The Ring

The ring glows with secrets—revealing more than anyone should know. ~5300 words

The Ring
An Ordinary Day
Abby wrinkled her nose as she stepped into the hallway. The air was thick—a humid mix of gym sweat sealed into hoodies, clouds of body spray trying to mask it, the hints of mixed perfumes edging for space, and the sour edge of those who hadn’t bothered. It clung in her throat, the kind of smell she couldn’t escape no matter how fast she walked. Kimi was waiting at her locker, grinning with her usual crooked teeth, already pulling out the sketchbook she carried everywhere.

"You're late," Kimi said.

"The bus was slow," Abby answered, though it hadn't been.

The September morning felt ordinary enough—until it wasn't.

Classes started the way they always did: announcements over the intercom, the scrape of chairs on linoleum, Ms. Porter reminding everyone to turn in their math homework. Abby doodled in the corner of her notes, not listening. Something about the morning felt off, like a song played a half-step too low.

When the knock came at the classroom door, Abby sat up straight. Mr. Kelly, the assistant principal, leaned in and scanned the room until his eyes landed on her.

"Abby Franks? Come with me, please."

A ripple passed through the class -- heads lifting, pencils stilled -- then quickly settled as Ms. Porter told them to keep working. Abby stuffed her notebook into her backpack and followed Mr. Kelly into the hallway. The sound of the door clicking shut behind her felt louder than it should have.

They walked in silence past trophy cases and faded bulletin boards. Abby's sneakers squeaked on the waxed floor. She wanted to ask what this was about, but the words dried in her throat.

In the office, Mrs. Jenkins the secretary gave her a look that was too soft, like she was already sorry. Abby's chest tightened. Mr. Kelly gestured to the small conference room. Her mom was waiting inside, eyes red, a crumpled tissue in her hand.

For a second Abby couldn't move. The world tipped sideways.

Her mother stood, pulled her close. "Sweetheart... Grandpa passed away this morning."

Abby pressed her face against her mom's sweater, breathing in the scent of laundry soap and coffee, and the words didn't feel real. Passed away. Like Grandpa had simply walked somewhere else. She tried to picture him -- the weathered hands, the way he whittled scraps of wood into animals no bigger than a thumb. He was supposed to still be there, in his chair by the window, not... gone.

Behind her mom's shoulder, Abby caught sight of Randy in the corner. He was slouched in a chair, jaw clenched, not crying, not moving. His fists balled tight in his lap. She felt the heat of his anger even without touching him.

The room seemed too small for all their grief.

Abby sat next to her mom in the conference room while papers were signed and sympathetic words were offered. None of it stuck. The words floated around her like dust motes, too small to grab hold of. All she could think of was Grandpa's chair, empty now, the pipe stand beside it that would never be used again.

When they stepped out of the school building, the sun was too bright. Abby blinked hard, as if the world had forgotten to dim itself for grief.

Her mom unlocked the car, and they slid into the worn seats -- Abby in back, Randy beside her, their mom gripping the steering wheel like she was afraid of letting go.

The engine coughed to life. They pulled out of the school lot in silence, the hum of the tires on asphalt filling the space where words should have gone.

Abby risked a glance at Randy. His face was set like stone, eyes forward, fists still knotted on his knees. He didn't look at her, didn't look anywhere. She wanted to say something -- anything -- but her throat closed up. She couldn't imagine which words wouldn't make things worse.
Her mom reached forward and turned the radio dial, maybe out of habit, maybe to fill the silence. Static flickered before she switched it off again, sighing through her nose.

The car passed familiar streets -- the library, the corner store where Grandpa used to buy penny candy just to annoy the cashier who had to count it out. Each landmark felt different now, wrong somehow, like someone had tilted them a fraction of an inch out of place.

Abby leaned her forehead against the cool window. Trees blurred by, and she thought about Grandpa's voice, low and scratchy, telling stories that always sounded half like warnings. Not toys, Abby. Not for play. At the time, she'd laughed and rolled her eyes. Now the memory pressed on her chest like a weight.

