A knife for the ladies

The blade of the knife was made of some sort of black stone – flint or obsidian, was her guess. It had been given to her by her grandmother on that dreadful evening where the old woman had died. The handle was beautifully carved in the likeness of a bearded man with curly hair. The grain of the tropical wood waved in dark coffee brown and black down his body. There were two silver bands around the man’s arms and waist, inscribed with letters or signs of a type she had never seen anywhere else.

She took it out – as she did every evening when she wanted to think about her grandmother – cautiously, for it had an extremely sharp edge.

The evening her gran died, her aunt Morbloom had called her from the living room where they all sat waiting. “She wants to talk to you,” Morbloom said, her eyes dark and worried. “Alone.”

Gran lay in her bed and looked not ill at all. “There you are. I have a favour I will have to ask you.”

She might not look ill, but the illness was in her voice. “Beneath the green chair is a floorboard with a circle drawn on it. That floorboard can be lifted quite easily.” The old woman lifted her hand and pointed. “In the hollow beneath, there’s a black box. You must take it and hide it under your dress.” She gathered her courage and asked the old woman what was in the box. “Something you must be careful with, something you will need one day,” her grandmother replied. She stared at her grandmother in disbelief. Then asked in a shaky voice, “and how will I know when that day has come?”

“You will know,” was the answer.

When she looked down, after returning from these memories, her heart almost stopped. While sitting here thinking, she had cut an apple in half that she had brought from the large wooden box in the kitchen. She had never actually used the knife before and now she had thoughtlessly used it. For a second she was in panic, but then she relaxed. No harm done. It was just an old knife after all.

That night, the old apple tree down by the pond was struck by lightning.