My Little Haunting chapter 3 by Emerson Van Wie

Chapter 3 : 

The amulet was in the pocket of his winter coat.

He found it while searching for his keys, his fingers closing around something cold and unfamiliar. It was a small bronze disc on a frayed leather cord, worn smooth around the edges. He turned it over in his palm.

The inscription had almost disappeared.

He could make out a few letters, then a word, then nothing.

He remembered her wearing it. Or perhaps he remembered buying it for her. Who knows what he was thinking at this moment.

He carried it to the desk and placed it beside the photograph, the one he had turned facedown the night before.

He flipped it over, her eyes were closed, mouth open. Daniel stood beside her, grinning as he always had been.

He turned the photograph over again.

The amulet slid off the desk, as he watched it fall, it struck the floor and rolled beneath the bed.

He crouched to retrieve it. His hand brushed the dust beneath the frame, then a small wooden box he had forgotten was there.

Inside lay a collection of things he'd once considered important: movie tickets, a pressed flower, a birthday card, and a folded note in his wife's handwriting.

He opened it gingerly.

“Momento Mori”.

He read it twice.

The phrase meant something. He was sure of it. He had seen it before, perhaps in a book, perhaps on the amulet itself.

He could not remember why she had written it.

He put the note back.

That night, as he tossed and turned on his side of the bed, he must’ve been dreaming. As he dreamed, his phone rang, the glow illuminated the room a soft blue hue. He never answered the call, he only continued his slumber. He suddenly jolted awake hours later.

He woke with his hand clenched around the amulet.

The bedroom was cold.

A faint clicking came from the wall beside his bed. Not a knock. Something smaller, more delicate. Like a fingernail tapping against glass.

He turned on the lamp.

The clicking stopped.

He sat upright and held the amulet out in front of him.

“What is this supposed to mean?”

The lamp flickered.

He waited.

Nothing.

He opened his notebook and wrote the inscription as best he could remember it. Beneath it, he wrote:

“She gave me this before she died.”

He stopped.

Had she?

He searched the box again, looking for a receipt, a card, anything that might establish when he'd acquired it.

At the bottom, beneath the pressed flower, was a photograph of his wife standing in a garden with her friends Sarah and Lidia. The amulet hung around her neck.

On the back, in faded ink, were the words:

“Summer. Before everything with Seth.”

Seth turned it over.

The date was missing.

He slipped the photograph into his notebook, and went to bed.

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check out more creativity by Emerson at @evwphotos