Beside her, Randy's knuckles had gone white. His jaw clenched and unclenched, like he was chewing words he refused to spit out. Abby could almost feel the heat of it -- anger rising under the grief.

She hugged her backpack to her stomach, wishing Kimi were here, wishing Grandpa still was, wishing she could say something that would pull Randy back from wherever he was drifting.

The tires thumped over the seam in the road by the gas station, and no one spoke. The silence was thicker than the hum of the engine, heavier than the bright September sky.

Home wasn't far now, but it already felt farther than it had ever been.

The Car Ride Home
By late morning, the gravel driveway crunched under the tires as they pulled up to the house. Abby stared at the front porch, the wicker chairs where Grandpa used to sit with his morning coffee, and her chest went hollow. One chair still had his jacket draped over the back.
Mom turned off the engine. The sudden quiet felt too loud.

"We should..." Mom started, then stopped. Her hands stayed gripped on the steering wheel. "There are things we need to go through. His things."

The car door slammed—Randy was already out before Mom finished speaking. Abby watched him storm up the porch steps, shoulders rigid, and disappear inside. The screen door rattled behind him.

"Give him time," Mom said, more to herself than to Abby.

But Abby wasn't thinking about Randy. She was thinking about Grandpa's bedroom, the way it would smell like pipe tobacco and cedar, the way his reading glasses would still be folded on the nightstand. The way everything would be exactly the same except for the one thing that mattered most.

They sat in the car for another minute, neither moving. A mourning dove called from somewhere in the maple tree, the same tree Grandpa had pointed to every September. See how the leaves catch fire, he'd say. September's when the world remembers it's alive.

The leaves were still green. Too early for fire.

Mom's phone buzzed. She glanced at it, sighed. "Your aunt Linda's bringing a casserole. And Mrs. Chen from next door wants to know if we need anything from the store."

Abby nodded, though she couldn't imagine needing anything ever again. Food seemed pointless. Everything seemed pointless.

"Sweetheart." Mom's voice was gentle. "I know this is hard. But we'll get through it. Together."

Abby wanted to believe her. But as they finally climbed out of the car and walked toward the house, she couldn't shake the feeling that "together" was already broken. Randy's anger, Mom's careful control, her own numbness - they were all grieving alone, even in the same space.

The front door stood open, Randy nowhere to be seen. Abby paused on the threshold. The house felt different already. Quieter. Like it was holding its breath.

The Cedar Chest
The house smelled different without Grandpa in it. Not gone -- his pipe tobacco still lingered in the curtains, the faint tang of cedar in the hallway closet -- but thinner, like someone had opened a window and let half of him drift away. Tuesday's funeral arrangements were done, Wednesday's visitors had finally gone home, and now...

Family had filled the living room: aunts, uncles, neighbors bringing food no one wanted. The voices blurred together in hushed tones. Now, as evening settled, the crowd was finally thinning. Abby sat on the stairs with a paper plate balanced on her knees, picking at potato salad she couldn't taste. From here she could see Randy across the room, wedged into an armchair, shoulders hunched, answering no one.

Her mom appeared at the base of the stairs, looking ten years older than Monday. She beckoned Abby with a tilt of her head. "Sweetheart, there's something for you."

In Grandpa's bedroom, the shades were half-drawn, the afternoon sun slanting gold across the quilt. Against the far wall sat the cedar chest. Its brass latch was dulled with age, but Abby would have recognized it anywhere -- she'd traced the carved lid with her finger as a child, imagining treasure inside.

Her mom set a hand on the lid. "He left this for you."

"For me?" Abby whispered. She hadn't expected anything. Randy, maybe -- not her.

Her mom nodded. "Said you'd understand what it was for... someday." Then she pressed a kiss to Abby's hair and left her alone.

