THE HAUNTED LOCKET

THE HAUNTED LOCKET

Walking through the woods one day,
On a crisp and winter’s morn,
I heard the leaves beneath my feet
Where autumn dreams were torn.
The trees stood bare above me,
The sky was cold and grey,
Then something underneath the leaves
Caught my eye that day.

I hurried over, curious,
And brushed the leaves aside,
And there I found a silver locket
With a ruby heart inside.
It wasn’t cheap or ordinary,
This little thing was grand,
And something strange came over me
The moment it touched my hand.

I looked around the woodland,
But there was no one there,
Just naked trees and winter wind
That whispered through my hair.
So I slipped the locket in my pocket,
Thinking someone must have lost
Something that was beautiful,
Whatever it had cost.

I took it home and placed it down,
Then picked it up once more,
And that was when I heard a sound
I’d never heard before.
A whisper came from somewhere,
So faint I couldn’t tell,
If it came from inside the locket
Or somewhere else as well.

I held it closer to my ear,
The whisper came again,
A woman’s voice, so far away,
Was calling out a name.
I nearly dropped the locket,
My hands began to shake,
For surely silver cannot speak
Unless I was awake.

The nighttime slowly travelled on,
But still the voices came,
A broken sentence here and there,
An address and a name.
Then suddenly I heard the words,
As clearly as could be,
“Please take me home, please find her,
She is still waiting for me.”

I opened up the locket,
And underneath the ruby red,
Were tiny words engraved inside,
The loving message read,
“To my darling daughter,
May God bless you through your life.
Love, Dad.” And suddenly
Those whispers cut me like a knife.

The voice told me its story,
How the locket came to be,
A father gave it to his daughter
When she was just a baby.
She treasured it through childhood,
Through every passing year,
And when her father left this world,
She held his memory near.

But one dark night somebody robbed her,
And amongst the things they stole,
Was the little silver locket
That meant more than silver or gold.
The thief had crossed those winter woods,
Not knowing on his way,
The locket slipped out from his pocket
And beneath the leaves it lay.

Almost a year it waited there,
Through sunshine, frost and rain,
Waiting for somebody to find it
And take it home again.
And somehow all that love inside
Had never gone away,
It simply waited underneath the leaves
Until I came that day.

Next morning I went searching,
With the address in my head,
Still wondering if I’d dreamed it all,
Still hearing what it said.
I found the house, I knocked the door,
My heart began to race,
And when a young woman answered me,
I knew I’d found the place.

I didn’t have to ask her name,
I simply held it high,
And when she saw that ruby heart
The tears filled up her eyes.
She reached towards it trembling,
Then held it to her chest,
As though a missing piece of life
Had finally come to rest.

She told me of her father,
Of the day he gave it her,
And how she thought she’d never see
That precious gift again.
I never told her everything,
About the voice that filled my room,
Or how her locket spoke to me
Within the midnight gloom.

But something happened afterwards
I never could explain,
The whispers stopped completely,
They never came again.
The locket had found its owner,
Its wandering days were through,
And perhaps that little ruby heart
Had simply guided me to you.

She didn’t merely thank me
And gently close the door,
We stood and talked for hours
Like we’d somehow met before.
And from the day I found that locket
Beneath those leaves of brown,
I didn’t only give a treasure back
I found a friend for life that day,
When a haunted locket was found.