A halo of yellow light peeks cautiously out from under the eaves. The street is blanketed with glowing white. The cars along the curb are invisible under a cushion of icicles and the sidewalks are smooth and untouched. No one is out. The windows along Eldridge Street are all aglow with lamps and curious faces.

Anne sits at the window facing the street as well. Her little nose pressed to the cool glass of the window. She is enfolded into a woolen shawl and on her feet are her little green slippers with the warm down inside. Her father sits on the sofa opposite her his feet up and shirt unbuttoned at the neck. He is reading the Mirror and grunting here and there.

He and Uncle Bobby had gone out this morning before the worst of the snowfall to deliver papers. Around noon the flakes started in earnest chasing them down Avenue A and St. Mark’s Place and as far as Gramercy Park. Finally, though so blinded they were by the dizzying flakes they called it a day and made their way home. Lizzie and Bobby lived one street over from Anne on Forsyth. It was to be hailed as the great blizzard of 1947 the papers would read.

Anne crawled over to her father and although at thirteen years old she was almost as tall as her father she still managed to curl up on his lap like she had so many nights before. She had decided to ask her father about her mother and the locket. It had been bothering her for months now and her best friend, Jack, Lizzie and Bobby’s son, who was a year younger than Anne had encouraged her to talk with her father. Perhaps he too wanted to talk about her mother but was unable to start a conversation.

“Father I have a question.” She started. Joe looked up from his paper which he’d moved to one side to allow Anne a seat in the crook of his arm. “And what is that my cailín.” He asked with a small smile.

Anne lowered her eyes, “Father I know you do not like to talk about mother” she could hear the small sigh escape him, but she plunged on,” but I need to know. I need to know about her and about her locket.” She finished in a rush her words looping together.

Her father smiled gently at her, “Mo grá, I wish I knew.” His eyes were sad, but he smiled. “She was so beautiful. So feisty and full of passion! And she loved you so.” He squeezes her arm and looks at her in earnest. She says nothing.

He continues, “I do not know why she left. I cannot begin to know. I find more and more it is almost as if she were a dream or truly a sióg.”

Anne stops him, “A sióg?”

“A fairy.” He translates, “I do not even know from whence she came truly. I had tried to contact family in Wisconsin when she disappeared but found not a trace. In fact, there was no record anywhere of her family. She never spoke of her life before and I curse myself that I did not press her. But she always seemed to close-up, like a flower in winter does when the frost touches it. So, I stopped asking.” He stops and they are both silent for a time.

“I asked her about the locket once,” her father’s voice is quiet.  Anne sits up straighter. “She got this look in her eyes. It was so…” he pauses. ”So haunted. She clutched at it as if worried I would take it. In the end she never said and I never again asked.”

Anne and her father get up then and he makes her his special hot coco with shaved almonds. They sit together for the rest of the evening, each with a book, each with their own lonely thoughts.

Next Chapter: Lyllian Friday May 2017, Seattle, The Locket