The pendant was old and bulky, decorated with the delicate touch of enamel flowers. Emily’s mother Rachel had discovered it a few months ago, helping her own mother Lucy to clear out the relics collecting dust in the woman’s attic.
Despite the flickering bulb in the ceiling and the abundance of cobwebs, Emily and her brother Randy loved to use the space as a playground. They built forts out of the boxes, played dress-up with the old clothing, or used Grandma’s broken steamer trunk as a bed or a bench on a make-believe train ride.
Lucy had given Rachel her blessing to gift the necklace to her granddaughter for the girl’s last birthday.
Ever since, Emily hadn’t taken it off. She fiddled with it in class, while she did her homework, and when reading before bed. It didn’t contain anything, and she hadn’t yet decided what to put in it. She wanted it to be special.
But one evening, twiddling the pendant as she watched a movie with her parents and her brother, Emily wedged her nail into a secondary crease on the locket.
She didn’t even realize it wasn’t the usual opening until she popped it open—and a piece of paper tumbled into her lap.
Rachel frowned over at her daughter. “What’s that?”
Emily scooped up the scrap, then cupped the necklace in her free hand. “I don’t know—it just fell out of the locket.” She gently clicked the hidden compartment shut. “I didn’t even know there were two openings in there.”
“Me neither,” Rachel chuckled. “What’s it say?”
“Maybe it’s a treasure map!” Randy squealed.
Emily smiled, unfolding the paper. “It’s not a map. It’s…numbers?” She wrinkled her nose. “Just a few numbers—like a locker combination. And then a name—‘Antoni’s.’”
“Maybe it belonged to someone named Antoni?” her father Bryant suggested.
Emily shrugged. “Maybe this Antoni kept a locker or something somewhere. Though this thing is pretty old…I can’t imagine wherever it leads is still around anymore.”
“We can ask Grandma about it,” Rachel declared. “Maybe it was somebody she or her parents knew.”
* * *
That weekend, Lucy welcomed her daughter’s family into her home with her usual hugs and the scent of some freshly-baked goodie.
As the group sat down to feast upon homemade pumpkin bread, Emily fiddled once again with her locket. “Grandma…you’ll never guess what we found. There’s a hidden compartment in this necklace!”
Her grandmother arched a brow. “Oh! I never knew that.”
Emily popped the locket open and extracted the paper. “I found this inside. It just has a bunch of numbers, and a name—‘Antoni’s.’”
Lucy frowned. She held out a hand, and Emily dropped the paper within it.
“We were kinda hoping you’d know who that was,” the girl continued.
Her grandmother’s puzzlement melted back into a smile as she read over the numbers. “Oh, yes…yes, I think I might know what this is.”
Emily squirmed higher in her seat. “You do? Who is it?!”
“Not a ‘who,’ exactly.” Lucy set down the paper. “How about you finish up your bread, and then I’ll show you?”
* * *
As delicious as it was, Emily couldn’t get through her snack fast enough.
None too soon, the family pushed away from the table.
Lucy led the way to the upstairs hall, where Bryant pulled down the hatch and the ladder. Lucy climbed up first, followed by her none-too-patient grandchildren.
“‘Antoni’ isn’t someone I know.” Lucy stumped over to the old steamer trunk. She waved at the label, where the brand name pressed faded into the leather.
Emily gasped. “Of course!” Then she pursed her lips. “But…then what are those numbers?”
Her grandmother crouched beside the trunk, riffling her thumb over a set of bronze numbers dials. She consulted the paper, clutched in her other hand. “We always assumed this old thing was broken, because every combination we thought to try didn’t work. But…”
She tooled with the dials for a moment—then a quiet click sounded.
Lucy grinned, pushing up the lid on the trunk.
Her grandchildren crowded around her.
Even in the dim attic light, the fabric gleamed. The folds of the skirt and pouf of the sleeves colored in a rosy pink, while the bodice glowed in a creamy white. Petals dripped down one of the sleeves and onto the bodice.
Emily had to physically hold back her squeal. “Oh my gosh—this is so beautiful!!”
“And in wonderful condition.” Lucy ran her hand over the fabric. “Can’t remember where I got this from. I wonder who originally owned it.”
She shifted back to her feet, then turned to the kids. “Did you wanna try it on?”
* * *
Emily and Randy almost wrestled for the honors, but their mother suggested a compromise—that each child receive a ten-minute run-about and “photoshoot” session.
Back downstairs, the kids took turns flouncing about the living room in the pastel folds of the gown.
Lucy watched her grandchildren from her usual armchair. A soft smile graced her lips.
Perhaps the trunk would have to make its way into a holiday gift this year…
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