A few years ago, when I was still in high school, my grandmother passed away.
It came as a surprise to everyone. She wasn’t that old – just past seventy and no major health problems. Even so, she died of a massive stroke, right there in her living room while she watched Jeopardy.
I remember feeling like everything was thrown in chaos when she died. Since our family – that is, my mom, dad, sister and I – lived the closest, it was up to us to make all the arrangements. It was particularly hard on my mom, who had to grieve her own mother while planning a funeral and fending off greedy aunts and uncles who came out of the woodwork looking for their piece of the inheritance.
What I remember the most, though, is grandma’s house.
To no one’s surprise (though some people’s displeasure), grandma left her house to mom, the daughter who had stayed by her side all these years while the rest of her children dispersed across the country.
My parents, after much debate, decided we’d sell our home and move to hers. It wasn’t a huge change for us kids – she just lived across town, so we’d still go to the same school and everything. What it did mean, though, was that we had to go through all of grandma’s things and decide what to do with them before we moved in.
I remember it so clearly because my parents actually pulled my sister and me out of school for a full week so we could help with the house. We were excited at first – what kid doesn’t want a week free of school? But pretty soon we realized we’d just exchanged one prison for another. Every day was backbreaking work, hauling things to and from the house, sorting items into piles destined for antique stores or junkyards, cleaning every room from top to bottom, and so forth.
By the day we got to the attic, everyone was a mess. My sister and my mom had had a huge fight that morning, so she was helping dad load furniture in his truck to take across town to a thrift store. That left mom and I alone in the sweltering attic on an unseasonably warm spring day, rummaging through forgotten boxes and junk while we swore under our breaths.
We’d cleared a good portion of the room out when an old trunk caught my eye. It was a faded green color and had heavy metal clasps. Judging by how hard it was to open those clasps, they hadn’t been disturbed in years – maybe decades. It took some doing, but I finally managed to wrestle it open.
Inside, the trunk was full of mementos of a bygone era. The first thing I saw was a lace wedding dress, yellowed with age but otherwise in perfect condition. Underneath it was a photo of a beautiful woman in the dress, standing with her handsome groom. It was old, taken in the early 1900s at the latest.
I called my mother over to show her what I’d found. She took one look at the photo and said, “Oh, that’s your great great grandmother, Hester. And look, that’s her first husband, John. They say she was quite taken with him. It broke her heart when he died in an accident at the rail yard. Then, of course, she married your great great grandfather, Theodore.”
Mom and I were both happy to abandon our work to rummage through the trunk. For the first time, I really appreciated my mom’s depth of knowledge about our family history. She was able to tell me stories behind almost every item in the trunk.
“This handkerchief is from your great aunt Rose – she embroidered it herself when she was a child. I wonder how your grandma got a hold of it – I thought everything of Rose’s was long gone.”
“Oh, this was your great grandpa’s pipe! He used to smoke this every night after dinner. Your great grandmother made him smoke it out on the front porch, rain or shine, because she hated the way it smelled.”
And on and on we went, until we came to a small wooden box at the bottom of the trunk. I opened it up, but couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing inside.
“Mom, what’s this?”
She lifted out a long string of something. Buttons, I realized, as she turned it back and forth to get a better look.
“Oh, this is a charm string!” she said.
“What’s a charm string?”
“It’s something girls used to make in the late 1800s. They’d collect buttons and sew them to a string. The catch was that you couldn’t buy the buttons yourself – you had to find them or get them as a gift. Ladies could trade buttons, or ask for them from boys they liked, and they would get together and tell the stories behind the buttons. Legend had it that once your charm string had 1,000 buttons, it would bring you luck.”
Mom reached back in the box and pulled out a slip of paper, on which was written a name: Violet Blackwater.
“Who’s Violet?” I asked.
“I’m sure I heard that name before,” said mom, a crease forming in her brow as she thought. “Oh! That would have been your… let’s see… your great great aunt Violet. I’ve run across her names in some of the family records, but I don’t know much about her. She died when she was young – in her early teens, I believe. The family never really spoke about her after that, as far as I know. I don’t think your grandmother even knew about her.”
“How did she die?”
“I’m not sure – tuberculosis, I think? I’d have to check her death certificate. It must’ve been awful.”
I felt a momentary pang for poor Violet. I wondered what it would have been like, to slowly suffocate while everyone watched helplessly on. I wondered if she’d worked on her charm string to pass away the hours in her sick bed. Did she ever believe she’d get better, or did she know she was doomed from the start?
Mom must’ve noticed the sadness on my face, because she said, “You know what? You should keep her charm string.”
I looked up at her in surprise. “Really?”
“Really. I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted it sitting in a box forever. Now, you can have it, and when someone asks about it, you can tell them about her. That way, we can keep her memory alive.”
