The Rosewood Locket

When I was twelve, I found a faded photograph tucked inside my mother’s Bible. The photo showed a young woman with auburn hair, her face soft with an old-fashioned smile, and she wore a small locket shaped like a rose. I asked my mother who she was, and her hands trembled as she took the photo away. It wasn’t until I was sixteen that she finally told me the truth, and I wish she hadn’t.

We lived in a rented farmhouse on the edge of a pine forest, a place my parents had moved to when I was just a baby. My father worked nights at a lumber mill, and my mother was often away caring for my sick grandmother. That left me alone with my father’s brother, Uncle Ray, who had come to stay after his own house burned down. Uncle Ray was a quiet man, but he had a way of staring too long at things, as if he could see through them.

I was about three months old, or so my mother told me, when the incidents began. One evening, my father and Uncle Ray were in the living room watching a game on the old box TV. The baby monitor sat on the coffee table, and through it came the sound of me cooing. My father glanced at the monitor and froze. Standing beside my crib was a woman in a pale blue dress, her hair the color of straw, her face sweet and empty. She wasn’t a figure of mist or shadow; she was as solid as the furniture. My father made a sound, and Uncle Ray turned to look.

Uncle Ray laughed, a harsh bark. He said my father was seeing things, that the dark and the drink were playing tricks. But the next morning, my father found a small, rusted locket on the floor of my room. It was shaped like a rose, and it was cold to the touch. My mother kept it in a jar on the kitchen windowsill, thinking it was a trinket from the previous tenant.

A week later, my mother was in town, and my father was in the kitchen fixing a loose cabinet handle. I was in my high chair, babbling, when I threw my bottle across the room. It clattered on the linoleum. My father bent to pick it up, and when he straightened, he saw the woman again. She was crouched beside me, her lips moving as if whispering secrets. And I was laughing, reaching for her as if she were my own mother. My father shouted, and the woman vanished, leaving the faint smell of roses.

Uncle Ray came in from the porch then, and my father told him what he’d seen. This time, Uncle Ray didn’t laugh. He went pale and said, ‘I’ve seen her too, night before last. She was standing at the foot of your bed, just watching. I thought I was dreaming.’ They decided not to tell my mother, afraid she’d worry herself sick over something they couldn’t explain.

The last incident happened just before my first birthday. My father had taken me to the county fair, and at the petting zoo, I pointed at a woman in a blue dress and screamed a name that sounded like ‘Mara.’ My father turned, but only saw a crowd. When we got home, my mother was waiting, her eyes red. She held out the rose locket. It had opened, and inside was a tiny scrap of paper with a date: my birth date, and a name: ‘Evelyn Rose.’ My mother demanded to know what it meant. That’s when my father broke down and told her everything.

They sold the farmhouse soon after, and we never spoke of it again. But the locket stayed in the jar, and the jar stayed in the attic. A few months ago, my grandmother died, and we had to clear out the attic. I found the jar covered in dust, and when I opened it, the locket was open. Inside, instead of the paper, there was a small photograph: a woman in a blue dress, holding a baby. The baby had my mother’s eyes. And on the back, in faded ink, were the words: ‘For my daughter, Mara.’

I took the locket to my mother, who stared at it for a long time and then whispered, ‘I had a sister once, named Mara. She died before you were born. She always wore a blue dress.’ That night, I put the locket under my pillow. I dreamed of a woman in a blue dress, standing at the foot of my bed. She pointed at me, and then she pointed at her chest, where a rose bloomed over her heart. When I woke, the locket was cold. And I knew that she had only been trying to reach out, not to harm me, but to give me something.

I still carry the locket in my pocket. Sometimes, I catch the faint scent of roses, and I know she’s near. I’m not afraid anymore. She was just a mother who lost her way, and I made a promise to remember her.