Scots terms
Bairn – child
Nutter – someone’s who’s acting in an irrational/unhinged manner. I can imagine the PC police won’t like this term much.
Telly – Television
Pal – friend
Court – to court someone, a very archaic word now but my grandparents still use it. It’s essentially dating, sometimes the time before dating. I’m presuming it does come from the very old way where you “courted” someone.
A miniature – These are a real-life phenomena, and there’s quite a lot still surviving. In the days before photography, lovers/ betrothed and even married couples could have very small pocket-sized portraits of themselves or each other done so their loved one could carry it with them at all times. They’re not enclosed, like a locket is. The eye trend is real too. There was a period of time when it was fashionable for these portraits to just be the eye (a single eye, not both). It’s not as creepy as it sounds, but I still wouldn’t like one.
Script
Soulmates. It’s a loaded word, isn’t it? It’s become like fairies or aliens. Do you believe in them? There’s no proof either way, but I think the fact the concept exists at all shows a lot about humanity. A soulmate is a romantic notion, a comfort in a life full of frogs that eventually there’ll be a prince. We like to think that out there in the world with billions of people that there’s one person who’ll fit us like a tailored suit. A perfect person that will slot into your life like a beloved pet or bairn until you don’t remember what life was like before and refuse to believe there’ll be a life after.
But not everyone finds their soulmate, and after this story you won’t want to. They do exist after all, but soulmates isn’t the right word. It’s more like a fated person, and you can have multiple over one single lifetime.
But let’s not get ahead of myself. I hadn’t given a thought to soulmates, not before this. It was a word that could mean something to some, yet nothing to others. I didn’t really know if I believed it. It’s too easy. Too convenient, and when I started working in the shop and realising that life’s much more of a bitch than I thought, too dangerous.
This day it was just Reid and I in the shop, Fionn had been sent on an errand by the Madam the day before and wasn’t back yet. Chronos and she were up the stairs. Reid forced me to play cards with him, to hone his skills so he could win more frequently against the wee shite. I wasn’t much of a challenge though, but at least it gave him a confidence boost.
The bell went and our eyes slid over, but mine snagged on the woman in the door, something tugging at the back of my mind, a recognition. I knew this woman’s name. Reid returned to the cards, drawing his eyebrows together in contemplation of what card to throw down next, but I was staring. An increasingly bad habit. I surveyed her as she walked forwards, a smile on her face that indicated we had met before. I had a few seconds to conjure her name and hope she didn’t conjure mine first.
Her long grey hair was tied up in a bun, secured by a wooden hair stick carved into some kind of Celtic symbol. Somewhere in her 50s, she was smartly dressed in a tweed coat, leather gloves, and handbag that perched on her arm. I scrutinised her widow’s peak, her pink lipstick, and the age spots that dotted her jawline, grasping at any memory that appeared.
It was her voice as she said my name that eventually shook something loose. Fiona? Finnola? Flora? Aye, that was right, Flora the Collector. She was one of the nutters who collected items like those in the shop and kept them. The last time I’d seen her she’d looked dishevelled and pale after a tiny wee vase had trapped her in a nightmare.
I immediately felt the dread build at the pit of my stomach as I forced my face into a welcoming smile. I greeted her by name, just to make make sure I’d remembered it right. She introduced herself to Reid and told us that she had something that the Madam would probably want.
I recalled what she had told me about Collectors, about the way she went about it. They only kept certain items, benign ones for the most part. The ones that did serious damage were deposited in the shop’s storage, until they made their way out because they felt like it.
Just as I was about to invite her upstairs, the Madam appeared from the doorway and told us all to follow her, including Reid. He shot her a look as though she’d caught him doing something unspeakable. I successfully stifled a laugh, which became harder when he threw me a pleading look. Even I wondered at the invitation, but just for the joy of seeing him stiffly sitting in the front room with the rest of us I never said anything.
He helped me with the tea, and not wanting to choose a sofa, he sat on the floor beside me and the coffee table. To be fair to him there wasn’t much choice. Chronos had the position beside the Madam, as usual, and no one, not even the customers, wanted to sit in the other sofa.
