By whom? Where would he take me? Despite everything telling me to remain sitting and let him go, I also needed somewhere to stay. I couldn’t stay here on the bench all night. So, as his shadow faded into some sort of deeper darkness of the night, I followed him to wherever he would take me, for the story’s sake.

I don’t remember quite how we got to his house. There was a graveyard there and a barren building here, but I couldn’t see anything past the deep shadows that seemed to wrap themselves around me. They made the night cold and empty around me. I should have brought a jacket.

When I stepped inside, the shadows of night didn’t leave my side. I had a sinking feeling that they wouldn’t anytime soon. His house reminded me of Mrs. Newfield’s. Not in the sense that it was highly decorated, but that it didn’t feel very homey nor welcoming. Neither was he, actually. He didn't say a word to me since he invited me over here. That quickly changed as he uttered a “Stay here” underneath his breath and walked away into another room. I didn’t see a chair anywhere, so I just looked around the little entryway he had. It was very oddly decorated, with paintings of giant one-eyed monsters battling hordes of tiny figures made of gold. I ripped my eyes away from the paintings only to have them land on a stack of jewelry boxes just like the one I found the ruby necklace in. They were all laying open and empty on a table, along with a couple of unassembled boxes sitting next to them. Feeling unsafe all of a sudden, I gripped my necklace through the fabric of my pants, hoping that my flesh and bone was enough protection for it.

Just as suddenly as he had disappeared, the man came back holding two robes. 

“Put this on,” he said as he handed me one. His gaze seemed to be animating my arms, making them wrap the robe around me and put the hood over my head. The fabric just made me colder.

He started walking towards a room, and then stopped and gestured for me to follow him. I obliged, and he led me through a doorway, through a room, though another room, down a flight of stairs, and down another flight of stairs. He stopped abruptly, though, and told me to put on the necklace. Slowly, watching him carefully, I took it out and put it around my neck. I felt its now-familiar warmth around me. He turned and continued walking.

I didn’t know how many stairs this guy had underneath his house, but it took us forever to descend on them. After what felt like an eternity, the stairs leveled out into a floor and the walls that felt so constricting opened up into a wide room. As the man in front of me, who was previously obstructing my view, turned and walked to the left, I saw that the room was full of cloaked people standing around a pit of some sort all staring my way. Their faces were all sunken into a mass of oily darkness, so I didn’t recognize any of them, but they sure seemed to know who I was. Or, at least they thought they did because, when I took my place at the open spot around the pit, I could hear whispers of “Her” and “Catherine”. I was sure that my face was hidden behind a veil of darkness, so maybe they were just confused. I then realized that I was wrong, however, as I remembered about my necklace. Of course they thought I was Mrs. Newfield! I was wearing her jewelry.

As those thoughts left my mind, a person came up behind me and tried to take my necklace off of me. I grabbed their hand before they could, however, and stared into a shifting shadow that represented a face. However, the same searing pain that the necklace emitted when I tried to take it off in the mansion began to shoot through my arm, forcing me to let go of their arm and for them to take the necklace off of me. They seemed unfazed by the heat.

As the person walked away with my necklace in hand, the figure to my side gestured for me to step in the pit. I looked at them and then obliged, fearing what would happen if I didn’t. When I got to the middle, I felt suddenly overwhelmed by the number of people surrounding me. I felt scared and defenseless without the necklace, and I frantically searched for the person who took it from me. As my eyes shot around the room, a low chant rose up, slowly rising in voices and volume, until the sound seemed to collect like a large wave of water and collapse on top of me, drowning me. The words “Sanguis enim pecunia” broke the surface of the water and pushed me down further. Suffocated and scared, I started to say something. However, the first letter couldn’t even form in the back of my throat before a wall of flames shot up around me, piercing the darkness and illuminating the faces of the people around me. They were the Newfields! Every single one I could think of was here, eyes closed, chanting around me. Their faces were quickly obstructed from my vision, however, as the flames grew higher and closer to me, trapping me inside of them. The same burning sensation that the necklace gave me filled my body, making me double over in pain. The chanting got louder and louder, the waves got deeper and deeper, and the flames got hotter and hotter. I looked up to find some sort of rescue, for someone to be there offering their hand of salvation, but all I could see was the wrinkled, smug face of Catherine Newfield, wearing her ruby necklace.

This was the story I was looking for, I thought, as my story came to an end.