Lyllian liked to argue. She’d argue a preacher out of his pulpit. It wasn’t that she liked to cause trouble, she just enjoyed taking her world and spinning it like a top across her mother’s butcher block table until it tilted at crazy angles and made for a walloping good chase. It was the chase she enjoyed. She was not a subdued or obedient child. Nor was she a ‘bad’ girl. She was just…. A firecracker with a lit fuse on a windy day. On this particular day 6-year old Lyllian had a bone to pick with her older brother Jim. Jim was only two years older but had already begun to treat his little sister Lyllian with about as much interest as a lion does a crisp green salad. Which was to say not much. Up until a few months ago they’d been good friends – swinging together and building blanket forts in the corner of the small sitting room. But lately Jim had been out and about with his friends whooping and laughing at some jest or another and Lyllian was not included. 

Lyllian poked her head into Jim’s small empty bedroom with the small black and white tv. Yet another glare across the dinner table from Lyllian. Lyllian knew Jim was out prowling the lower neighborhood with his friends, their bikes dropped haphazardly by the curb at the end of the street their little house sat upon. She strode to the rumpled unmade bed with the frayed Spiderman sheets and plopped down her dark eyes scanning the clutter with intensity. What to do, what to do… She spied her brother’s black carved box on his stunted brown dresser with the drawer handles hanging precariously by shaved screws. She had not looked in there for a while. The last time she had found an old crumpled sticky note with the words, “I like you” scribbled slanting down the side in blue felt tip pen. She had no idea who had written it, it was not Jim’s handwriting. She figured it must have been a girl and she’d giggled merrily at the thought. Oh yea, the note. She had not ‘used’ it yet. She’d forgotten. Well, she’d keep it in her arsenal for later examination. Lyllian slid open the box and peered inside, her chin resting on the dresser top, her tip toes wobbling. She saw the sticky note, squished into a corner, but what caught her eye was a glint of gold. She pushed aside an old crumpled baseball card ‘Jackie’ somebody or another and grinned. It was a delicate oval shaped locket. She pulled it out and held it squinting and swaying up to the light. She breathed with delight. There was an intricate design on the front, it was very faded and there were miniscule gouges on the surface but it looked like an A. 

Cupping the locket in her right hand she used her left to pry it open. She let out an “oh…” of excitement. Framed in one side was a very light and faded picture of a young woman. The picture was so time worn that her face had lightened to white leaving black and silver outlines of curls and silver curves of large dark eyes. Her smile was an iridescent glow, small and lopsided. She seemed faintly familiar to Lyllian but that thought did not catch hold very long. On the other side is a very faded image of a young man. Before she can examine his photo further she hears a door slam and a yell from the bright yellow kitchen down the hall. “Mom! Can I have the rest of the Doritos or do I have to share!!??”. Lyllian quickly pocketed the locket, the long golden chain swinging somewhere along her knee and hurried from the room. Her fingers gripped the little treasure as sure as her heart thumped with adventure.   

Next Chapter: Anya, Volgograd, Night, 1912