The Locket

The locket sat on the desk. It did not move. Its owner watched it, waiting. The forlorn thing really didn't seem all that important. Who would've thought it held the key to the girl's past?

It was a peculiar, little thing, sitting there as if the world was right. The girl picked it up and held it in her hands in the dim, attic light. Dust motes swung this way and that in the lonely sunbeams. She pinched the chain between two fingers and swung it like a pendulum before her tired eyes.

She had to get going.

The girl picked herself up and tucked the locket away in the pocket of her little dress. She descended to the garden in the backyard, calling out to her step-mother, "I'm going to play, mummy."

The girl pulled open the little gate and crossed into the next street. It should be here. Her older brother, Mark, told her it would be. She wished he was there with her now.

The girl studied the numbers on the houses as she passed them. It really was too bad Mark couldn't come. In truth, her brother had fabricated a tale to explain why he couldn't join his younger sister, Arabelle. Mark had said he had a date, had been quite adamant in saying he did, but Mark never had dates. His sister was just too young to notice.

The numbers 597 gleamed on a small, white house. Arabelle checked the back of the photo in the locket. That's what it said. Mark had told her it was here. He was right. He was always right. That's what big brothers did best.

Arabelle climbed the steps and rang the doorbell. A woman answered with the same carrot-red hair as Arabelle.

"Hi." Arabelle plucked the photo from its place and shoved it into the woman's face. "Is this you?"

"Yes..."

Arabelle flung herself at the woman.

"Hi, mummy! It's nice to meet you."

Inspired by Three Word Wednesday.