The Bride Sealed Inside the Keepsake

Julian had been right. It was a prank. It had to be. Wedding nerves and some vicious joke had twisted my thoughts until I could no longer trust them.

I stopped and let the weight of my gown settle onto the muddy grass. My hands flew to my face, and a ragged sob escaped me. Relief and exhaustion shook through my body.

All I needed was to go back inside, have a glass of champagne, and marry the man I loved.

I turned toward the venue.

Then I noticed it.

At the cemetery’s far edge, beneath the shadow of a huge, dying oak, stood a small stone marker. It was plain and startlingly clean.

I walked closer, watching my breath cloud white in the cold. The stone bore no name, no dates, no letters at all.

The earth beside it was wrong. Around the other graves, dirt lay settled beneath weeds and fallen leaves. Here, the soil was dark and loose, freshly disturbed.

Someone had dug there. Not long ago.

I sank to my knees. Mud seeped through the white silk of my dress, but I barely registered the ruin of it.

I plunged my bare hands into the cold earth. The loose soil gave way easily. I clawed at it, frantic, my polished nails scraping roots and stones.

My fingers struck something solid several inches down. Metal, cold against my skin.

I dragged it free and wiped at the dirt with the lace on my sleeve.

A little silver locket gleamed dully beneath the grime. It was tarnished and heavy, its surface decorated with curling vines.

My hands shook as I searched for the clasp. I pressed my thumbnail against it until the hinge gave.

The locket opened in my palm.

An oval photograph filled the left side. Julian stared out at me in a black tuxedo, wearing the same effortless smile he had now.

The other half held a bride in a white lace dress. Her dark brown hair fell in long waves around her face.

She had my eyes. My nose. The resemblance was so exact that for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

It was my face, and yet it wasn’t me.

I had never posed for that photograph. The lace on her gown differed from mine, and her smile seemed pinched, as if she were trying not to show fear.

I stared at the stranger who could have been my twin. Julian had never been married. He’d said his last serious relationship ended five years earlier.

He had never shown me a picture of that woman. So why was his image inside a locket buried in this churchyard, beside a bride who looked like me?

A sudden gust rushed through the cemetery, sharp enough to sting my cheeks. Dead leaves skittered across the ground.

Then a voice rose from the open locket, faint and thin, as if it were reaching me through a failing telephone line.

The sound came from the little silver case resting in my muddy, shaking hand.

I knew that voice. It was the same little girl’s whisper I had heard from Barnaby.

“He’s chosen the next one already,” it said. “You’re standing on her.”

A gasp tore out of me. I dropped the locket into the mud.

I lurched backward, scrambling on my hands and knees, my heartbeat hammering against my ribs. My eyes fixed on the torn earth by the blank stone.

The patch I had just dug into. The patch beneath my knees.

I hadn’t only found a locket. I had been kneeling over a fresh grave.

“Maya?”

The voice sliced through the chill. I went still.

Slowly, I turned toward the cemetery entrance and its rusted iron gate.

Julian stood there, outlined by the bright afternoon sun. In his grasp, held by the scruff, dangled Barnaby, silent and limp.

His expression gave nothing away. His eyes seemed black and empty.

“Come back for the ceremony,” Julian called. His voice carried smoothly between the headstones.

I stayed on the wet ground, cold mud soaking through my knees. Barnaby hung from Julian’s hand.

My heart battered my ribs. One hand remained braced in the disturbed earth; the other closed around the locket, gathering mud over its tarnished surface.

I drew my fingers inward, hiding the little case in my muddy palm.

At the gate, Julian held Barnaby by the scruff.

I kept the locket concealed in my hand.