The chest creaked when Abby opened it. Inside lay a scatter of objects: a bundle of postcards tied with twine, a dented compass, a wooden toy car, a tarnished crown-shaped pin, and tucked near the bottom, a ring.

The ring was simple silver, but light caught it strangely, like water rippling over stone. Abby hesitated, then slid it onto her finger.
The air shifted.

She blinked and gasped -- her own hands glowed faintly at the edges. No, not her hands. The glow hung in the air, thin as candle smoke, outlining the room. She turned, and around the quilt shimmered a pale blue haze.

Her heart stumbled.

She yanked the ring off. The glow vanished, leaving her alone in the dim bedroom.

Her fingers trembled as she set the ring back in the chest. She stared at it for a long moment, chest tight, then shut the lid. The latch clicked, soft as a sigh.

From the hallway, Randy's voice cut sharp: "We're not kids anymore. Stop treating us like we don't get it!"

Abby pressed her palms against the chest lid, pulse racing. Whatever Grandpa had left her, it wasn't just keepsakes.

It was something else. Something waiting.

Night of Discovery
Wednesday night, Abby lay in bed staring at the ceiling, the cedar chest key warm in her palm. Down the hall, she could hear Randy moving around his room - the creak of floorboards, the soft thud of something being thrown. Mom's voice drifted up from downstairs, low and careful on the phone with relatives.

The house felt too full of people and too empty all at once.

Abby sat up, pulled on her robe, and crept down the hall to Grandpa's room. The door was ajar. Moonlight slanted through the windows, turning everything silver and strange. The cedar chest sat exactly where she'd left it, waiting.

She knelt and opened it again, hands trembling slightly. The ring caught the moonlight, seeming to pulse with its own rhythm. She picked it up, turned it over. Just silver. Just metal. Nothing special about it except the way her heart hammered when she looked at it.

He said you'd understand what it was for... someday.

Abby slid the ring onto her finger.

The world sharpened instantly. Colors she couldn't see in the dark suddenly hummed at the edges of her vision. The quilt on Grandpa's bed glowed faintly blue, peaceful and worn. The walls themselves seemed to breathe with a soft, settled gold.

She gasped and stumbled backward, knocking into the nightstand. Grandpa's reading glasses clattered to the floor.
A sudden crash echoed from Randy's room, then silence.

Abby yanked the ring off, heart racing. The glows vanished, leaving her in ordinary moonlight. She stared at the ring in her palm, mind spinning. What had Grandpa gotten himself into? What had he left her?

She thought about the stories he used to tell - always half-warnings, always making her promise not to touch things that weren't toys. She'd assumed he meant his whittling knives, his pipes, his workshop tools.

Not this. Not magic.

Another crash from Randy's room, softer this time. Like a book hitting the wall.

Abby closed the chest quickly and slipped back to her room. She lay awake until dawn, the ring hidden in her nightstand drawer, wondering if she was losing her mind or if losing Grandpa had somehow opened a door to losing everything else she thought she knew about the world.

When morning came, she almost convinced herself it had been a dream.

Almost.

Monday Morning Processing
Abby barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Randy's face when she'd said no - the way something had broken behind his anger, something that looked like hope dying. The shadow had retreated when Mom intervened, but Abby could still feel its echo in the house, patient and hungry.

Monday morning, she dressed for school in the dark, moving quietly so she wouldn't wake anyone. The hallway felt like a minefield - Randy's door was shut tight, no sound from behind it, but she could sense his anger even through the walls. It had a weight to it now, a presence that made the air thick.

Downstairs, Mom was already in the kitchen, hands wrapped around a coffee mug, staring at nothing. She looked like she'd aged ten years over the weekend.

"Morning," Abby whispered.

Mom startled, then tried to smile. "Oh. Sweetheart. I didn't hear you come down."

They ate breakfast in careful silence - cereal that tasted like cardboard, orange juice that was too sweet. Neither mentioned Randy, though his absence sat at the table with them like an unwelcome guest.

