Irish Locket
by Spooky Boo Rhodes
It wasn’t the pot of gold or the luck charm that intrigued me the most about the visit from that strange little man the other day. It was the way he looked so familiar to me. His eyes looked somewhat like my father’s unworldly green eyes and his lips a tad bit like my mom’s. Like all of us in the family, he was short and had a lot of red hair. The puffs of curls under his black hat made it sit about an inch too tall and his bushy eyebrows, something of my father’s that annoyed him the most, must have bothered the short man’s eyesight terribly. His nose reminded me of my Uncle Doyle’s nose, big, fat, and full of tiny red spider veins like he’d been drinking whiskey for most of his life. Not to mention those round red cheeks, just like my Aunt Erin’s. There wasn’t a day that went by when she wasn’t teased about those rosy knots.
I swear this little guy was a relative straight from Ireland but I didn’t know any of my Irish relatives. In fact, we are so far removed from any European ancestry that we don’t even speak any of the languages except for English—Americanized English. We’ve been here over 200 years and some parts of the family maybe even 400 years not including the lines of Cherokee we are supposed to have in our bloodline.
Yet, all the same, it didn’t matter what I know or what I didn’t. He came into the house wondering where I had stashed his grandfather’s locket and I didn’t have a clue about what he was talking about.
“Ye have me grandfather’s locket in ye pocket, fair lass,” he said, looking me up and down like I was a bottle of old whiskey.
“I don’t own a locket and I haven’t the slightest clue who your grandfather is.”
“Oh, he died many moons ago. Terrible thing, he was run over by six horses with a buggy. Back in his day, they didn’t have cars and the man who stole his locket was quite the horseman. He knew how to steer those horses wild to run over my grandpappy. Why I seen it with me own eyes. The hooves trotted right over his limbs, flattening them like pancakes, but what was really repulsive is when the hard wooden wheel of the carriage rolled right over his head. The damn thing exploded! Popped from both sides sending brain matter all over the crowd. Women and children were screaming and the men were shielding their families so they wouldn’t get blood all over their Sunday clothes. Such a shame. He wasn’t the most generous man in the world and he had some wicked ways about him–many that he taught me. All he had left was that damn locket that carried the secret to all the riches in the world. Now give it to me!”
“Just how old are you?” I figured I’d ask and entertain the drunk. Obviously, he wasn’t even over 50 and was probably really good at telling tall tales to steal from people.
“Trying to change the subject now, are we?” He puffed up his chest as best as he could probably trying to impress me. “I’m 450 years old in human years,” he said as he eyed the gold chain with a small key amulet hanging from my neck that my grandfather gave me when I was 12.
“You’re 450 years old, hmm? Look, I don’t have your grandfather’s locket, and I sure as hell don’t believe you’re 450 years old. Now get out of my house before I call the police.”
He scoffed at me before turning toward the door, “I want me gold, lady. It’s mine and you will give it to me or else!”
Before he could utter another word, I pushed him out the door with the heavy wooden door slamming behind him. As the door slammed shut, I felt my fingers tingle. Shaking them off as I would if my arm fell asleep, a strange golden mist appeared before me. I moving my fingers around in the air, watching the hypnotic glow form a trail before my eyes. It floated up the stairs and into my bedroom. As I followed, I felt the room moving around me as my steps grew heavy. Pinching myself for not wearing any trace green pm St. Patrick’s Day and trying to up the pace, I laughed like a drunken sailor.
The golden glow halted at my closet door. When I opened the door, it swirled around in front of the attic door in the ceiling. I pulled the latch and the old wooden stairs lowered to the floor. I sneezed lightlty as dust fell from the door and landed in a circle around me. The gold seemed to be protecting me from the tiny falling granules of dirt and decay as I climbed the stair to the attic. No one had been in this room since right after grandpa died. He gave me the house since I was his only last living relative and after spending hours sorting through the old farm clothes of jeans and wool shirts, I figured there was nothing that I wanted to keep or wear. I put it all away to sort through for a rainy day and sell or donate to another potato farmer who would make use of it all.
