Knives of black rain pelted the window at Lyllian’s back.  The air surged above her head from the ceiling vent. Shivering she pulled her pumpkin colored sweater on. The one Michael hated. He had never said as much. But it was there. The old, mossy, musty, Aunt Cora by the window in a wheelchair, soft thump of the white rubber soled caregiver feet, burnt orange thrift store sweater. She loved it. She’d found it at a vintage clothing shop some twenty years ago. She wore it all the time in the Autumn and Winter. She was not a jacket person, nor a coat person. She’d never owned a blazer or raincoat. Nay not even a sweatshirt or suit jacket. She did however own a few sweaters. And pumpkin was one of her favorites.

She tapped away at her desk, the low murmuring of her employees just slightly within earshot. It was a cold blustery day. Lyllian was clacking away in the last waning moments. She was trying to capture something. A thing that has captured her the night before. It had been just after 1 am when she’d started awake at the sound. Sliding from the bed she’d tiptoed lightly down the hall. The blue glow of the monkey nightlight flickered in Vivienne’s room. Her daughter lay sprawled sideways her caramel curls obscuring her features. Lyllian rearranged her blankets, brushed her hair from her face, and quietly slipped back out.

The next room was black and silent. Frankie lay curled in a ball face squashed into the pillow, her earbuds dangling. The glow of her IPOD rippled over the sheets where it lay forgotten. Lyllian removed the earbuds and swallowed a laugh at her daughter’s sleeping form. Frankie had always been a hard sleeper. The lengths in which Lyllian had to go to wake her through the years had always astounded. And always with her bottom in the air, curled tightly, and pressed firmly to the pillow. Lyllian’s smile faded. In just two short years her Frankie would be away. Sleeping elsewhere. A dorm. An apartment with her cousin Shaley. Or here, in her bed, but away just the same. The last few months it had been increasingly evident that Frankie and Lyllian were approaching a crossroads and neither were headed down the same path.

Lyllian slowly walked the length of the hall and stopped by the front window. The orange glow of the lights lit the front stoop.  What had awakened her? Something on the edge of her mind. She ran her fingers across the glass. The frame of the window was old and misshapen. The paint was lumpy and knobby. A loose bit of wood caught her hand. Distracted she glanced at it. There was indeed a loose portion on the frame just at her eye level. She grasped the edge and against her better judgement pulled it gently away. A gleam of silver-gold caught her eye. She wiggled her fingers in lightly and grasped something.  It was a delicate oval shaped locket. She pulled it out and held it squinting and swaying up to the light of the porch.  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. She heard the creak of footsteps making their way down the hall. Lyllian quickly pocketed the locket in her pajama bottoms, 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.

Back inside her head. At her desk. Mid-type. The locket. Where had it come from? When? Who was the woman? Why was it in her house! There was something so utterly familiar about the locket. Just out of her reach. Hadn’t she seen it before? Hadn’t it been in her small shiny wooden ‘special box’? The one she knew was in her parent’s attic? But now it’s here. Hadn’t she in fact hidden it there, in the window frame herself?

Next Chapter: Anya, Astrakhan, Russia, 1922