Whilst I poured the tea for everyone Flora began to rummage around in her designer handbag and pulled out a small velvet jewellery box that contained something metallic inside, rattling around as she released it from her bag. Opening it carefully, as if afraid she’d damage the delicate hinges on the back, she placed it on the table facing us.
It was a gold locket. Rather than the more popular oval, like most of the ones down in the shop, this one was square, with the edges cut off so it was more like an uneven octagon. There was no fancy decoration on the front or the edges, but in the centre, in the middle of a star like pattern, was one single red stone that could’ve been a real ruby or could’ve been glass. I’m no expert. The delicate chain showed signs of wear and age, the gold a shade or two duller than the locket itself. There was no damage to either, no dents or nicks in the gold, or scratches at the opening where someone’s tried to get in.
Reid and I stared over the table, inspecting this thing, and if both of us have learned anything from our time in the shop it’s that pretty jewellery usually makes for the nastiest items. I expected the Madam to step in, to tell us all what it was, and what it did to its victims.
But it was Flora who began to speak, as though she were trying to sell us this locket.
She took us back to the 50s where cars were slow, skirts were big, and the telly was still in black and white. Where an entire generation of young men were lost barely a decade before. A woman in her early twenties stumbles across a locket made of gold in the window of a pawn shop, a single ruby resting in the middle. She’s on her way home from the shops where she’s bought some fabric to make a new dress, special for her best pal’s wedding. It’s already the third of the year. Her younger cousin has just given birth to a bairn. Even her younger sister has started taking an interest in the latest bridal fashions, dropping hints to her boyfriend and parents.
The people in this young woman’s life are moving on, are growing, and conforming to what society expects of them. And she wants to do it too, but she’s being left behind. She sees couples walking down the street holding hands, pushing prams, stealing kisses, and she wants that for herself.
Thinking it’ll make her feel better, she goes into the pawn shop and buys the locket. When she gets home, she eagerly retreats to her room and opens it, wondering what pictures she can sacrifice to put inside. Except, there’s already one there, behind the tiny pane of glass, stuck against the velvet backing.
It’s a man smiling at the camera, his hair smoothed back from his square jawline and sharp eyes. The young woman studies his face, and the more she looks, the deeper in love she gets, until a few weeks later she decides to find the man in the locket. Assuming it has something to do with the previous owner, she returns to the pawn shop, but they can’t help her. It’s been in the shop for too long, and the paperwork has been lost.
The young woman, in her growing desperation to meet the man in the locket, begins to post adverts in the newspaper, in the local shops, begging for anyone who recognises the locket or the man inside for his description, to come forward.
But no one ever does.
Months, and years, and decades go by. The young woman eventually gets married and has bairns, joining the ranks of many a woman before and after. She’s happy with her life, content with her husband and kids and suburban bliss. But somewhere she’s buried deep, she still remembers the man in the locket. Every so often, when her mind wanders, she digs out the locket from the place she keeps it, away from her husband’s gaze, and stares at it, as if doing so will bring him to life.
Then, one day when her bairns have left home, and when her husband has had his midlife crises and decided to marry someone else, she meets the man in the locket. She sees him across a room at someone else’s birthday. She swears it’s him, has studied his picture so many times that she wouldn’t be mistaken. Her legs carry her forwards. They’re introduced. They laugh and make small talk, but she knows, in her bones, that he’s it. He’s the one she’s been searching her entire life for, the one that was made just for her.
They court, then they date. Dinners, restaurants, films, walks on the beach, plans for a holiday, jokes about meeting each other’s parents even though all are dead. She begins to think that she’s never known real happiness until this, until him. She begins to think she’s won at her life, hit the jackpot, and taken away the millions.
And then it’s gone, like a shooting star.
Their relationship a cherry blossom tree, here for spring and gone by summer. It was a drunk driver they said; there was a chance he would make it they said; the funeral’s next week they said.
She finds the locket a few months later, forgotten in the honeymoon period of any relationship. She can barely stand to look at it, and the hinges scrape open as she peers inside.
It’s empty.