When the bus honked outside, Abby grabbed her backpack and hesitated at the door. "Mom? Is Randy... is he going to be okay?"

Mom's smile flickered. "He's grieving, honey. We all are. It just... looks different for everyone."

But as Abby walked to the bus, she wondered if what was happening to Randy was still grief, or if it had become something else entirely.

Something that fed on grief, grew stronger from it, and wasn't planning to let go.

The ring sat heavy in her pocket, and she couldn't decide if it was a gift or a curse.

Temptation
A full week after the funeral, the food gone stale—everyone acted like life was supposed to continue. Eight days since she'd discovered the ring, Abby sat on the bus with her backpack heavy on her lap, the cedar chest key inside the front pocket like it was burning through the fabric.

She told herself she wasn't going to wear the ring again. She told herself all the way to school.

But in the bathroom between classes, with the door locked and the fluorescent lights buzzing above, she slid it onto her finger.

The world sharpened. Colors weren't just brighter -- they hummed, faintly alive. When she stepped into the hall, she saw it at once: Ms. Porter standing by the vending machine, her usual stern mouth softened by a glow of green, calm and steady. A boy at his locker nearby flickered orange-red around the edges, his lips moving as he wrestled with a stubborn combination lock.

Abby's stomach dropped and lifted all at once. It was real. She wasn't imagining it.

At lunch, Kimi dropped into the seat across from her, sketchbook in hand. "You look like you drank rocket fuel."

"I'm fine," Abby said too quickly. She kept her left hand under the table, fingers curled tight around the ring.

Kimi raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh." She flipped open her sketchbook, started shading in a drawing of a bird mid-flight. "You've been twitchy since the funeral. More twitchy than usual."

Abby tried to laugh but it came out thin. Across the cafeteria, Randy sat with a couple of guys from the basketball team, his shoulders rigid, a stormy red haze flickering around him. Abby clenched her fist tighter.

The ring made it impossible to look away.

She forced her eyes back to Kimi's drawing, but even then she noticed something: no glow, no shimmer, nothing. Just Kimi, steady as ever, pencil scratching.

The absence made Abby dizzy. Why did the ring skip her?

She tugged at her sleeve, suddenly too warm. "Do you ever feel like... you know... you can see things about people nobody else does?"

Kimi snorted. "That's called paying attention, Abby." She gave her a sideways grin. "What's going on with you?"

Abby shook her head. "Nothing. Just tired."

But inside, the temptation pressed harder. With the ring on, she could read people before they spoke, know if they were angry, happy, lying. It felt like power -- and it whispered that maybe Grandpa hadn't been warning her after all. Maybe he'd been giving her something she was meant to use.

Across the room, Randy slammed his tray down, startling the guys at his table. The red around him burned hotter, darker.

Abby's chest tightened. She gripped the edge of the bench, telling herself she wasn't going to get involved.

Not yet.

Shadow Rising
It started small, the way storms do -- a grumble on the horizon.

Abby stayed after school to finish a science lab. All week, Randy had been getting worse. Monday he'd snapped at Mom over breakfast. Tuesday he'd skipped his first class. Wednesday brought a call from the principal. Thursday, Abby had caught glimpses of the shadow even when the ring was off.

By the time she stuffed her books into her backpack, the hallways had mostly emptied. Locker doors clanged shut in the distance, then faded until only the echo of her own footsteps followed her.

She rounded the corner and froze.

Randy was at his locker, shoulders hunched, fists hammering at the metal. The door rattled, hinges squealing. A couple of kids stood nearby, half-laughing, half-afraid, not sure if they should egg him on or run.

The ring pulsed on Abby's finger before she even thought to take it off. His aura flared -- a violent red shot through with black, seething like an open wound.

And behind him, in the space where the fluorescent lights didn't quite reach, something stirred.

The shadow wasn't solid, not yet. More like a thickening of the air, a ripple in the corner of her vision. But when Randy's fist slammed the locker again, the shadow swelled, spreading along the floor like spilled ink.

