Scarlett looked out onto the crowd and sneered at all the people throwing insults at her. "Devil worshiper!" some yelled. "Evil, evil!" others shouted. "Burn, you witch!" came the voice of a prudish woman. Well, all of them were fairly prudish. It was 1888, in rural Ohio. Scarlett glared at the people, then did some shouting of her own.
"You'll regret this! I will come back! And when I do, all of you will suffer at my hand!"
It was at this time when the executioner set the fire. Scarlett tried her best to squirm out of her bindings holding her to the wooden post, but it was no good. She was trapped. Her only way out was her necklace. Within it was a gemstone imbued with magical properties. It would store her essence within it, awaiting the day when she would be set free to have her revenge. Little did she know, it would be over a century before that would happen. All the people she wanted revenge on would be long dead.
With one final scream of agony, Scarlett was consumed in the fire. Some people who were there thought they saw the red gemstone in her necklace glow, but most just figured it was a trick of the light from the fire. What they didn't know was that Scarlett's essence had transferred from her body into that gemstone. And it would stay there until ...
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Jennifer Smith sighed, looking around the dusty attic. "Well, it's not going to clean itself," she said aloud. Too bad her daughter Annie wasn't here to help out. She was currently attending college a few counties over. Her husband Michael was at work, as usual, so it was up to her. Frankly, she's been putting all of this off for too long. There was a bunch of stuff up here that was so old that she had no idea what it was, where it came from, or who owned it years, or even decades ago.
She started by moving boxes away from the sides of the attic, to get to the corners to properly dust them, and that was when she found something unexpected. Lodged between a large box and the corner of the attic, near the window, was a necklace. It looked to be made of silver maybe? Dangling from it was a red gemstone. It couldn't be a ruby, could it? Wow, she's heard of finding change in couches, but finding an expensive necklace in an attic? She may have just hit the jackpot! Though, it was a nice necklace. A bit old, and old-fashioned looking as well, but still ... maybe she could try it on, see how it looks on her.
The chore of cleaning the attic put aside, Jennifer went back downstairs and found a mirror in her bedroom. Her reflection showed a conservative woman of 40 years old. Despite her age, she looked pretty good. But really, it was hard to tell with her somewhat plain outfit of a peach-colored blouse and flower-print skirt that went all the way to her ankles. The ornate, almost gothic-looking, necklace might look a little out of place on her, but she decided to take a look anyway.
Jennifer put the necklace around her neck and chuckled. Yeah, this wasn't going to work. Talk about clashing! She was about to take the necklace off, but suddenly, a strange shiver ran through her body. For a split second, she saw what seemed like a wicked-looking woman dressed in black, smiling at her. Then it was gone. But it scared the heck out of Jennifer. She stumbled back away from the mirror, almost tripping, but then safely fell back onto the bed that was nearby. What was that? Did she imagine that?
Standing back up from the bed, she hesitantly walked towards the mirror again. But it was only her own reflection she saw. She reached to grab the necklace, but for some reason, she felt like she didn't want to take it off. It was odd, though, because she knew that a moment ago, she did want to. Because it clashed with her outfit. But there was a way around that. She grabbed the gemstone part of the necklace, then put it down her blouse so no one could see it. There, now no one could see that she was wearing the necklace. Though, wasn't that a bit odd? After all, what was the point of wearing a necklace that no one could see? It was strange, she supposed, but this way, she could keep the necklace on, but not have a bunch of people asking about it. Not once did she ever consider just taking the thing off. For some reason, she really wanted to keep it on, even though it wasn't her style at all.
With that, she headed back up to the attic and continued cleaning. A housewife's work was never done.