At some point in the last decade, the locket entered into a Collector’s possession, and through them onto Flora, who took some interest in the item. She began to trace it as far back as she could, through physical descriptions and pictures and estate sales and auctions.
She finds that it wasn’t always a locket, not in the traditional sense. It can be traced as far back as the 18th century, Flora informs us, beginning life as a miniature, a small pocket-sized portrait that family members or betrothed couples used to carry around of one another. The painting inside the gold frame changed depending on who was in possession of it. Shifting with the fashions of the time, it morphed from a miniature into an eye. A somewhat macabre fashion in the 18th century to carry around a small painting of the eye of your loved one.
By the time early photographs were coming into circulation in the 19th century, the locket decided to modernise, and became the locket we saw on the table that day. Simple, gold, and unassuming. Flora said that every owner she could confirm, and there had been at least a dozen, all had similar stories.
The locket would come into their possession somehow, and when they looked in it or on it, expecting a blank canvas, they would find a portrait or an eye or a photograph of someone else. Assuming it was Fate, even the dreaded soulmate, they’d try and find the person in the locket. Some died without managing it, but the ones who did, who thought they overcame all barriers, always lost in the end. Whenever they found their locket person, that person would always die soon afterwards.
Flora had concluded from her research that the person in the locket only died when the owner met them, as if their meeting insulted the powers-that-be so much they took action. Whatever you called the person in the locket, a soulmate, a victim, a stranger, it always turned out the same. I could’ve argued that they weren’t really your soulmate if as soon as you met them they kicked the bucket. But I kept silent.
Flora had decided, after some deliberating, that it might be best kept in the shop rather than her collection, more to keep her own curiosity as to who the person inside would be for her at bay. Madam Norna nodded and thanked Flora for deciding to give it up. Then she turned to me and tasked me with putting it in the cabinet downstairs.
It was my turn to look desperate. She knew what that thing did, what it could do, and yet was allowing it to be released back into the wild. But like an obedient apprentice, I nodded and swiped the box from the table. She didn’t say I had to leave it open in the cabinet.
Flora remained in the front room with my boss whilst Reid and I retreated back down to the shop, and I could feel him hover at my shoulder like a bad smell. I never opened the box and tucked it away in a dark corner of the cabinet, where I’d hidden the truth invoking brooch Marion had bought. A place where I hoped no one would see.
Reid continued to stare at me, as though I’d done something surprising or as though he was expecting me to say something profound.
“You’re no’ curious?” he checked.
“No’ really,” I answered.
What would’ve been the point? I didn’t have the luxury of ignorance like its previous owners. I knew what would happen if I ever met the person I saw in the locket. And why would I want to spend the rest of my life terrified of meeting them? And if I did, by accident or on purpose, I didn’t want to watch them die.
Reid frowned, evidently disagreeing, and pointed out that even though they died in the end, you still got to experience that kind of love, that kind of perfect relationship some people dream about. Who didn’t want to have that, even for a short time?
I wouldn’t have pegged him as a romantic, but people are full of surprises. I didn’t give him an answer at the time because I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I offered him the locket, which he recoiled at, claiming that I had a point about the dying bit.
I’ve thought since about what he said, about soulmates and Fate. Whoever made the locket, however long ago, must’ve been a bitter sod. It was cruel what it did. Drawing people together, showing them a burst of happiness, before stealing it away. Perhaps it wasn’t the locket at all. Perhaps Fate was bored.
I’ve never been in love; I don’t know what it feels like. Honestly, I find it hard to understand. People slog through bad romance after bad romance, always going back for more in the hopes that they find “the one”, their soulmate. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result? Is that why some of the victims tried to find the person in their locket? Hoping they could avoid the heartbreak and disappointment and just jump straight to the good stuff? Is that why Fate intervened; because it hadn’t been earned?
There must be something about the slog of bad dates and relationships, or why else would people do it? Don’t you need the bad so you can tell when it’s good? Or are people just wired to hope that the next thing will be better than the last?
That’s as far as I want to think about soulmates, or fated relationships, or any of that. I’m just not that deep. All I hope is that the locket gathers dust for a long time to come.
