Magic Ring

• Bonnie White, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2017

“I spent seven years of my life, running in circles trying to figure out why this ring kept disappearing.” She paused and exhaled heavily, her face filled with frustration. “The times I held onto the childhood hope that maybe magic does exist.”

Another pause.

They were suffocating him as an anxiety built up within. “The ring’s gone missing every fortnight since I was thirteen. A piece of me believed it was my grandma sending me a message after her passing. I knew it wasn’t fairies trying to cheer me up by making their presence known. It wasn’t some magical wonder hiding in the shadows.”

This pause was the hardest to bear.

The way the confusion in her mind made her face crumble like the shortbread biscuit they shared one Christmas long ago. “It was you.”

He turned the emerald ring over in his fingers, “Yes.”

“You took my ring once a month. Why?” An anger bubbled beneath her eyes. “Did you try to sell it or pawn it off but feel guilty every time? Was it some sick game to make me think my grandma was still here connecting with me? What was it, because I really need to know.” Her voice had boiled to a clamour.

“No.” He paused, trying to let his single syllable sink into her mind.

She breathed out in defeat, “Then why? What is it about the ring?”
“You don’t understand. It was never about the ring.” He muttered exasperatedly, tired of her questioning his integrity.
“Then what was it about? Why would you take a ring if not for the ring?” She snapped back in annoyance.

“You. It was about you.” He barked, before taking a moment to collect himself.
“It was always about you.”

A moment of silence filled the air as her confusion swept her up and his embarrassment swallowed him whole. “The first time I took it was because it fell off your finger while we were sitting on my roof and I found it the next morning once you had gone home. I left it on your pillow that Sunday because I wanted to surprise you, but when it made you so happy and excited about your grandma still being there, I couldn’t stop. So I made it a tradition. One Saturday a month, I would take it and bring it back within a week. I was only meant to give it back, but you being happy was a lagniappe I couldn’t let go of. I’m sorry.”

A new kind of silence filled the air.
It was thick.
It was heavy.
But it was sweet.
The air had become a beautiful kind of fondant on the cake that was the relationship they both had with the ring. Who knew that when her grandma passed away and left her a simple emerald ring that it would do so much for both of them. It would change them in ways they would never understand.
Maybe it was magic after all.
“Thank you.”