The Heirloom

Hidden away in the back of a drawer in my late grandmother’s bedroom, was a small, plain wooden box.

I initially found it when I was clearing out her bedroom a few days after the funeral. The grief was so fresh that I merely sat there, on Nan’s bed, looking at the box, trying not to cry and failing miserably.

Eventually, without opening the box, I put it to the side, with the keepsakes that had been special to Nan, and which I knew I wouldn’t be able to part with for that reason.

This box had been special—or at least whatever was in it had been. Otherwise, why keep it somewhere so secret and safe?

Days turned into weeks turned into months. Before I knew it, half a year had passed since I’d given the last of Nan’s clothes and some of her furniture to Goodwill. The things of hers I’d been unable to give up went into the attic of Nan’s old Victorian on Elizabeth Avenue. (I’d given up my apartment in Midtown to move into Nan’s old house—the family house, the house where I’d grown up—and in the six months since I’d done so, I hadn’t once regretted the change.)

But the plain box I’d kept in Nan’s bedroom, which had become my bedroom. It held pride of place on the mantle, between photos of my mom and I as babies, awaiting the day I was brave enough to open it. For six months, I contemplated it daily, dusted it weekly, and every once in a while, held it and thought about Nan.

It was on one of these days that I finally opened the box, quite by accident.

I had been sitting on the foot of the bed, holding it and crying, remembering the time Nan had taught me to make the famous Parker Peanut Brittle. I had been thirteen, and I’d botched the job completely. But Nan had eaten every piece, just about, and praised it like it was ambrosia.

I never had made a decent batch of the Parker Peanut Brittle—or anything else—in the intervening years.

Smiling through my tears at this memory, I wiped my eyes and looked up toward the ceiling. “Nan?” I whispered hopefully. I didn’t know what I believed about the possibility of an afterlife, but I knew I wanted there to be one. A place where my wonderful grandmother was as happy as she deserved to be, and for eternity. “Nana, if you can hear me, wherever you are, I miss you. . . .”

And as I said that, a chill swept over and through me, causing me to shiver. A moment later was when I felt it: A chilly finger brushed across my cheek the way Nan used to do, whenever I was down about something. Only there was no one else there. Especially not Nan.

I yelped, jumping up off the bed and dropping the box. It hit the floor on one of the edges with a hollow chunk as I danced away from the bed.

At the doorway, I whirled around, heart pounding.

No one was there. Not a soul. But—

“Oh, no,” I moaned, fresh tears leaking out of my sore eyes as they fell on the fallen and broken box, which lay on its side. The lid was obviously damaged, maybe beyond repair, hanging on—barely—by one hinge.

About half a foot away from that lay a ring.

The strange sensation of having my cheek brushed forgotten, I approached the box and ring, bending to pick both up.

The box was almost surely a loss unless that hinge could be fixed. The ring, however. . . .

It was perfectly whole, simply made, and gorgeous. It was silver or platinum, inlaid with emeralds in the shape of a trifoliate leaf.

It was so lovely, I was sliding it on before I could think to do otherwise.

It was obviously an antique. Maybe even an heirloom. Why had Nan, who’d worn full make-up and jewelry to go get the mail, hidden it away?

“Why hide this?” I murmured to myself, holding out my hand to admire the way the ring looked . . . like it was made for my finger, and would’ve looked the same on Nan, who I resembled in size and shape. “Why not wear it every day?”

“Because I was tired of Seeing. Tired long before my time in this world was done,” a soft, familiar voice said from behind me. I whirled around again and saw . . . my grandmother. My Nan.

She looked just as she had the last time I saw her alive, resplendent in her lavender tracksuit, full make-up, and jewelry. Her sienna skin was a map of fine wrinkles and smile-lines. Her pressed hair was just as perfectly coiffed and silvered as if she’d just stepped out of the beauty parlor, her dark, clear eyes just as shrewd and kind as ever.

The only thing different about her was the fact that I could see the armoire—which was set against the wall behind her—through her.

“N-Nan?” I gulped, then gaped. She smiled, nodding.

“Yes, child, it’s me. And more importantly, it’s you.”

“Me?” I asked numbly, and Nan nodded again.

“Yes. Your turn to See. Your turn to wear the ring, which has been passed from mother to daughter for over a thousand years.” Nan sighed, looked down and folded her hands together, going a little more transparent for a few moments. “I’ve been waiting for you to open the box. Waiting for the moment you’d be able to See me, and I could explain everything to you . . . the way I should’ve done before I. . . .”

“Nan, how is this possible? I stumbled forward, toward her, the box falling from my hands for a second time, with another ominous clatter. On my outstretched left hand, the silver ring seemed to flash and flare with its own green and silver light. “Is this real? Am I hallucinating?”

Nan held up her hands, halting me just before I would have touched her arms. This close, I could see she really looked exactly the same, despite being mostly transparent. This was Nan.

“I wish I could answer all the questions you have and will have. I wish I could tell you everything you’ll need to know to make your new life easier—”

“My new life?”