Script – Scots
Soulmates. It’s a loaded word, isn’t it? It’s become like fairies or aliens. Do you believe in them? There’s no proof either way, but I think the fact the concept exists at all shows a lot about humanity. A soulmate is a romantic notion, a comfort in a life full ae frogs that eventually there’ll be a prince. We like tae think that oot there in the world wi’ billions ae people, that there’s one person who’ll fit us like a tailored suit. A perfect person that will slot into your life like a beloved pet or bairn until you dinnae remember what life was like before and refuse tae believe there’ll be a life after.
But no’ everyone finds their soulmate, and after this story you willnae want tae. They do exist after all, but soulmates isnae the right word. It’s more like a fated person, and ye can have multiple over one single lifetime.
But let’s no get ahead of maself. I hadnae given a thought tae soulmates, no before this. It was a word that could mean something to some, yet nothing tae others. I didnae really know if I believed it. It’s too easy. Too convenient, and when I started workin’ in the shop and realisin’ that life’s much more ae a bitch than I thought, too dangerous.
This day it was just Reid and I in the shop, Fionn had been sent on an errand by the Madam the day before and wasnae back yet. Chronos and she were up the stairs. Reid forced me tae play cards wi him, tae hone his skills so he could win more frequently against the wee shite. I was no much ae a challenge though, but at least it gee him a confidence boost.
The bell went and our eyes slid over, but mine snagged on the woman in the door, somethin’ tuggin’ at the back ae ma mind, a recognition. I knew this woman’s name. Reid returned tae the cards, drawin’ his eyebrows together in contemplation ae whit card tae throw doon next, but I was starin’. An increasingly bad habit. I surveyed her as she walked forwards, a smile on her face that indicated we had met before. I had a few seconds tae conjure her name and hope she didnae conjure mine first.
Her long grey hair was tied up in a bun, secured by a wooden hair stick carved intae some kind ae celtic symbol. Somewhere in her 50s, she was smartly dressed in a tweed coat, leather gloves, and handbag that perched on her arm. I scrutinised her widow’s peak, her pink lipstick and the age spots that dotted her jawline, graspin’ at any memory that appeared.
It was her voice as she said ma name that eventually shook somethin’ loose. Fiona? Finnola? Flora? Aye, that was right, Flora the collector. She was one ae the nutters who collected items like those in the shop and kept them. The last time I’d seen her she’d looked dishevelled and pale after a tiny wee vase had trapped her in a nightmare.
I immediately felt the dread build at the pit ae ma stomach as I forced ma face intae a welcomin’ smile. I greeted her by name, just take make sure I’d remembered it right. She introduced herself tae Reid and told us that she had somethin’ that the Madam would probably want.
I recalled whit she had told me aboot collectors, aboot the way she went aboot it. They only kept certain items, benign ones fae the most part. The ones that did serious damage were deposited in the shop’s storage, until they made their way oot ae it because they felt like it.
Just as I was aboot tae invite her upstairs, the Madam appeared frae the doorway and told us all tae follow her, includin’ Reid. He shot her a look as though she’d caught him doin’ something unspeakable. I successfully stifled a laugh, which became harder when he threw me a pleadin’ look. Even I wondered at the invitation, but just fae the joy ae seein’ him stiffly sittin’ in the front room wi the rest ae us I never said anythin’.
He helped me wi the tea, and no wantin’ tae choose a sofa, he sat on the floor beside me and the coffee table. Tae be fair tae him there wasnae much choice. Chronos had the position beside the Madam, as usual, and no one, no even the customers, wanted tae sit in the other sofa.
Whilst I poured the tea fae everyone Flora began tae rummage roond in her designer handbag and pulled oot a small velvet jewellery box that contained something metallic inside, rattlin’ roond as she released it frae her bag. Opening it carefully, as if afraid she’d damage the delicate hinges on the back, she placed it on the table facin’ us.
It was a gold locket. Rather than the more popular oval, like most ae the ones doon in the shop, this one was square, wi’ the edges cut aff so it was more like an uneven octagon. There was no fancy decoration on the front or the edges, but in the centre, in the middle ae a star like pattern, was one single red stone that couldae been a real ruby, or couldae been glass. I’m no expert. The delicate chain showed signs ae wear and age, the gold a shade or two duller than the locket itself. There was no damage tae either, no dents or nicks in the gold, or scratches at the openin’ where someone’s tried tae get in.
