Black Market Merchant

Chapter 102: Locket

"It's so gorgeous!" Mary exclaimed putting a hand over her mouth. Apparently, this was her first time to actually see it. "How could they afford to have something like this?" She asked looking up at John questionably.

John was equally surprised. He shook his head slowly in response. "How should I know. Something like that has got to be worth thousands. Rolland and I made the same amounts at work, so I know he couldn't have afforded it. Especially for how short his time was being employed."

Hanna cupped the perfectly round locket tenderly in her hands. Its beautifully ornate designs sparkled in the sun light as the dragon appeared lifelike and flawless to the onlookers. The background, behind the platinum dragon, appeared to be intricately detailed gold snowflakes mixed interlocking with ice crystal formations. The platinum base allowed for the gold objects to stand out and be better depicted without a single flaw or inaccuracy to be found. The locket had a strikingly beautiful thin mariner chain, that despite its size, it appeared to be extremely durable.

The platinum Chines dragon looping around to bite its tail was also no exception. The dragon's image had been raised up slightly above the golden wintery designs to make it stand out to dazzle even more. Every single scale, every flowing tendril coming off its head, along with each tooth and claw could be seen in perfect minute detail. Not a single item was miss-sized or misshapen. One could even see the angry expression in the dragons eyes as it bit down on its own tail.

Hanna had never seen something so glamorous as this before, not even in her dreams. However, the symbol of the Chines dragon eating its own tail looked very familiar to her. She studied it carefully tilting it from side to side in her cupped hands, but nothing came to mind. It was one of those moments that you knew you were going to remember the answer hours later, while doing something random, and feel silly for not recalling it sooner. Such a curious symbol.

Hanna then carefully pried open the golden snap lock on the locket. It slid open much easier than she had anticipated, and its henges opened effortlessly. Inside was a single, vibrantly colored image on the right side of the locket's interior. The image was of her father and mother smiling as they held a small, bundled baby, presumably Hanna caught in toothless mid laughter in between them. Behind them was a vast open landscape of bright reddish-brown rocks and rusty sand. It looked just like the desert area to the south of town, almost.

Seeing the happy image, Hanna started to tear up again. Up until now every photo or memory of her parents had been burned away from inside their home. She was so overjoyed to be able to see them once again.

On the opposite side of the lockets interior was a short paragraph written in fancy flowing and looped cursive wording.

It said: "To our most cherished daughter, Hanna Marshal, born April 2, 2264, at Tharsis Royal Hospital. We will love you with all our hearts forever, no matter what may come. We wish that your future be as bright as your smiles! Loved eternally by Rolland and Dalia Marshal."

Hanna smiled happily as she closed the locket and clutched it close to her heart. She looked up at the two rocky graves in front of her with tears in her eyes.

"Thank you." Hanna whispered shakily.

"We can stay here as long as you need." John said to Hanna as he walked over to the police building wall. "I can keep an eye out for trouble. So just take all the time you need."

"That's right sweetie." Mary said patting Hanna's back softly. "Today is for them."

The rest of the morning rolled by quickly. Hanna was able to get her feelings out and pent-up emotions let go for the time being. By the time noon came, the suns rays started to make the exposed gravesite hot. Saying her goodbyes until the next time, the three of them returned home.

Hanna was sitting at the kitchen table with her new locket resting on the table in front of her. The Weathers had decided to leave open the doors and windows to let the warm air freshen up the house and a gentle breeze had been wafting in. The sounds of Mary working on something in the kitchen let Hanna know that everything was alright. She kept tracing the dragons image with her finger thoughtfully. She couldn't turn her gaze away from its dazzling beauty.

"Where have I seen you before?" She whispered to the dragon.

Something as unique as a looping dragon eating its tail should have been an easy thing to remember. There wasn't anything like it in town or in any books that she had read. Yet she felt as if she had seen it a thousand times before today.

Just then Hanna heard the sound of Mary's footsteps coming through the kitchen from the garage. She looked up to see Mary carrying a small sowing kit on top of a cardboard box labeled: Fabrics.

"I want you to keep the locket with you, but it's much too valuable and noticeable to have on in public." Mary explained to Hanna as she set the box into the table. "So, we are going to make a suede covering for the locket. This way it won't scratch up the locket or irritate your skin."

"Ok. That would be a good idea." Hanna replied leaning forward onto the table to peer into the box.

Mary opened the box revealing a vast variety of fabric patches, scraps and half used mini rolls. She had to dig around inside for a good while until she found the suede fabrics she had been searching for.

"Ah, there we go." Mary said lifting out three differently colored fabrics. "Which color would you like your lockets covering to be?"

Hanna reached out to stroke the soft fibers of the suede cloth. It felt nice on her rugged fingertips. Playing outside all the time tends to do such a thing to a girls hands.

Unexpectedly, a memory of her mother complaining about having rough hands popped into her mind. A tear suddenly popped into the corner of her eye. Hanna quickly tried to forget about it before her emotions returned and focused back on the fabrics.

"This sky blue one is very nice, but I think it's too noticeable and easy to get dirty." Mary continued speaking while flattening the fabrics onto the table. "If It were me, I would pick between the other two colors. The dark forest green or the russet colors."