“—suffice it to say,” Nan went on, holding up a hand to silence me. “That there isn’t time enough, now, to tell you much of anything. But my grandmother Pearl’s journals will tell you more about the ring and the bearing of it than I ever could. Read Pearl’s journals. And when you can, if you can, be of help to those who can’t help themselves. Do good.”

I blinked, then blinked again. Nan was getting even more transparent as she spoke. “Nana, I don’t understand any of this!”

“I know, child, but I can’t stay any longer to explain it to you. I’m fading fast, and must move on before I’m trapped on this plane of existence.” Apart from growing more transparent, her voice was also starting to take on an echoing, far-away tone. “Pearl’s journals are the key. Study them carefully, Sweet-pea, and you’ll do fine. I have faith in you. And I love you . . . I always have.”

Sudden tears rolled down my face. “I love you, too, Nana! Don’t go!”

But I could barely see her anymore, let alone see her much-missed and beloved smile. “Remember: The power is yours. Always yours. The talent is a part of you, and of all the women of our matrilineal line. The ring is merely a focus.”

And with that, a light began to shine and grow from the region of Nan’s heart. It spread and brightened till it seemed to light the entire dim bedroom. Till it was so bright, I had to close my eyes or be blinded.

“Oh, and child? Whatever you do, steer clear of the Souldrinkers!”

“Nan—what’s a Souldrinker?”

At which point, the light flared so intensely, I could see it through my closed eyelids. I hissed, squinching them tighter and bringing up my right hand to cover my eyes, as well. But just then, with a supernova-flash, the light was gone. Leaving behind no afterimage . . . only the relief of my tightly closed eyes.

What in the Hell? I thought frantically, convinced I was losing my mind from grief and stress.

When I dared to open my eyes, Nan was gone. I was alone in my bedroom. On my still-outstretched hand, the ring glowed and pulsed with a subtle radiance, in time with my elevated heartbeat.

I meant to go to the bed—to sit on it, feeling suddenly very tired and confused and disoriented. But as I took a step forward and the room lurched and began to spin, then I lurched and stumbled forward, falling half onto the bed. I moaned, as the room went first grey, then slowly black when I slid to the floor. . . .

*

“Opal? Opal, dear, wake up. . . .”

In response to the soft, familiar voice calling my name, I moaned and tried to open my eyes. Even before I did, I knew I felt strange: drained, confused, and sad. I didn’t instantly remember what had happened, but I knew that I didn’t want to remember it. At least not right away. So I rolled onto my side, away from the voice.

“You can’t spend all night sleeping on the floor, or you’ll be stiff the next day. Wake up, so you can go to bed,” the soft, vaguely matronly voice said kindly, and I moaned again, this time a: nnnuh.

There was a chuckle, and then a finger ghosted across my cheek, cold and gentle, and I immediately bolted up and away from it, the events prior to my siesta coming back to me with the force and velocity of the planet Mars.

I groaned when the room spun from sitting up so fast, putting a hand to my head. My ringer finger was warm and tingling, unlike the rest of my clammy, numb hand.

I closed my eyes till the spinning lessened some, then risked opening them.

My bedroom was exactly as I’d left it, armoire still standing sentinel near the door, Nan’s antique writing desk next to it, with matching chair. Next to that was my dresser, the full-length mirror, and—against the next wall—the mantle with its weight of photos and the one empty spot where Nan’s wooden box had been.

Now the box lay, the lid completely broken off, on the floor near my foot. And on my finger—

On my finger, the ring seemed to glow, silver and green, and pulse with my sluggish heartbeat.

“The Hell,” I wondered aloud, running a hand over my short hair.

“Yes, I know exactly how you feel,” that familiar voice said from next to me, and I froze before turning my head.

Sitting next to me, legs folded neatly beneath her, was someone I hadn’t seen in . . . over twenty years. She looked the same as ever: tall, even when sitting (unlike I, who was short, even when standing); wearing old-fashioned clothes—very old-fashioned . . . like, a cotton white and lavender dress that may have been in vogue when Nan’s house was built; long, straight blonde hair piled on top of her head, an oval face with regal features that might once have been the toast of any salon; and most of all the eyes . . . if I’d remembered nothing else about her, I’d never have forgotten those eyes . . . a deep, direct, sapphire-blue. They were the most vibrant thing about her semi-transparent form and they reminded me of the early years of my childhood, when my only friend had been imaginary.

Or so I’d thought.

“Therese?” I asked, wrapping my arms around my shivering body. Therese smiled, a smile I remembered seeing before I fell asleep every night, once upon a time, and when I woke up every morning. It was a kind smile, and lovely.

“Yes, Opal,” she said, inclining her head toward mine. I shook my head. “It’s been a long time, has it not?”

“But . . . you aren’t real—you’re—you’re imaginary!”

“All evidence to the contrary, dear.”

