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By Root 1324 0

’t answer. She looked at me, her face blotched from her weeping, her eyes dead with despair, and then she took this strange old ring with the dull red stones wrapped in a sock out of the bottom drawer in her bedside table. I thought it was the ugliest ring I’d ever seen, and I asked her what it was. She said her own mother had given it to her before she died, and made her swear not to tell anyone about it except her own daughter, and that meant you, in this case—her granddaughter—when her time came to pass the ring along. Helen was crying, choking on her own words. She said the ring was magic. She said she’d always been afraid of it and had kept it hidden, and so Claudine’s death was her fault, since if she’d been wearing it she could have saved Claudine. I thought she was having a breakdown, could no longer bear to be in touch with reality, but then, you see, she showed me what the ring can do.

Your grandmother never really recovered, was never herself again, at least to me, after that night. She kept the ring with her, wouldn’t let it out of her sight, until she seemed obsessed with it, hardly talked to me of anything else. I grew to fear what she might try to do with it, fear who else she might tell and what would happen to her if she did. But I feared most of all for her sanity.

I thought I must get rid of the thing, but then I thought about how different our lives would be if she had managed to save Claudine. I thought of Josh, numb with grief that night, huddled next to you, Lucy. I thought of you, only two years old and destined to grow up without a mother because an idiot drunk had smashed his car into hers and killed her instantly.

And so, my dear Lucy, I waited four more years to decide that I must remove the ring from your grandmother. You are now only five years old, and you have no idea what awaits you in the future. The ring will be yours. It can be used for great good, but it is not my place to tell you how. You see, if you have your grandmother’s gift, you will soon discover that for yourself, and if you do not, you will never believe me in any case. For your own safety, tell no one you would not trust with your very life. If anyone deserves this ring, it is you, my dear Lucy.

I find myself wondering as I write this letter to you how long I knew you before I went to my reward. I also find myself wondering how old you are as you read this. You see, my instructions were for you to be given this letter and ring upon the death of your father. I hope Josh lived a long, satisfying life and you, my dear, are middle-aged, and you have gained wisdom and insight into yourself and your fellow man. Do you yourself have a daughter?

I wish you joy, and love, and fulfillment in your life, Lucy. I will love you always.

Your Grandfather, Milton Xavier Carlyle

Lucy laid the letter on the desk, picked up the ring, and laid it on her palm. She slowly closed her hand around it. To her surprise, she felt warmth from it, and more, the ring felt quite natural in her hand.

Without thinking, she slipped the ring onto her middle finger. Since it was so large, she curled her fingers to keep it on. She turned on the desk lamp and held it close to the light. She saw symbols etched beneath the three carnelians—a half circle, flat side up; a circle with an inverted cross coming out of it, like an incomplete symbol of Venus or woman; and two small isosceles triangles with nothing at all unusual about them. She had to concentrate to make the symbols out clearly, they were so shallow and faded in the gold. What did the symbols mean? Were they pictographs from a long-ago language? She looked on the inside of the ring. There, in letters large enough for her to see clearly, was a single word etched in black letters: SEFYLL.

Was that Welsh? She whispered the word aloud, stumbling over the sound.

She whispered the word again, changing how she said it until the word flowed more smoothly out of her mouth, as if she had the right pronunciation. She said the word aloud, and she would swear there was a gentle rippling in the light from the