This story is posted weekly in draft form. Need to catch up? Here are links to the previous chapters:
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
Chapter 3
When Lauren woke sometime later, the sun was high and shining brightly through the flower-print cotton curtains that covered her window. There were birds chirping outside, and the low rumble of voices filtering up from the main floor below. She sat up and stretched, blinking as her eyes tried to adjust to the brightness. A cuckoo clock that her great, great grandmother had hung on the wall ticked away as though it wasn’t over a hundred years old, the cuckoo long having given up its duties. According to the dial, it was just about half-past twelve. If she slept much longer, she definitely wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.
Yawning, Lauren swung her feet over the edge of the bed and forced herself to stand. Her duffel bag was on the chair in the corner, and she rifled through it to find a clean shirt. Pulling on the same jeans she’d worn before, she topped it with a yellow tee emblazoned with ‘Pump You Up!’ in puffy orange letters on the front, and slipped on a clean pair of athletic socks before she turned to the mirror.
“Oh good lord,” she murmured, getting a good glimpse of her face and hair in the mirror as she turned her face right, and then left. No wonder her mom and grandmother had looked so concerned last night. The bruise on her cheekbone had faded, but there were others at her temple, and on the side of her neck and jaw that had grown darker in the last 24 hours. She considered covering them, but it seemed pointless now. She’d made a mistake and been lucky enough to have the means and motivation to fight herself out. She was luckier than a lot of women, and she wasn’t going to take that for granted.
She pulled her dirty-blond hair into a messy bun on top of her head and secured it haphazardly with an elastic. She needed to get it cut, and had for a while, but she’d had other things on her mind. Hopefully Jewell’s salon was still open – she’d check tomorrow. Anita was the best in the area, and Lauren could use some pampering.
Turning away from her reflection, she went out into the hall and knocked on the door next to hers.
“Maddie? Are you awake? I’m coming in.” She turned the doorknob, and pushed it open, finding only an empty bedroom, where surprisingly, the bed was made. There was a small treasure chest on the dresser, and she smiled, moving into the room. That chest had been hers as a child, and she carefully lifted the lid, her heart giving a little flutter at the treasures still inside. She picked up a pocket watch with a wooden case – a rarity even in 1899, the date on the case. Now it was probably more rare. Probably the rarest piece in the box, and the one she would most likely have to return someday.
There was a tradition in the family started by Madeline Rae Henry, Lauren’s great, great grandmother. She’d been obsessed with the magpies upon moving to the valley, and she’d challenged her daughters to befriend the birds, trading foods and little bits of handmade jewelry for whatever the birds would bring back. On occasion the magpies would accept something metallic and shiny, but more often they’d take bits of what Madeline called “magpie shiny”, which included jewelry made from polished rocks and semi-precious stones. The girls had kept their treasures in boxes much like the one on the dresser.
When Madeline could no longer take care of the farm herself, she tasked her oldest daughter, Addison, with taking the most valuable gift that the magpies had traded to her when she was young, and doing anything possible to find the former owner and return the bauble. By returning the gift, she closed the loop, and proved herself worthy to inherit everything Madeline had worked so hard to build.
Addison had continued the tradition with Rose, Lauren’s grandmother, and Lauren’s mother Madeline had completed the task as well. Theoretically Lauren would be next. She put the pocket watch back in the box and carefully closed the lid, overwhelmed by the inevitability of it all. Part of her wanted badly to continue the cycle and keep the tradition alive. To be part of something bigger than herself, something that had started with Great, Great Grandma Madeline.
But the other part was freaking out about being back in the valley, and trying desperately to plan a path to escape before things became too comfortable again. She closed her eyes for a moment, reminded herself that this was her daughter’s legacy too. She wasn’t sure what to do with that just yet.
Closing Maddie’s door behind her, she went downstairs and into the kitchen, where she found Mattie at the table with her grandmother while her mother stood at the counter making sandwiches. Her mother looked up as she walked in, her eyes narrowing, possibly at the darker bruises in the light of day.
Or maybe just at the daughter who hadn’t cared enough to contact her after running away from home.
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