Two Halves
You won’t want to take the locket, but your twin sister Agnes will insist, pressing it into your hand as she stands on the doorstep of your cottage, unwilling to enter. You’re supposed to take turns looking after it, changing each Samhain as the world enters the dark half of the year, and it’s not your time yet. Your mother came up with this arrangement, back when the three of you were living together in the big house with the view of the harbour – back when the village was prosperous and lively, before the Great War took the young men and left only the elderly and weak to work the fishing boats. According to family tradition, the oldest daughter is responsible for the locket, but because no one knows which of you was born first, your mother came up with a different solution. Unlike Agnes, you never really believed in the locket’s powers – all it contains is a caul, a slip of membrane that once sheathed a baby’s head as it emerged from the womb – but you were content to guard it when it was your turn.
Now Agnes doesn’t want it anymore. She will tell you it no longer brings good fortune but causes ill luck. How else can you explain the bad catches? she will ask. You will try to tell her it’s a natural cycle, or maybe it’s because the big boats from the town have been stealing too much from the sea, but Agnes won’t listen. She will tell everyone the locket is causing the drought. All the locals know the story of the talisman, how it belonged to your grandmother’s grandmother Auld Gowdie, who the locals consider a witch, although you prefer to think of her as a healer.
Because you are keeping the locket, you will be considered bad luck. You and Agnes have always been shunned by the villagers because of your family history and the fact that you each have your own fishing boat, flouting the rule that women mustn’t go to sea. But the hostility now will exceed anything you’ve experienced. You will overhear conversations in low voices, and the brave will confront you on the street. People will say their children don’t have enough to eat, that something must be done. No one will listen to your explanations.
Gifts will begin to appear on your doorstep. Fresh bannocks wrapped in waxed paper, a metal box full of home-made oatcakes. You will know this is a bad sign. You will recall your mother’s stories about what they did to Auld Gowdie, how the presents were the first stage, before men in black hoods came to fetch her one day, and how your grandmother found her shawl floating in the harbour.
This is why one clear morning you will sail off at dawn with the locket tucked inside your coat and set your course for the rising sun. You will not look back at the village where you have spent your entire life, even though you will never see it again. When you drop the locket over the side, it will glint for a moment in the early sunlight before it disappears into the mirrored water. You will think about how sailors used to believe a caul would protect them from drowning, and you will ask yourself what will bring you luck now.
Daniel Addercouth grew up on a remote farm in the north of Scotland but now lives in Berlin, Germany. He was recently shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award. Find him on Twitter at @RuralUnease.