After opening the window over looking the fields to air out the room, I began rummaging through all of the old piles of clothes and boots. Honestly, I don’t think the man ever washed his clothes. It looked like he just bought new clothes a week after wearing the old ones and left them up here to rot. The boots were another story. He had tons of boots and all different sizes, too. Some with brass buckles and others just straight leather. Even stranger, they were all different sizes. Perhaps he had been saving them since he was a child?
When I realized I was just making pile after pile tossing clothes and shoes around, I began tossing everything out of the window. As the room grew cleaner, the gold haze glowed brighter until right there, out from under a pile of old jeans, was a little brown box. I picked up the tiny box and examined it then clutched the key hanging from the gold chain on my neck. The key my grandfather left me, I always thought it was just a pretty trinket because it was so small! I pulled the chain over my head, carful not to get it tangled in my mess of red hair, then pushed the tiny end into the keyhole.
When the box popped open, the lid bounced back so hard the locket inside flew out with a start and into my mouth! No sooner could I cough the little ornate piece of gold jewelry out before I accidentally swallowed it down into my belly. It was small enough to not cause a problem I suppose. I could try to throw it up, but I was afraid I would only hurt myself so I let it sit.
That night I felt weird. It wasn’t sick to the stomach weird or I accidentally swolled a key weird, it was different than anything I had ever known. The magic that happened during the day was real yet it felt unreal. Unearthly is perhaps a better word. I thought about the little man and what he said about his age. He was tiny and he wasn’t small enough to be a…nah, it couldn’t be. That’s absured. We are almost 100% born and bred Irish with the exception of that sliver of Italian one of my naughty grandmothers met in a bar one cold night which is probably where I get my olive complexion while the rest of my family is as white as a fitted sheet. Most of the women in my family are short, well endowed, and very fair skinned with beautiful red hair. I was the oddball with olive skin and auburn hair but with deep green eyes. And yes, I’m still short by most standards. But as short as a Leprechaun?
I ignored the sleep I needed and ran down to my grandfather’s library of books I kept on the old bookshelf. I really didn’t have the heart to get rid of all of his stuff and most of it was handed down for generations. It was probably worth a small fortune so I kept it, including his old farming and medical books. He was rarely one for fiction except that one about Fairies and Folklore. I never questioned its existance..until now. I pulled the heavy book off the shelf and began studying its cover. It remained surprsingly clean despite that no one has touched it in over 20 years. The binding felt like leather and seemed warm to the touch. A little sickened by its feel, I opened the cover and began thumbing through the pages until I found the word, well goodness, I can’t even begin to know how to pronounce it because no one taught me anything about our ancestors really, but it looked enough like leprechaun to me. So I started looking through the pages and as I did, the old Celtic prose began to form words of English right in front of my very eyes.
I watched as they began sentences and paragraphs of something I could actually understand. There were handdrawn pictures of short little people with fluffy hair and shoes with brass looking buckles. There were fairies with wings riding unicorns and others dancing in the air. The trees looked to be alive with faces, laughing along with the rest of the group. As I stared more at the page, it began to move with life. Giggles from the fae filled the room and the small, squeaky bellow of a belly laugh erupted from the short, red-headed man holding a golden locket. I didn’t get a hard glimpse of the jewelry I now wore in my stomach, but it looked a lot like what zoomed past my face!
“Hey…” My voice trembled as I peered into the book, trying to get their attention.
With glaring eyes, their heads turned instantly in my direction. One fairy spat at me. The tiny droplets hit the top of my hand and it burned. Another screamed and another cried. Their laughter and fun ended as they scattered in all directions, hiding inside the trees who took them in willingly.
“I won’t hurt you,” I ran my finger down the page. It rippled with an intense dark feeling that swarmed all around me. The tallest fairy came out of the tree and stared at me for a moment.
“What do you want?” she asked in a language I was not familiar with yet I could understand every word.
“Believe me, I’m as shocked as you are to find this book here but I have a man after me and as weird as this conversation is, I think you can help me.”
