The Brooch on the Collarbone

I never thought I’d be a reptile person. My heart belonged to the soft, the fuzzy, the warm-blooded. But the day I walked into the oddities shop, tucked between a taxidermist and a fortune teller, something in me shifted. The shop smelled of cedar and dust, and the back wall was lined with terrariums, each housing a slick, scaly creature. Most ignored me, their tongues flicking lazily. But in the corner, in a tank half the size of the others, was a runt. She was a bearded dragon, but her beard was nearly black, her body thin, her tail missing a good inch. She was missing two toes on her left front foot, and she sat perfectly still, her head tilted, her beady eyes locked onto mine.

I asked the owner, a gaunt man with spectacles, about her. He shrugged. ‘Her siblings are brutes,’ he said, pointing to a tank nearby where a cluster of healthy, fat beardies basked under a heat lamp, their scales glossy. ‘She was getting bitten, so I moved her. No one wants a damaged lizard.’ I knelt down, pressing my finger to the glass. She didn’t flinch. Instead, she took a step forward, her three-toed foot pressing against the invisible barrier, and her head followed my finger as I moved it. Something about the way she looked at me—not like prey, not like a creature without thought—made my chest ache. I asked to hold her, and the owner grudgingly lifted her out. She sat in my palm, her weight negligible, and then she climbed up my arm and settled on my collarbone, her tiny claws gripping my shirt. The shop owner blinked. Other customers glanced over, and one woman whispered, ‘It looks like a brooch!’ I didn’t correct her. I just stayed there, feeling the subtle thrum of her pulse against my neck, and I knew I couldn’t leave her.

I bought everything—the tank, the heat lamp, the rocks, the crickets. Her name was Ember, a nod to the faint orange tint on her scales. The first week, I was obsessive. I adjusted the lamp, misted her, offered a variety of insects, and I talked to her. She would tilt her head, her black eyes like polished obsidian, and I’d tell her about my day, about the ridiculous story of how I found her. She never responded, but she seemed to listen. At night, I’d let her out, and she’d explore my apartment with a deliberate slowness, her tongue flicking the air, but she always returned to my collarbone, curling up in the hollow of my neck. It became a ritual. I named her ‘the brooch’ as a joke, because when I wore a black turtleneck, she was a perfect, living gem.

But after a few months, I started to notice things. At first, it was small. The crickets I bought seemed to die faster in her tank, even when I changed them daily. When I cleaned the tank, I’d find weird residue—not the usual urate, but a dark, almost oily substance that she left in corners, though she never seemed to defecate there. Once, I woke up at 3 a.m. to a soft clicking sound coming from her tank. I turned on the light, but she was perfectly still, her eyes closed. The clicking stopped when I approached. I chalked it up to the cricket container, but I felt an unshakable sense of being watched.

Then, the dreams started. I’d dream of a vast, dark desert, and in the center, a lone figure—small, hunched, with glowing amber eyes. It would tilt its head, just like Ember did, and it would speak in a voice that sounded like sand grating against stone. ‘You see,’ it said, ‘but you do not understand.’ The dreams left me exhausted, and I began to sleepwalk—or so I assumed, because I’d wake up in the living room with my hands on the walls, clutching at them as if I were climbing. A week later, I discovered she had gotten out of her tank. The lid was secure, the locks untouched, but she was gone. I searched every corner, every crevice, but nothing. I was frantic, thinking she might have crawled into a vent or outside, but then I found her in my bedroom, on my nightstand, sitting perfectly still, her head tilted, watching me sleep. I picked her up, and she immediately climbed to her usual spot, her cold body warming against my skin. But I felt a chill that had nothing to do with temperature.

It was the night of the full moon, and I couldn’t sleep. I was lying in bed, Ember on my chest, her breathing slow and rhythmic. I was staring at the ceiling when I heard a whisper, so faint I almost missed it—a dry, scraping sound, like leaves over gravel. It formed words, though they were barely audible. ‘You see the missing toes,’ it said, ‘but you don’t see the hand that took them.’ I bolted upright, my heart hammering, but Ember didn’t move. I tried to rationalize—maybe it was the neighbors, maybe a draft. But the voice had been inside my head, not from outside. I looked down at Ember, and for the first time, I noticed something in her eyes. They weren’t just black; they were deep, vast, like the night sky between stars, and somewhere in that darkness, I saw a flicker of something ancient and aware.