Reid and I stared over the table, inspectin’ this ‘hing, and if both ae us have learned anything frae our time in the shop it’s that pretty jewellery usually makes fae the nastiest items. I expected the Madam tae step in, tae tell us all whit it was, and whit it did tae its victims.
But it was Flora who began tae speak, as though she were tryin’ tae sell us this locket.
She took us back tae the 50s where cars were slow, skirts were big, and the telly was still in black and white. Where an entire generation ae young men were lost barely a decade before. A woman in her early twenties stumbles across a locket made ae gold in the windae ae a pawn shop, a single ruby resting in the middle. She’s on her way home frae the shops where she’s bought some fabric tae make a new dress, special fae her best pal’s wedding. It’s already the third ae the year. Her younger cousin has just given birth tae a bairn. Even her younger sister has started takin’ an interest in the latest bridal fashions, droppin’ hints tae her boyfriend and parents.
The people in this young woman’s life are moving on, are growing, and conforming tae what society expects ae them. And she wants tae do it too, but she’s being left behind. She sees couples walkin’ doon the street holdin’ hands, pushin’ prams, stealin’ kisses, and she wants that fae herself.
Thinkin’ it’ll make her feel better, she goes intae the pawn shop and buys the locket. When she gets home she eagerly retreats tae her room and opens it up, wondering whit pictures she can sacrifice tae put inside. Except, there’s already one there, behind the tiny pane ae glass, stuck against the velvet backing.
It’s a man smilin’ at the camera, his hair smoothed back frae his square jawline and sharp eyes. The young woman studies his face, and the more she looks, the deeper in love she gets, until a few weeks later she decides tae find the man in the locket. Assuming it has somethin’ tae do wi’ the previous owner, she returns tae the pawn shop, but they canne help her. It’s been in the shop fae too long, and the paperwork has been lost.
The young woman, in her growing desperation tae meet the man in the locket, begins tae post adverts in the newspaper, in the local shops, begging fae anyone who recognises the locket or the man inside fae his description, tae come forward.
But no one ever does.
Months, and years, and decades go by. The young woman eventually gets married and has bairns, joining the ranks ae many a woman before and after. She’s happy wi’ her life, content wi her husband and kids and suburban bliss. But somewhere she’s buried deep, she still remembers the man in the locket. Every so often, when her mind wanders, she digs oot the locket frae the place she keeps it, away frae her husband’s gaze, and stares at it, as if doin’ so will bring him tae life.
Then, one day when her bairns have left home, and when her husband has had his midlife crises and decided tae marry someone else, she meets the man in the locket. She sees him across a room at someone else’s birthday. She swears it’s him, has studied his picture so many times that she wouldnae be mistaken. Her legs carry her forwards. They’re introduced. They laugh and make small talk, but she knows, in her bones, that he’s it. He’s the one she’s been searching her entire life for, the one that was made just fae her.
They court, then they date. Dinners, restaurants, films, walks on the beach, plans for a holiday, jokes about meeting each other’s parents even though all are deid. She begins tae think that she’s never known real happiness until this, until him. She begins tae think she’s won at her life, hit the jackpot and taken away the millions.
And then it’s gone, like a shooting star.
Their relationship a cherry blossom tree, here fae spring and gone by summer. It was a drunk driver they said, there was a chance he would make it they said, the funeral’s next week they said.
She finds the locket a few months later, forgotten in the honeymoon period ae any relationship. She can barely stand to look at it, and the hinges scrape open as she peers inside.
It’s empty.
At some point in the last decade it entered into a collector’s possession, and through them ontae Flora, who took some interest in the item. She began tae trace it as far back as she could, through physical descriptions and pictures and estate sales and auctions.