"Randy," Abby said, her voice too thin.

His head snapped up, eyes blazing. For a moment she thought he would swing at her, not the locker.

The other kids scattered, voices low and hurried as they backed away. One of them bumped into Abby's shoulder in his hurry. She barely noticed. All her attention was on Randy -- and the thing at his back.

She took a step forward. The ring buzzed hot, filling her chest with a wild thrum. She could see the anger eating him alive, and she thought, just for a heartbeat: maybe she could control it. Maybe she could pull the red out, drain it like poison.

She lifted her hand.

The glow flared brighter -- too bright. Randy staggered, teeth bared, fury sharpened instead of softened. The shadow surged taller, blotting the lockers, breathing in rhythm with his rage.

"Stop!" Abby cried. "Please, just stop!"

But the ring didn't soothe. It amplified. Every pulse of Randy's fury made the shadow denser, its outline sharpening into something with weight and hunger.

Randy's fist struck again. Metal shrieked.

Abby's heart hammered. She wanted to tear the ring off, but it clung like it had fused to her skin. She could hardly breathe under the press of the shadow, its chill crawling across the floor toward her shoes.

And then, as suddenly as it began, a teacher's voice cracked through the hall.

"Franks! Enough!"

Randy froze, chest heaving. The shadow recoiled like smoke whipped by a fan. By the time Mr. Hayes stomped closer, red-faced, the thing had already thinned, leaving only the sickly echo of it curling in Abby's gut.

Randy muttered something under his breath and slammed his locker shut. He shoved past Abby without meeting her eyes, the heat of his anger trailing behind him like a wake.

Abby sagged against the lockers, clutching her backpack straps with shaking hands.

The ring was still glowing faintly, whispering against her skin. She pulled at it, hard, until it slid free and clattered to the floor. The light vanished.

But the shadow's memory lingered, like a smudge she couldn't rub away.

After the Hallway Incident
That Friday afternoon, Abby barely made it to the bathroom before her knees gave out. She locked the stall door and slumped against it, hands shaking as she stared at the ring. The silver surface looked innocent enough, but she could still feel the echo of what had happened - the way the shadow had fed on Randy's rage, grown stronger when she'd tried to use the ring's power.

Not toys, Grandpa's voice whispered in her memory. Not for play.

She'd been playing, hadn't she? Experimenting with the ring like it was some kind of game, not understanding that every time she put it on, she was opening a door. And something was walking through.

The bathroom door creaked open. Footsteps across the tile.

"Abby?" Kimi's voice, worried. "You okay? You look like you saw a ghost."

Abby slipped the ring into her pocket and opened the stall door. Kimi stood by the sinks, her usual easy smile replaced by concern.

"I'm fine," Abby lied.

"Uh-huh." Kimi tilted her head, studying her with the same intensity she brought to her drawings. "You've been weird all week. Jumpy. And don't tell me it's just the funeral, because this is different."

For a moment, Abby almost told her everything. About the ring, the glowing auras, the shadow that seemed to be growing stronger every day. Kimi was her best friend. If anyone would believe her...

But then she imagined saying the words out loud. Imagined how crazy they'd sound.

"It's Randy," she said instead, which wasn't entirely a lie. "He's... not handling things well."

Kimi's expression softened. "Grief makes people do weird stuff. Remember when my dad died? I punched a hole in my bedroom wall because I couldn't find matching socks."

Abby tried to smile, but it felt thin. What was happening to Randy was bigger than grief. Hungrier.

The bell rang, sharp and sudden. Kimi shouldered her backpack. "Come on. Porter's going to kill us if we're late for math."

As they walked to class together, Abby kept her hands in her pockets, fingers curled around the ring. She needed to talk to someone who understood what Grandpa had left her. Someone who knew about the things that weren't toys.

But Grandpa was gone, and she was running out of time.

