The Pendant 1

The Pendant

Chapter One

Bobby found the box at the bottom of the pond we swim in. He had to dive down several times to work it free but finally swam to shore with it. We (Mike, Jake, Bobby, and I) sat there looking at it. It was wood bound with iron straps and it looked old. The lid wouldn’t open and Jake picked up a rock and started pounding until the side caved in.

I know it was dumb. It might have been valuable and there were better ways to open it. But we were teenagers and brute force usually was the first thing to come into our minds.

There was a locket inside the box. Not a shiny locket with jewels. It was dull metal with geometric markings on it. Bobby said that if it was pretty he might have given it to a girl. If he had a girl we responded. Jake thought maybe we could sell it but none of us thought it looked valuable.

Mike finally took it and put it over his neck. There was a blurry shimmering effect and suddenly Mike was gone and there was a topless girl standing where he had been. We all stared, dumbstruck. Mike saw our expressions, looked down at “herself”, shrieked in a girls voice, and tore the locked off his head. She shimmered again, like heat off a road in the summer, and there was Mike again.

Mike threw down the pendant and started running. Bobby and Jake waited a few seconds and then took off after Mike. I reached down, picked up the Pendant, and put it in my pocket. Then I ran to catch up with the others. They caught up with Mike in front of his house and were asking him if he was OK. He was totally freaked and explained how when he looked down his body had been a girl’s. He didn’t want anything to do with the pendant and said it must be black magic.

We finally got him to admit that he felt OK now.