Ailsa's Story

The Cost of Diamonds

“Turn back, turn back, thou pretty bride, within this house thou must not bide, for here do evil things betide...” The bird’s warning, Robber Bridegroom, Grimm Fairy Tales.

The diamond gleamed on Annabel’s finger, as the only thing in her sight that wasn’t drab and grey. The old woman had a tragic life behind these smoke-damaged trailer walls. Nothing had been kind or gentle to Annabel, save her mother, who had long since left this world.

Annabel’s children had all died young, their hopeless father drank himself to death, while she regretted the choices she’d made.

Her gnarled, arthritic hands clumsily groped around inside the closet for her coat, intending to make her weekly trip to the convenience store a half a mile down the road. Her back ached as she shakily draped her coat over her shoulders.

Annabel’s eye caught the ring again. It seemed to sing with all that twinkling.

It was not Annabel’s wedding ring. It wasn’t hers at all. She had found this ring when she was ten years old and had kept it ever since, as if wearing it for any number of years would make the precious stone forget its true owner.

For the tiniest moment Annabel’s frown twitched upward and in her mind she saw the woods in fall. The leaves crunched under her bare feet, for in her fantasy she was a girl again. The prettiest little dimpled girl that anyone had ever seen, her ringlets tied back, with that beautiful red ribbon.

The vision faded and a dreary sight met Annabel, from the porch of her double-wide home. A dog barked, something collided with a chain link fence and in the distance she heard a siren.

Annabel staggered out into the world and made it all the way to the bus stop, before she had to stop and rest her old bones on the graffiti-tagged bench.

A magpie landed beside her.

Annabel looked warily at the bird, automatically she closed her quavering fist and covered the ring. “It may not be mine, but it certainly ain’t yours!” she snapped at the magpie.

The animal seemed indignant, as it flapped away from the bus stop.

A familiar guilty feeling clouded her head.

In the forest there were lots of birds… Annabel used to search for nests while she played there.

Golden light tinged the red ribbon that fluttered over Annabel’s shoulder. Her eyes absorbed her surroundings. The forest floor dipped and twisted about the towering trees, the ground was the frozen waves of a vast ocean of leaves. The colors were unforgettable, blushing pinks and oranges, deep ruby reds and glittering gold tones complimented the dusk-colored fantasy land that Annabel had all to herself.

It was a place she returned to in her mind. The abrupt contrast of a rich warm bed of nature and the sharp, cold, crying life her fairy-land had developed into, was so profound that Annabel felt sure that this place couldn’t possibly have been as wonderful as she remembered. Surely, her mind had invented her childhood. How could such a perfect life disintegrate so severely?

Little Annabel had seen another nest… It was low enough that she could climb up and peek inside to see if the bird had any eggs.

Annabel brushed the red ribbon from her eyes and nestled herself down on the low branch with her little feet dangling above the ground. The nest was a work of art, each twig was set with care, to last. She admired the bird’s work. Her eyes soon found the two eggs, cuddling together, between them, something gleamed.

Curiously, Annabel dipped her hand into the nest and felt her delicate fingers close around the diamond. She lifted the jeweled ring in front of her eyes and gazed at it lovingly.

Annabel thought to herself that it wasn’t hers… she should put it back. She had little hope of ever owning a real diamond.

Her breath was back, the old woman returned to her tired feet and hobbled down the road, but her destination had changed. Up ahead, she could see a wooded area, perhaps the last of the vast forest that she had known as a girl. She fiddled with the ring, tears beaded her eyes as a sad memory struck her. She had been right to think that this secret treasure was the closest she would ever come to owning fine jewelry.

“It was never mine,” her voice shook, “…I should give it back.”

She had repeated those words to herself many times, but tonight, ready to die from exhaustion, she felt she should finally return the ring.

The journey was so much longer than Annabel had remembered as a child, it gave her time to remember all her regrets and pains, from the most recent, to the ancient injuries. She recalled everything that she wished she could change...

A road cut a vast scar right through the middle of what had once been the thickest part of the forest, many of the trees had been chopped down, the frigid night air made Annabel gather her coat around her.

Annabel looked up ahead, she could see the tree’s branches towering above all the rest, like a temple in the center of a village.

The old nest was still perched right where she remembered it. Annabel wrapped her shaking hands over the coarse bark, and pulled. At first she was afraid she didn’t have the strength, the ring twinkled. The effort made her dizzy, but she managed to hoist herself onto the branch.

Her feet dangled again. Her left slipper fell to the forest floor, so she kicked off her right as well. She removed the ring, and gingerly placed it between two nestled eggs, and uttered an apology that was muffled to obscurity by the wind.

The red ribbon fluttered into sight, the sheen of it caught the golden light of dusk, little Annabel curled her toes and smiled down at the nest, before letting herself slip from the branch.

“Annie,”

She turned and rushed forward, hugging her mother tightly around the middle. Her white apron was warm from the sunset.

“What did you find today?”

“I found a treasure... but I put it back,” little Annabel slipped her hand into her mother’s and began to lead her back home, “It wasn't mine.”