“Oh, God, I’m going crazy,” I muttered, burying my face in my hands. “First Nan, now, you . . . this is what psychosis feels like. . . .”

Therese chuckled again, and that ghostly brush made itself felt against the back of my left hand, stopping at my ring finger, not quite over the ring.

“This is what the Sight looks like, I’m afraid.” She sighed. “You’ve always had it—quite powerfully, I must say. The most powerful I’ve ever seen. And it came on so early . . . you could See me when you were but days old.”

“I’ve been crazy all my life,” I agreed, remembering how, when I was eight, my father had put me in counseling because I’d been seeing imaginary people. I remembered telling my counselor about all my imaginary friends, but especially Therese, because she’d been so much fun, and so pretty and funny . . . I’d loved her so much. I’d used to pretend that . . . she was my mom.

Then came the hospital stays and the meds, and by the time I was nine, I didn’t see the imaginary people anymore. Not a one—not even Therese. I was alone, for the first time in my life, and it’d been truly awful.

But I’d gotten used to it. Having long-since garnered a reputation for being the “crazy” girl who talked to herself, the time for making friends who were real and my own age had well and truly passed. I never had a real friend my age till I went away to college. And even those few and far-between people had been hard-won.

And they’d never seemed to be quite as real to me as my imaginary friends had been. I didn’t relate to them as well, didn’t keep them as easily. Nan had always said that was because I was like her: a singleton. A solitary. Meant to be alone, but not lonely. Frankly, I’d never understood that difference. I was, I’d eventually concluded, both. But for Nan and for Dad, who’d died several years ago, I was alone in the world.

Wiping my eyes, I looked over at Therese. Despite being transparent, she looked all-too-real. Especially her kind eyes and lovely smile. And I remembered Nan, as I’d last seen her, vanishing in a blaze of light so bright, it’d hurt my eyes.

“Are you . . . are you a ghost?” I asked tentatively, and Therese’s smile turned sad.

“For some years now, yes.”

“A-and you’ve always been a ghost? I mean, since I was a little kid?”

“Yes.”

“And the other imaginary people. . . .”

“Were like me. They were dead, too.”

I shook my head again, trying to accept one of two things: after all these years the meds had stopped working and I was going crazy again. Or. . . .

Or this was all real.

“Where did you all go?” I asked Therese, whose brow furrowed in puzzlement. “You all disappeared when I was nine. All the imaginary people just . . . went away.”

Therese nodded apologetically. “After you were put on that awful medication, you couldn’t See any of us anymore. We tried everything we could to get you to See us again, but eventually we gave up. Some of us moved on to the next life, others of us just went in search of another Seer to . . . become attached to.” She shrugged elegantly.

“But . . . you’re still here,” I noted, and Therese smiled brilliantly, that sadness leaving her regal face.

“Yes, dear. I am.”

“Why?”

Therese reached out and stopped just short of caressing my cheek. But I could feel the chill of her touch as if she had. “Because this house is where I was happiest when I was alive and has been since my death, oh, so many years ago. Because this is where my heart has always been. And where the people I have loved for over a century have lived. Yourself included.”

I blinked. “You’ve been . . . just hanging out here, stuck in this house, watching my family?”

Therese’s smile faded just a tad. “I wouldn’t say stuck. For I’ve loved you all, and have had no wish to be anywhere else. It wasn’t until recently I was able to leave these environs—although, it was more like I was pulled away, or called.” Frowning, now, she folded her hands in front of her, on her fancy, old dress, and looked down at them. “One of my descendants—my great-and-so-on-granddaughter—lit up the astral plane, as I believe it’s now called, with a cry for help. And I was Summoned to her side—rather against my will, since at first, I didn’t realize who’d done the Summoning. Upon my arrival to where she was, you can imagine my shock to find myself facing a red-headed spit-fire of a girl, who bore more than a passing resemblance to . . . myself.”

“Was she . . . in trouble?” I asked, worried and still shocked, myself, to think that my imaginary best friend was not only real, but had . . . descendants. “Was she okay?”

Therese sighed again. Her concern, deep and unhidden, made her look older than I ever remember her looking when I was little. Then, she’d seemed ageless. “She was . . . in a difficult way, but was able to talk her way out of it. For now. The persons who were . . . threatening her, made it clear that they would return.”

“And . . . and when was this?”

Therese met my eyes. “Less than a day ago.”

I looked down at my own hands. At the ring glowing and pulsing on my finger. I tried to imagine what it’d been like for Nan to wear the ring, and See dead people . . . talk to them. I wondered what Nan’d say or do right now. . . .

And when you can, if you can, be of help to those who can’t help themselves. Do good, whispered gently throughout my consciousness, and in a voice that sounded a lot like Nan’s.

And suddenly I found myself looking up at Therese, who was staring off at the mantle, and the photos thereon, her face softened with melancholy and worry. I reached out and let my hand hover over her cold, incorporeal one and she looked at me, startled, with tears standing out in her eyes.

“Tell me what can I do to help?” I asked.

End