She finds that it wasnae always a locket, not in the traditional sense. It can be traced as far back as the 18th century, Flora informs us, beginning life as a miniature, a small pocket-sized portrait that family members or betrothed couples used tae carry aroond ae one another. The painting inside the gold frame changed depending on who was in possession of it. Shifting wi’ the fashions ae the time, it morphed from a miniature into an eye. A somewhat macabre fashion in the 18th century tae carry aroond a small painting of the eye of your loved one.
By the time early photographs were coming into circulation in the 19th century, the locket decided tae modernise, and became the locket we saw on the table that day. Simple, gold, and unassuming. Flora said that every owner she could confirm, and there had been at least a dozen, all had similar stories.
The locket would come into their possession somehow, and when they looked in it or on it, expecting a blank canvas, they would find a portrait or an eye or a photograph ae someone else. Assuming it was fate, even the dreaded soulmate, they’d try and find the person in the locket. Some died withoot managing it, but the ones who did, who thought they overcame all barriers, always lost in the end. Whenever they found their locket person, that person would always die soon afterwards.
Flora had concluded frae her research that the person in the locket only died when the owner met them, as if their meeting insulted the powers that be so much they took action. Whatever you called the person in the locket, a soulmate, a victim, a stranger, it always turned oot the same. I couldae argued that they werenae really your soulmate if as soon as ye met them they kicked the bucket. But I kept silent.
Flora had decided, after some deliberating, that it might be best kept in the shop rather than her collection, more tae keep her own curiosity as to who the person inside would be for her at bay. Madam Norna nodded and thanked Flora for deciding tae give it up. Then she turned to me and tasked me wi’ puttin’ it in the cabinet doonstairs.
It was ma turn tae look desperate. She knew whit that ‘hing did, what it could do, and yet was allowin’ it tae be released back intae the wild. But like an obedient apprentice, I nodded and swiped the box frae the table. She didnae say I had tae leave it open in the cabinet.
Flora remained in the front room wi ma boss whilst Reid and I retreated back doon tae the shop, and I could feel him hover at ma shoulder like a bad smell. I never opened the box, and tucked it away in a dark corner ae the cabinet, where I’d hidden the truth invoking brooch Rowan had bought. A place where I hoped no one would see.
Reid continued tae stare at me, as though I’d done somethin’ surprising, or as though he was expectin me tae say somethin’ profound.
You’re no curious? he checked.
No’ really, I answered.
What wouldae been the point? I didnae have the luxury ae ignorance like its previous owners. I knew whit would happen if I ever met the person I saw in the locket. And why would I want tae spend the rest ae ma life terrified ae meetin’ them? And if I did, by accident or on purpose, I didnae want tae watch them die.
Reid frowned, evidently disagreein’, and pointed oot that even though they died in the end, ye still got tae experience that kind ae love, that kind ae perfect relationship some people dream aboot. Who didnae want tae have that, even fae a short time?
I wouldnae ha’ pegged him as a romantic, but people are full ae surprises. I didnae gee him an answer at the time because I didane know whit tae say. Instead I offered him the locket, which he recoiled at, claimin’ that I had a point aboot the dyin’ bit.
I’ve thought since aboot whit he said, aboot soulmates and fate. Whoever made the locket, however long ago, mustae been a bitter sod. It was cruel, whit it did. Drawin’ people together, showin’ them a burst ae happiness, before stealin’ it away. Perhaps it wasnae the locket at all. Perhaps Fate was bored.
I’ve never been in love, I dinnae know whit it feels like. Honestly, I find it hard tae understand. People slog through bad romance after bad romance, always goin’ back fae more in the hopes that they find “the one”, their soulmate. Isnae that the definition ae insanity? Doin’ the same ‘hing over and over again, expectin a different result? Is that why some ae the victims tried tae find the person in their locket? Hopin’ they could avoid the heartbreak and disappointment and just jump straight tae the good stuff? Is that why Fate intervened; because it hadnae been earned?
There has tae be somethin’ aboot the slog ae bad dates and relationships, or why else would people do it? Dinnae ye need the bad so ye can tell when it’s good? Or are people just wired tae hope that the next ‘hing will be better than the last?
That’s as far as I want tae ‘hink aboot soulmates, or fated relationships, or any ae that. I’m just no that deep. All I hope is that the locket gathers dust fae a long time tae come.