Escalation at Home
The weekend stretched long and tense. Randy barely came out of his room except to grab food and glare at anyone who tried to talk to him.

When he did emerge, the air around him felt electric, dangerous. Abby found herself watching him through the ring's glow, seeing the red anger that never seemed to cool, only shift and swell like a living thing.

She tried to take the ring off, tried to leave it in the chest, but every few hours she'd catch herself sliding it back on. Just to check. Just to see if Randy was getting worse.

He was.

Saturday Randy barely emerged from his room. Sunday brought the breaking point.

That afternoon, Abby was reading on the couch when she heard it - the sound of Randy's bedroom door slamming so hard the walls shook.

Then footsteps, heavy and deliberate, coming down the stairs.

She looked up as he appeared in the doorway, his face flushed, fists clenched. Through the ring, his aura burned like a wildfire, red shot through with veins of black that made her stomach turn.

"Where is it?" he demanded.

"Where's what?"

"Don't." His voice cracked. "Don't lie to me, Abby. I know he left you something. Something important."

Mom's footsteps came quick from the kitchen. "Randy, what's going on?"

He whirled toward her, and Abby saw the shadow for just a moment - a flicker of darkness at his back, like smoke that hadn't quite decided to be real.

"She gets the special treatment," Randy said, his voice getting louder. "Even dead, he still picks favorites. What did he leave you, Abby? What was so important that his precious granddaughter got it and not his grandson?"

"Randy." Mom's voice held a warning. "That's enough."

"Is it?" Randy's laugh was bitter. "Because I'm pretty sure nothing's been enough for a long time. Not for him. Not for you. Not for anyone."

The shadow behind him grew taller, feeding on his anger. Abby's ring pulsed hot against her skin. She wanted to run upstairs, lock her door, pretend she couldn't see what was building in the space around her brother.

Instead, she stood up slowly.

"He left me some old things," she said carefully. "Nothing valuable. Just... keepsakes."

"Liar." The word came out sharp, cutting. "You think I can't tell when you're lying? You think I'm stupid?"

The shadow stretched across the ceiling now, and Abby felt its chill even from across the room. Whatever was happening to Randy, it was getting stronger. Fed by his grief, his anger, his feeling of being left out and left behind.

"Show me," he said, stepping closer. "Show me what he left you."

"Randy, stop." Mom moved between them, but Randy barely seemed to see her.

"I want to see it," he said again, and this time there was something desperate underneath the anger. Something that sounded like pleading.

"Please, Abby. Just... I need to know what was so special about you."

The shadow writhed, hungry. Abby's ring burned against her finger.

She almost said yes. Almost led him upstairs to the chest, thinking maybe if he saw the postcards and the toy car, maybe if he understood it really wasn't much, the shadow would shrink back. Maybe Randy would calm down.

But something in Grandpa's voice stopped her: Not toys, Abby. Not for play.

"I can't," she whispered.

Randy's face went white, then red. The shadow swelled like a wave about to break.

That's when the lamp went flying.

Confrontation
The house felt too quiet, the kind of quiet that comes before glass shatters. Abby sat cross-legged on her bed, the cedar chest at her feet. The ring rested in her palm, heavy as a stone. She should have left it shut away. She knew that. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw the shadow swelling behind Randy, hungry for more.

A crash from downstairs made her jump.

She bolted down the hallway. Randy's door was open, the frame rattling from another slam. He was in the living room, pacing like a caged animal, face flushed, fists clenched. A lamp lay broken on the rug.

"Randy," Mom said softly from the kitchen doorway, but he shook her off with a snarl.

The air thickened. Abby saw it before anyone else: the shadow crawling from the corners, darker than night, gathering itself around him. It rose
taller than the ceiling, spilling across the walls, pulsing with his anger.

Abby's breath snagged. The ring flared to life, searing on her finger. Every instinct screamed to use it, to blast the shadow away. She lifted her hand--

And the shadow swelled bigger, feeding off the ring's heat, off Randy's rage.

