The Locket by Elise Koepke

violently, the rain banged against the roof.
    Then, like a cool breeze relieves hot skin, the sound of a familiar voice rang in her ears. “Savannah?” It was a woman. “Anna, dear, are you all right? You look a little pale.”
    Opening her eyes, Savannah took a second to adjust to the dark again, and then saw her Aunt Jenny staring at her in concern.
    For a minute she could not speak. Everything had gone so fast. A moment ago, however fleeting the idea, she thought someone was going to kill her. “Aunt Jenny, I—I thought that you went to the market.”
    “The market?” Her aunt repeated. She stood there for a second, gazing at her niece as if she had three heads. Then she understood her confusion. “Oh, when I went out to get some batteries? Yes, I left, but now I’m back and I’m watching a movie.”
    Savannah stood motionless. “Batteries?”
    Jenny strolled over to the couch, gesturing for her to join. “Yeah, I figured the storm would knock out the power, so I bought a flashlight and some extra batteries.”
    “Oh,” she sighed with relief. Her heart was still thudding wildly in her chest, but thankfully it would calm down soon enough. Switching her attention to the TV screen, she asked. “So what are you watching?”
    “ Stepmom ,” Aunt Jenny replied without thinking. Mentioning anything “mom” related probably was not a good idea for the next couple of weeks; at least not until Savannah lightened up a bit. Her niece lowered her head and frowned. “Oh, Anna—I didn’t mean to—”
    “It’s okay,” she interrupted. “It’s not like I can hide the facts or anything.” She stood up, suddenly not feeling like watching a movie. “My mother’s dead, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
    Beginning to walk away, Savannah was stopped by her aunt. “Where are you going?” She inquired lightly.
    “To my room,” she told her. “I have to finish unpacking.” With that, she left her aunt sitting alone on the couch, confused and concerned.
    Closing the door behind her, Savannah turned back on her music, took out her last bag to unload, and began to unpack. Almost as soon as she got started the power went out, as her aunt had predicted. Letting out a frustrated growl, she promptly fished out three candles from her bag, placed them on her dresser, and lit them with a pack of matches that her uncle had left there earlier.
    All was quiet for a few moments as she piled small amounts of her belongings on the bed one at a time and put them away. Just as she had started to pull out her next pile, she felt something cold and small touch her fingertips. It was the locket she had left on her bed earlier.
    A bubble of tears choked in her throat at the sight of it, reliving the last moments with her mother. Terror and rage soon began to take the place of her melancholy when she thought about how unfair life had been the past few days. In the end, she did not know if she should scream or cry—so she did both. First screaming with fury, she whipped the necklace at the wall above her bed and then dropped down to the carpet in tears. Embarrassed, she realized that she had just repeated the incident with Marie in her bedroom and that made her cry even harder.
    The locket was the furthest thing from her mind, at least for a few minutes. Then, as she decided it was time to stop being consumed by self-pity, she opened her eyes and saw a burst of light through the cracks between her fingers.
    Immediately pulling her hands away from her face, Savannah’s mouth opened. A large, rectangular figure glowed next to her bed … where it came out of the locket.
    The brightness of its light vibrated off of every wall and object in the room. It was beautiful. It did not take long for her to realize that this was the same light, the same multi-colored radiating light, that shown for her when her mother first handed her the necklace.
    Carefully, she slipped on the pair of sneakers that lay scruffily next to her bed,