Hanna inwardly agreed with Mary's assessment. The blue was pretty, but it appeared to have a scuff mark on it already. The dark forest green was genuinely nice to look at and was closer to her favorite color. It gave off a shady cool, yet lushness vibe at the same time. The russet had an earthlier tone to it and the color struck Hanna to kind of hold a slight affinity to the photograph inside.

"I'm not sure of which one to pick." Hanna said after a brief pause after hearing Mary's question. "I like them both a lot."

"Well then, how about we use both of them?" Mary replied picking up both cloths. "We can stitch them together with equal halves. That way if you feel like having a different color on, you can just flip the locket over."

"That sounds nice." Hanna replied giving a small grin. The first one all day.

Mary smiled back, happy to see that Hannas mood was improving. "Alright then. Let me just get out a good thread to stitch them together with." Mary said opening the sewing kit.

"I want to sow the covering if you'll let me." Hanna asked. "But I think you are going to have to show me how to sew it together. Mother never taught me."

Mary nodded knowingly. "That's perfectly fine. Actually, every time your family had damaged clothing; your mother would come to me as well. She didn't know how to sow either."

"Really? How come?" Hanna asked curiously as she watched Mary still watching for the right thread.

Mary pulled out a white spool of thread but put it aside. Along with the black, blue and red thread spools that she had already removed. It looked like there was a lot of odds and ends stuffed into the kit and made it hard to find things. Organization wasn't one of Mary's best qualities.

"Oh, I am not sure." Mary replied, still rooting around in the kit. "She said that growing up her family was well off and could afford to just buy a new set of clothing. Sure must have been nice to grow up like that. Never did mention much else about her childhood though"

"That must have cost a lot." Hanna answered not hearing Marys last words. "The market here doesn't have a lot of good clothes."

"Ah, here it is! I knew it was in there somewhere." Mary exclaimed. She pulled out a dark tan colored, thickly shaped, spool of thread. Compared to the other spools this one was much thicker looking. "I thought that this would look nice with the two colors. Like a vine tying a tree and rock together."

"I like that idea." Hanna replied thoughtfully. "So, what needle do I need to use?"

"Well, the needles eye needs to be big enough for the thread to fit. Yet not so big that the needle is too hard to push through the fabric. Suede is not all that strong, and it could get ripped." Mary explained pulling out the appropriate needle to use. "Firstly, we need to make sure that the fabrics will cover the entire locket. Don't want the insides to be noticed. So, to do this we will cover the locket with two large square cloths, one color on each side."

Mary explained this as she performed the described actions to Hanna. Hanna careful watched every motion she did. Trying her upmost to commit these actions to her memory.

"Next, take the thread and needle and start stitching them together at the top of the locket, but leave a tinny gap away from the chain. We will need to make a hole there so you can wear it." Mary explained starting to thread the fabrics together as the locket lay in between them. She poked the thread through the russet fabric and then into the green fabric behind. "Then make sure that you keep the thread as close together as possible. That way it looks neat and there are no gaps." She said as she reversed this action, going back into the green fabric and into the russet. After a few passes, Mary asked, "See how close I made the thread to itself?"

Hanna inspected the work carefully. Every stroke looked uniform and segmented like a millipedes body. "I think so. Can you keep going so I can make sure I would do it right?"

"Sure." Mary replied. "I'll do the first half, then you can try. Just stop when you get three quarters of the way around. There is an additional step we need to do."

"Alright." Hanna replied watching Mary going back to work on the stitching.

Mary finished up her share in no time and handed the project to Hanna. Hanna carefully did her best to mimic what Mary had done. However, her actions felt clumsy and the needle nearly poked her several times. Luckily, she didn't get pricked by the time she got to the three quarters of the way point. Her work looked much sloppier than Mary's, but it was passable work.

"Ok, what next?" Hanna asked looking up from her work.

"Now we cut the thread and tie it off tightly." Mary said taking out scissors to cut the thread. Then skillfully Mary tied a tight knot extremely close to the stitches. "Next, we start new stitching line up at the top, just like the first time."

Mary then did just that. However, when she got closer to the first thread line, she widened the gap between the stitches. Hanna was about to ask why when Mary spoke.

"I am doing this so that if you ever need to take the locket out to open it, you can. You can just untie the stitching here and pop the locket out of the loosened area." Mary explained. "Then it wouldn't be too hard to restitch it back in place." Mary then tied a small, tight bow at the end of the stitching. "There how does that look?"

"It looks interesting. Are we going to trim off the extra cloth though?" Hanna asked looking at the odd square ends of the fabrics.

Mary chuckled. "Of course, silly."

Mary then took the scissors and trimmed away the fabric as close as she dared to the stitching. Then she cut the hole for the necklace chain and the project was complete.

"There we go. Now put it on. How does it feel?" Mary asked handing it to Hanna.

Hanna put it on and twiddled the suede covered locket with her fingers as it dangled comfortably on her neck. The length of the chain nestled loosely below her collarbones, meaning there was plenty of room grow without damaging the chain. Hanna let out the second and brightest grateful smile of the day, "I love it! Thank you, Mary."