9.

     That night, alone in her bedroom, Caroline Avery examined the promise she had made to Great-Aunt Mildred. The silver chain still hung around her neck and from it dangled a pendant: precious metals entwined in a tangle, each twisted loop interlocking, but falling without shape against her chest as she let it drop. It gleamed in the candlelight: brass, copper, sliver and gold rings shining brilliantly against the soft white lace of her nightgown.
     Caroline didn't understand. Her aunt had said that she was to keep it safe, and made her promise to never take it off – but to what end? How could she, Caroline, keep it safe and from whom? Who, she wondered, was looking for it? And what did it do? What did it all mean?
     Perhaps Great-Aunt Mildred was simply ill, as Mother had said. Still, she had been so insistent, demanding that Caroline be left alone with her before the necklace was conferred and the vow extracted, making her swear to keep the secret hidden. It certainly was a puzzle. Playing idly with metal loops, Caroline reasoned that her promise would come to nothing. And if so, it would be all the easier to keep. She slid the pendent under the neckline of her nightgown and did up the top two buttons, so that the necklace was completely out of sight.
     Caroline leaned over to blow out the candle, letting the darkness overtake her little room. Of course, the streetlight outside her window still shone through the curtains and crept faintly across the floor. She stared at the encroaching parallelogram of light and the whispering movement of the curtains and contemplated the strangeness of the past few days. It seemed to her that she had been able to do little else since they'd occurred.
     Alone in her bedroom, in the darkness, the gentle heaviness of the jumbled metal loops resting on her sternum was oddly reassuring. Caroline felt an easy warmth spread through her body as the pendant rose and fell with every breath – each soft swell bringing an unforeseen restfulness. As sleep stole quietly through her eyelids to dim her consciousness, Caroline was not at all troubled by the strange deathbed promise she'd given to Great-Aunt Mildred, nor the mysterious present that seemed a charge rather than a gift.