That’s when I noticed the marks. Around her missing toes, the skin was too neat, almost surgical. Her tail, where it ended, had a ridge of scar tissue that looked like it had been healed by fire. I pulled out the photos I’d taken on the day I brought her home, zooming in. In the background of one, I saw a shadow in the tank—a shape that wasn’t her siblings, something larger, darker, like a clawed hand reaching toward her. I had never noticed it before. I felt a panic rising in my throat. I knew, with a certainty that defied logic, that Ember was not just a lizard. She had chosen me, not the other way around.

The next day, I tried to act normal. I went to work, but I couldn’t shake the sense that she was communicating with me. That evening, I decided to test something. I placed a cricket in front of her, but instead of hunting it, she stared at me, her head tilting at an angle that made a crack sound. The cricket hopped away, and she didn’t move. She was watching me, her gaze unwavering, as if she were waiting for something. I whispered, ‘What are you?’ And she blinked slowly, like a predator enjoying a secret, and then she opened her mouth. Her tongue, which I had always thought was normal, was forked, but it wasn’t the usual pink—it was black, and it flickered out, tasting the air, tasting something beyond the physical. She spoke again, this time clearer. ‘You have given me your warmth,’ she said, ‘and I will give you a warning.’

The voice was inside me, and it was cold. ‘There is a door,’ she continued, ‘and you are standing on its threshold. You must choose: to open it, or to close it forever. But know this: once you open it, you cannot close it again, and what walks your dreams will walk your waking hours.’ I felt a dread so profound that I nearly vomited. I thought of the dreams, the voice, the strange residue, and I understood that she was a conduit, a messenger for something far more terrifying. I wanted to release her, to set her free in the desert, but I was paralyzed. She climbed down from my collarbone, walked across the floor, and stopped before my bedroom door. She looked back at me over her shoulder, her three-toed foot raised, and then she opened her mouth wider, and I saw something inside—not teeth, not a mouth, but a void, a swirling darkness that bore the faint outline of a hand. The hand reached out, and I felt a cold fingers brush my cheek, and I screamed.

I woke up on the floor, my alarm clock blaring. It was 6 a.m., and Ember was in her tank, sound asleep, her belly rising and falling. I checked my cheek for a mark, but there was nothing. I told myself it was a nightmare, a feverish hallucination from sleep deprivation. I went to work, but I couldn’t focus. I kept feeling her eyes on me, even though she wasn’t there. That night, I decided I would take her back to the shop. I couldn’t handle the strange occurrences. But as I approached the tank to lift her out, she was gone. The lock was on, but the top was ajar, barely an inch. I searched the entire apartment, ripping up carpets, moving furniture, but she was nowhere. In the bathroom, I noticed a crack in the ceiling, just above the light fixture, and a faint hissing sound, like air escaping. I put my ear to the crack, and I heard the whisper again, gravelly: ‘The brooch has found her perch. The brooch will never be lost.’

I didn’t see her for a week. I left out food, changed the lights, but the tank was a silent homage to my guilt. Every night, I dreamed of the desert, and in the dream, I was no longer myself—I was the figure with glowing eyes, looking down at a tiny broken lizard, and I was taking her toes one by one, and the pain was mine, yet I felt a gratitude. On the seventh night, I woke up with a start. Ember was on my chest, her head tilted, her eyes caught in the moonlight. I didn’t move. I was terrified, but I was also relieved. I whispered, ‘I’m sorry,’ and she extended her head, touching her snout to my chin, and I felt a warmth spread through me. Then she opened her mouth, and the voice was soft, almost kind. ‘You carry me, as I carry you,’ she said. ‘We are bound by the fire of the first mother. In exchange for your care, I will guard your sleep. But, remember: the door you did not open has now been sealed by my body. You are safe, but only while I live.’

And then she closed her eyes, and she has not spoken since. She is still here, my brooch, my little emissary. Sometimes, at night, I still hear the scraping of leaves over gravel, but it’s just a whisper, a lullaby from the threshold. And I know that if she ever passes, the door will open. But I don’t want to think about that. Instead, I keep her warm, and I listen to the silence, and I wait, because I sense that our story is not over. It has only just begun, and I am exactly where she needs me to be.