“Keep this package and don’t show it to anyone. We will open it together tomorrow. I can’t go around with it, it is dangerous… but don’t open it!”
While she whispered, she put a small package into my cold hand and closed it hard. She said her goodbyes to everybody, took her keys, and left, walking through the rain to her blue Beetle.
I couldn’t see what it was, but I felt it was a velvet bag with something inside. I held it with all my strength and hid my hands behind my back. A jolt of adrenaline shot through my stomach. When no one was looking I hid it in my dress pocket. I looked at the rest of my guests’ smiling and went back to the room. I never wished so badly for people to just leave.
When Mrs. Lena brought up the time subject, it was past 11:00 p.m. She and Gustav were the last guests who were still waiting for the rain to stop. I tried to be as polite as possible.
“Wow, I’m so tired! Do you bother if I go to sleep?”
“Lola! How rude! They are here for your birthday!” my mom told me, with her face boiling with shame. She hated to be impolite with people.
Mrs. Lena twisted her thin lips, looking at me with a face of disapproval. Gustav got the message, hinting I wanted to be alone.
“It’s ok Mrs. Jessica, don’t worry. We have a review for the geography test tomorrow morning, I have to go to sleep too,” he said, with a wink in my direction.
Both went away under the rain outside. My mom was still closing the door when I went out running, calling a “Good Night” before I went upstairs. I closed the bedroom door, turning the key twice to make sure no one would come inside. All the gifts were put in place, I only had to be courageous enough to open the last one in my pocket. Funny, I wanted to know what it was so much, but when it was time to find out, I got scared. Leaning onto the door with my heart racing, I didn’t even turn the lights on so they would think I went to sleep, my night lamp was always on. My legs ached. I sat on the bed, fixed my bangs, inhaled deep and released it through my mouth. It was time to face the answer of what was happening to me. I put my shaking hand into my pocket, took out the purple velvet package, fit right into my hand’s palm. There was something inside, so I turned it out on the bed. Out fell a necklace.
It was an old bronze chain, with an opaque purple stone in an oval shape protected by bronze-work decoration, beautiful, but… what had this thing to do with me? I waited so long for an explanation and she gave me a useless necklace? Like it wasn’t enough to give me a crystal ball to get dusty on my dressing table.
Auntie Eva wanted to trick me and did it. I believed it was something that could help me with my questions, which were turning in my head like a carousel, I fell right into it.
The night lamp light fell onto the clock on my table, 11:35 p.m. I could see from the window some lightning crossing the sky, as well as the raindrops kicking my glass, the storm had become stronger. I took the necklace into my hands thinking about Auntie Eva’s explanation. When the pendant lit up, it glowed like it was plugged in. It turned into a vivid purple color that was shining like a flashlight, it looked like magic. I held it up against the light coming from the window, a fog moved inside it. Every second, it looked more alive. I had never seen anything like that, my aunt must have bought it from a Romanian gypsy. My eyes couldn’t break away from that movement of brilliant turmoil in the pendant, I even forgot for a few minutes what was tormenting me. The full-length mirror in front of my bed invited me to try it on. I put the necklace on and went closer. Maybe I could even wear it to the next school ball.
As I got closer, I could see how the necklace shined in the reflection’s gloom, I was hypnotized. Wow! How beautiful, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I got closer to the mirror, closer, until a lightning bolt came from the sky and exploded in my reflected image... BAM!!!
With the explosion, my mirror broke into a thousand pieces, I couldn’t see a thing. Just as with my car accident, I shut off.
When I became conscious, still with my eyes closed, everything was silent. I could smell the recently mown grass, I didn’t hear the rain on the window anymore, nor did I feel the pieces of mirror that had exploded on the top of me. I must have cut myself. I had no idea of the damage that it could have done, I was surprised that my parents still hadn’t crashed the door down with the sound of the explosion. I got my courage back and opened my eyes slowly, one after the other, when a horrible buzz hammered into my head for at least two seconds.
I wasn’t in my room anymore. I was lying on the floor all wet, as if I just gotten out of the bathtub. My face wasn’t bleeding, I touched it with both hands and didn’t find any cut, to my relief. Above me, I didn’t find a ceiling with star stickers. It was a pink sky with some shades of yellow, no clouds to be seen, as I have never seen in Sweden or in Florida. Blue peacocks came in flying, showing all their grace doing a big circle above me. Still lying down, I just observed that dance, their long and colored tails. I could have stayed there the whole day.
Such a beautiful dream, I thought. My contemplation was interrupted by this weird voice coming from my side.
“Is this her? I didn’t know she had freckles.”
“That’s her! She’s wearing the amethyst necklace, look! But Nefarious is not in the kingdom, what should we do?” another voice answered, from my left side.
“Do you think she is in shock?”
I didn’t have the guts to move. That’s when I felt one of them poking my arm with some object (that was a bit too real). I got up in a jump as if I was just hit by an electrical charge, the two of them also had their share of scaring with this. It was certain I wasn’t dreaming. Only when I got up did I notice I was in a green field, huge. At my right side there was this girl with long and curly red hair. Quite white and full of freckles, leaning on a wooden stick, making a suspicious face. On my left side, a boy, his hair was black and short, his skin was dark and he had a smile I could envy. They were looking at me like they knew me from somewhere, I had no idea who they could’ve been. Both should be my age. They didn’t look like a threat. He held a bag full of wild fruit, which he dropped from the start I gave him. They were wearing some funny clothes, like they were from a Nordic Viking book. Different from my winter clothes in Sweden.
Like a Polaroid picture, it took me a while to see the view behind them. It seemed like I was inside a painting, I had to blink hard to believe what I was seeing. I was close to a full forest, with lots of trees making a type of fence making it impossible to see what was inside. On the horizon behind the kids, where the grass carpet seemed to end, there was a stone wall at least three-floors high that seemed to be protecting a city, with an enormous castle set in the middle. I felt the wind chilling my wet back, only now I paid attention to that creek sound which made me look back (I must have fallen there). It was a creek surrounded by stones and had a thick cascade running up… what? Yes, that was it, instead of going down to the water, it was going up the stone with the same strength, disappearing at the top of the mountain right behind it.
“This water goes up, is that right? And your sky, is it pink?” I asked trying to cover my wet body that shook from cold and nervousness, keeping a safe distance from those two.
“Have you never seen two sunsets? That’s why it is pink… And ‘you’re welcome’ for saving you from drowning,” said the girl with a hint of indifference.