"No!" she gasped.

Randy's voice cracked, raw. "He left you the chest, not me! He thought you were special. He didn't trust me with anything!"

The words hit harder than the slam of his fists.

The shadow pressed closer, darkness curling around her, and she felt something cold brush her cheek like winter breath.

And then it clicked. Grandpa's warning: Not toys, Abby. Not for play. The ring wasn't meant to fight. It was meant to feel.

She dropped her hand and crossed the room, heart hammering. Randy tried to shove her away, but she pushed through and wrapped her arms around him.

At first he thrashed, stiff with fury. Then something broke. His breath hitched, his fists loosened, and for the first time she felt the tremor underneath his anger -- grief, raw and bleeding.

The ring flared once, not bright but warm, steady as a heartbeat.

The shadow shrieked without sound and shrank, peeling back like smoke in a strong wind. It thinned, wavered, and finally unraveled into nothing.

Randy sagged against her, shoulders heaving.

Abby held on tighter, tears burning her eyes. "It's okay," she whispered, though it wasn't. Not yet. But it would be.

The room settled. The silence that followed wasn't sharp anymore. It was fragile, but it was theirs.

Recovery and Reflection
Monday morning came too bright, too ordinary. Sunlight streamed through the kitchen windows like nothing had changed, like the world hadn't nearly split apart in their living room the night before.

Randy sat at the breakfast table, shoulders hunched over a bowl of cereal he wasn't eating. The angry red in his aura had dimmed to a dull orange, exhaustion replacing rage. He looked younger somehow, fragile in a way that made Abby's chest ache.

Mom moved carefully around the kitchen, her movements too precise, too controlled. She'd swept up the lamp pieces, but Abby could still see the faint outline in the rug where it had shattered.

"I'm sorry," Randy said suddenly, his voice hoarse. "About last night. About the lamp."

Mom paused in wiping down the counter. "I know, sweetheart."

"I just..." He set down his spoon, ran his hands through his hair. "I miss him. And I don't know what to do with that."

Abby studied his face, the ring quiet in her pocket. Without its glow, Randy looked like her brother again instead of a stranger carrying something dark. But she could still feel the shadow's presence, lurking at the edges of the house like smoke under a door.

"We all miss him," Mom said gently. She crossed to Randy, hesitated, then put her hand on his shoulder. "But we can't tear each other apart. That's not what he would have wanted."

Randy nodded, but his jaw was still tight. The shadow might have retreated, but it hadn't gone far. Abby could sense it waiting, patient as hunger.

At school, she moved through her classes like sleepwalking. Teachers' voices blurred together. The ring stayed in her pocket, but she was constantly aware of its weight, its whispered promise of answers. Of power.

But she was starting to understand that power and wisdom weren't the same thing. Grandpa had known that. The question was whether she could learn it before whatever was hunting Randy decided to finish what it had started.

Resolution
She slipped the ring from her finger. Its surface was cool again, dull silver, as if nothing had happened. But she knew better.

Upstairs, in her room, she opened the cedar chest. The familiar scent of wood and time drifted out. She laid the ring inside, beside the postcards, the toy car, the tarnished crown pin. For a moment she just stared at them, a dozen ordinary objects waiting in the half-light.

Her hand hovered over the pin, the compass, the car. Each one seemed to hum faintly, like a word on the tip of her tongue.

Not toys. Grandpa's warning echoed again. Not for play.

She shut the lid. The latch clicked softly, but the sound carried, as if the chest itself had spoken.

Abby pressed her palms flat on the carved wood. She didn't know what the other trinkets did. She wasn't sure she wanted to. But deep in her bones she knew this wasn't over.

Two weeks and one day since Grandpa left them the cedar chest, Randy shifted restless somewhere in the house. Two weeks and one day since the shadow first stirred, it still waited in the dark beyond the windows.

Abby drew a shaky breath, slid the key into her pocket, and whispered to the empty room: "I'll be ready."
End of Story