• Chapter 1. David

    David sprang up sitting straight up on his bed the sheets were mangled around him. A cold sweat was coming down his forehead. He shivered and gazed down at his wife. She was stirring wildly. He put a hand down to sooth her. She settled at his touch. He sighed and lay back down.
    The sun rose and shined on a ring on the night stand reflecting onto the couple. They sat up then sat on the edge of their bed and rose up from the old creaky mattress. The women grabbed the ring and slipped it on her finger. David had already started to get her cane. She gratefully took it.
    They walked out to the front patio and they sat on two lawn chairs. Facing the trees and road the scenery was great. But no matter how nice the scenery or temperature or anything else was this was the worst day for Jane and I’s life.
    “Jane”
    I said to the old woman next to me. I was staring into the horizon avoiding her eyes afraid I might cry.
    “I know it is time but, who will I give it to” she reached out for his hand squeezing it gently. I glanced over, she was staring at me. I moved my head slowly and steadily and gazed at the wretched ring and then met her gentle, wrinkled face.
    Her face had a long scar from the first time one of the wishes the ring had granted went wrong. My big warm hands cradled her face and I stroked where the scar was.
    Jane shivered slightly. I held her hand to my chest and felt the cold bump that and always had been the ring well ever since that dreadful night at the market.
    It was cold and dark out.
    Jane and I were young and in love I was thinking about proposing to her but I didn’t have enough money for the diamond ring.
    We were walking down the marketplace dirt road she stopped at every jewelry stand, none had nice diamond rings. Although she might had not been looking for them but I did.
    Then, since Jane was a nice person, we saw a poor person and she gave the poor woman money, Jane didn’t hear and walked away as I stopped to listen she gave me what I was looking for a quality ring. Although it was not a traditional ring I said thank you. Then right there I knelt down my hands already sweaty my heart thumping.
    “Jane Trevose will you marry me” I said smoothly
    “Yes” she jumped up and down and hugged me I lifted her up off the ground and spun her. I slipped on the ring then the woman asked to speak with Jane and then me. She told me Jane knew the same thing and just a bit more. That’s when I realized my mistake. My memory faded in and out then I ended up back in the real world.
    “Ti amo” I said in Italian and then whispered in case she didn’t understand
    “I love you”
    “I love you too” she whispered back.
    I could tell she drifted into space. Remembering something or thinking, thinking about what I thought.
    A dim memory whisked into my head, the second time I was taken into a dream like memory
    It was the accident when the rings powers had went bad. She had wished a wish she had made a hundred times before. It was where the place would prepare a meal and clean its self up, or that’s what she told me. The knives had darted at her instead though. She had dodged most and it had cut her cheek deeply. Than had fallen down the stairs from the shock. But I made the feather dusters catch her before a serious head injury.
    Then she and I came back to reality. She watched me with grateful eyes because only later on, after the incident, she had seen that her ring had slipped off her finger and I had wished for the feather dusters under her. I knew from the look she was giving me that moment I came out of the memory that she was thinking of the same thing as me, we were always on the same page.
    When the problem with the ring had begun that was our signal that they had to pass on the ring. Or at least Jane had to because she had used it the most. But in order for her to be able to pass on the ring she would have to lose a loved one. Or in better words she was forced to leave me permanently
    Jane glanced over to the horizon where the trees had the sun slowly rising above them. The birds chirped. When she looked over back to her husband he was nothing but a thin mist in the shape of his figure. She quickly closed her eyes and opened them where the horizon was again. Then she looked back over to where her husband used to be, hoping that he would be back.
    She sighed knowing that it had been no use to look over once again, because no matter how many times she did she would never see her husband again.