Shadow Play

25

His voice was coarse when he spoke. “Well then, Rebecca, let me know when you figure it out.” His hands released me and our eyes locked in a silent battle. I gathered the small amount of self-control and dignity that I had left and walked away. After stress eating enough carbs to feed a small African village, I called my mom about the necklace. My mom’s cheery voice answered after several rings. “Hey Momma, what are you up to?” “Hey Bec! We had the most amazing moon rise the other night—it was a harvest moon, and a blue moon, AND a blood moon all at the same time. I just had to paint it so I'm neck deep in oils.” The skies in West Texas are one of its best features—you will never, not ever, see sunrises or sunsets as amazing as you can out there. Some people hate the flat ground and lack of trees, but it just means more horizon. Unobstructed views and only a handful of cloudy days means you can start and close almost every day with a unique masterpiece in the sky. Same goes for the moon and stars when the skies are clear. Way down on the horizon when a big fat harvest moon rises, you feel like it's so close you could reach out and touch it. “That's awesome Mom, I can't wait to see it when you're done. You guys doing okay? How's Dad?” “It's all good here. He's still buried in his latest mystery, you know how he gets. I make him come up for air and maybe a sandwich every few hours.” “That sounds about right.” I had to laugh a bit. That was my dad in a nutshell, and it was reassuring to talk to Mom and hear that at least things back home were normal. Some things never changed, and I hoped they never did. “Hey Mom, you know my necklace?” “You mean the only one you've ever worn?” Her question was dripping with sarcasm. “You make it sound like I refused to take it off.” “Honey, I did try but you would have none of it.” “You tried to get me to take it off? When? Why?” “One question at a time, remember? Not for a long time now, but when you were younger. One time I remember you receiving another necklace as a gift, can't remember from who, but I tried to get you to wear it. No way, no how, you were not taking yours off for any reason whatsoever. After a couple times dealing with the fit you threw, I let it go, it wasn't worth fighting over.” “Really,” I said exhaling, more a statement of surprise rather than a question. “I don’t remember that at all. I was just thinking about the necklace lately and was wondering where I got it, I was hoping you remembered.” She made a humming noise while she dug into her memory banks. “It's been so long—I know it was on one of our trips, but I can't honestly say which one, I'm sorry.” “It's not a big deal, Mom, just curious.” “Okay baby, you all settled in? You just let us know when we should visit, and I'll start making plans.” “Sounds good, Momma. I'm still getting situated but I'll let you know,” I said, smiling. “All right sweetie, I'll talk to you soon, love you.” “Love you, too.” I hadn't learned much, but at least I got a little peace of mind knowing that my parents were safe and happy back home. I texted Ashley to check in but got no response, and I assumed she was still asleep, which was how I ended up sitting at my computer that evening searching for more answers. I planned to scour the internet to see what I could dig up on the stone that was in my necklace, or even possibly the necklace itself. I figured the majority of information that I would find about magic jewelry would be Dungeons and Dragons type lore that wouldn't mean crap for me, but somewhere out there might be a nugget of truth. I had no idea how I was going to identify that nugget, but I certainly wouldn't find it if I didn't even try. My second objective was looking up ‘draug’ and all things Fae. I was going to stick to what I knew, rather than falling down a rabbit hole chasing random possibilities. Starting with my necklace, I used a hand mirror to examine the pendant. I wanted to see if there were any defining characteristics I might have overlooked that would help me research the piece. The chain was thin but not overly delicate—I had always assumed it was silver, but it never tarnished so perhaps it was white gold or platinum. The stone itself was dark, but not quite black, more of a smoky grey and uniform in color. It was opaque, no shimmer or sparkle, and cut into a flat, rounded shape. The surface was smooth but on the back there was a small carving that I had almost forgotten about. As a child, I used to rub my thumb up and down across the indentations of the carving as a source of comfort. Similar to rubbing a blanket or favorite toy, it was a method of self-soothing that I had used when I was upset. I had assumed that the mark had been made by the artist as a type of signature on his work. Now that I was analyzing the necklace, I realized that it was odd that after all these years the carving didn't seem the least bit worn down and could still be clearly seen. It consisted of three crescent moons back-to-back with a solid circle in the middle between them. There were also three Celtic-looking shaft designs protruding outward between each moon. Turning back to my computer, I began to search for black stones with carvings. This brought up a number of the findings for Indian and Asian sculptures out of an unnamed black stone. Needing to go a little smaller, I specified carved black stone necklace, which brought up a ton of images of carved obsidian. The obsidian was solid black and shiny, unlike the flat charcoal of my pendant, but I made a mental note in case I needed to go back to it. Changing up my search again, I tried antique carved black stone. Even though the necklace had been new to me, there was a possibility that it was much older than I realized. An image came up of a stone pendant made of black jade with a dragon carved into it and I inched closer in my seat with anticipation; however, both the jade used, and dragon design indicated an Asian origin, but again, it was worth noting. Deciding to take another tack, I entered black stones used for carving jewelry and I scanned through the results. Down toward the bottom of the page was a Wikipedia entry for Jet(Lignite) that had some promise. It had been used since the Neolithic period, so that would make it plenty old, and it had been found in the Anglo-Saxon area including a 'massive resurgence during the Victorian Era'. The stones pictured were slightly darker than my stone, but otherwise very similar and I figured every individual specimen was going to be different, so the coloring might not be critical. I spent another half hour or so learning about the stone but wasn't able to find anything about a specific necklace or amulet that sounded similar to the one I wore.