“What man?” the woman asked, motioning for her companions to come out from hiding.
As the little people in the book drifted out from the trees, they all sat together in a group holding hands and listened with such intent that I thought the pages became a picture again.
“A cruel man. I think he killed my grandfather for a trinket my grandfather had hidden. A tiny golden locket that I accidentally swallowed.” The pages of the book filled with laughter from the tiny voices and as I shook my head and continued, they quieted down again. “He has threatened me and told me I have until tonight to produce the locket, but I know he is evil. There is no way to get it out right now anyway.”
The tallest fairy motioned for the short red headed man to speak and speak he did. Small was his body, but his voice boomed into the room. “Leave the book open on the table and invite him into the house tonight for we will finally take care of this being and after all we ask is that you close the book and leave us be.”
“You got it!”
Feeling a bit stupid that I just spoke to a picture in a book, I left the pages open on the table. I could just barely hear them carrying on with their fun as I picked up around the house and waited for the stranger to come back and as the sun set behind the woods, there was a stern knock of three on the front door.
I opened the door and in walked the Leprechaun, twisting his long pipe in his hand. He was now dressed all in green and sported a little black hat with a green band and a gold buckle. While his clothes were quite beautiful, he was not. He was no longer the happy young fellow who appeared before me earlier in the afternoon. This man had brown, weathered skin and pointed ears like a Vulcan. His nose was long but curled under itself and his lips were dry and thin. His bloodshot eyes glowed yellowish green and I could feel the penetrating my soul. He held out one small hand with crooked, curled fingers and long, sharp fingernails.
“Give the locket, now.” he demanded without a hello.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I spat at him but then remembered what the Leprechaun in the book had said and softened my voice. “Maybe I can go find it for you, if you just wait here.
“Cailín, you don’t fook me. I can feel the locket. It is inside of you.”
My belly began to burn as he hands turned circles in front of me. I looked down at where the pain stabbed my gut and I could see the pattern of the small locket underneath my skin and feel it pressing to get out of my body. I burned like nothing I had ever felt before. I dropped to my knees, unable to withstand the pain and cried.
“Make it stop!” I whimpered.
“Too late!” he giggled and continued to move his hands around in circles. “The gold will be mine!”
The sound of a harp filled the room and the people from the pages of the book came to life. The pain grew in my belly as two of the faries pushed the leprechaun down to the ground and continued to chant his spell. They held him there until the tallest Fae stepped into view from the inside of the tree. She walked over to him, standing above his body then began to hum the most beautiful song I had ever heard. It’s magic consumed my thoughts and the pain was gone. I watched as the locket drilled through my skin creating a tiny, bloody hole but it didn’t hurt. She grabbed the locket from the air and then pushed it down upon the Leprechaun’s forhead.
He screamed as his skin began to melt from his body in big pools of pink goo all around him. The blood and muscles dissolved quickly with the stench of death and erosion. His eyeballs popped out of their sockets and hung to the side of his rotting skull, yet still attached by the bloody optic nerve and some muscle as he still continued to look around the room in pain. While snapping his jaw, seemingly trying to speak, the fairy put her heel upon his forhead.
“Your time has come to an end, finally. There will be no more pots of gold fairy tales or stealing the wealth of the poor or rich. You will now become one with the Earth, evil one.” And with that, she stomped on his skull with crunch, sending brainmatter all over the livingroom floor.
I looked down at my belly and to my amazement, the pain and wounds were gone. The fairy looked at me and shrugged, “Better than waiting for another day for it to come out, isn’t it?”
And with a wave of her hand, she and the rotting corpse vanished as did the strange visitors. I heard them calling from the pages of the old book on the table and as promised, I closed it shut then sat down wondering if it was just really all a bad dream.
“I love you, Cailín,” I heard my grandfather’s voice in the air all around me and felt something drape around my neck. It was the necklace with the key trinket he gave me so long ago. I grasped it and felt the magic flow through me as I put the book back on the shelf and embraced who I really was after all.