My sadness quickly faded to excitement when mom handed me the string. It was full of the most beautiful buttons I’d ever seen: buttons with intricate designs, detailed paintings, glass beads. I wondered where she’d gotten them all – who had given them to her and why. If she’d asked her crush for a button, and if so, which one was his.
I kept the charm string in my room and showed it to all my friends who came over. Some thought it was cool, but most people didn’t really get it. I didn’t mind, though. It was special to me, and that’s all that mattered.
One day when I was bored, I took the time to count all the buttons on the charm string. Violet had managed to collect 642 buttons. I found myself wondering if she’d been trying to get to 1,000 in the hopes that it would cure her illness.
From that day forward, I dedicated myself to finishing Violet’s charm string. It wasn’t easy – people don’t wear nearly as many buttons now as they used to, so I didn’t just happen to find them out and about very often. I had to ask people for buttons, which was pretty awkward. Sometimes, I got lucky – like when my mom’s friend Cathy gave me a whole box of buttons she wasn’t planning on using. Other times, I could go weeks without finding a single one.
It took me nearly a full year, but finally, I made it to button number 999.
That meant there was just one button left – and I knew exactly who I was going to ask.
I had a crush on this guy, Michael, who I’d been friends with for years. I was pretty sure he liked me back, but not sure enough to actually make a move. I got it into my head that it would be so romantic to ask him for the last button – then maybe the charm string would bring me enough luck that he’d say yes when I asked him out.
When I asked Michael for the button, he laughed – he knew all about the charm string, since I’d been bugging practically everyone for buttons by that point – and gave me one from his band uniform. I still remember what it looked like: a bright gold button with a lyre stamped on it. I rushed home right after school so I could sew the button on as soon as possible.
As I sat there admiring the finished charm string, I thought about how I’d ask him out the next day at school. I’d ask if he wanted to see a movie that weekend – something scary, so he’d have an excuse to put his arm around me. He was going to say yes, I just knew it.
I was so excited that it took me forever to fall asleep that night, but eventually, I managed.
I’m not sure what it was that woke me up, but suddenly, my eyes were opening to my dark room. The only light coming in was from the half moon. I sat up in bed, blinking the sleep out of my eyes and waiting for them to adjust to the low light.
I froze when I realized someone was standing at the foot of the bed.
It was a girl who couldn’t have been much older than me. She was thin, her face so gaunt her cheekbones showed through, and she was as pale as snow. She wore a white lace dress with full sleeves and a high collar.
There was something mesmerizing about her. I couldn’t look away as she smiled gently at me. “Thank you, Emily,” she said, “For finishing my charm string. Because of you, I can finally have the husband I always dreamed of.”
I didn’t understand what she meant, but it was hardly my biggest concern at that moment. “Violet?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Her smile grew and she turned and looked to her left.
It was only then that I became aware that there was another person in the room. I couldn’t breathe as I forced my head to turn slowly, slowly, until my eyes landed on him.
There was Michael, his face awash in terror. He was wearing a suit I’d never seen him in before. He was shaking like a leaf.
“Emily, what’s happening?”
I tried to say something, anything, but words failed me. I just stared at his breathing picked up and his eyes filled with tears.
“One day, we will meet again,” said Violet. I trembled as she reached across the bed to grab the charm string. “And when we do, we will thank you properly.”
I blinked, and they were gone.
I shot up in bed, startled awake by the shrieking of my alarm clock. I looked wildly around the room for any trace of Violet or Michael, but of course, they weren’t there. It had just been a nightmare. An awful, sick nightmare.
But… if it had been a nightmare, where had the charm string gone?
I searched the bed, but it wasn’t there. It must’ve fallen under the bed while I was asleep. I started pulling the storage boxes out from under the bed, but I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere. Before I completed my search, I heard mom shouting at me to hurry up so we wouldn’t be late for school.
I had a hard time putting the dream out of my mind as I rode the bus to school. I tried to forget it and think only about asking Michael on a date, but every time I did, I saw his terrified face in my mind’s eye and it left me feeling even more shaken.
Finally, I got to class and gave a deep sigh of relief. As soon as I saw him walk in, I’d go back to normal and be able to forget my stupid dream.
But he didn’t walk into class.
And he wasn’t in my third-period class either.
My nerves only grew when my fifth-period teacher announced we would be having an emergency assembly during sixth period. By then, the other students had started to whisper. I’d seen one girl crying next to her locker in the hallway after class, but when I asked her what was wrong, she bolted.
My worst fears were confirmed during the school assembly.
Michael had been found dead in his bed that morning. There weren’t many details yet, other than that the doctors thought it was an aneurism that killed him. Just one of those freak things that can happen to anybody at any time.
After the announcement, I was in hysterics. I ran out of the school gym and had a panic attack right there in the hallway. I remember the guidance counselor coming after me and helping me to her office. She called my parents and had them take me home right away.
In the car on the way home, I sobbed to mom that it was all my fault. I told her the whole story about the charm string and Violet. She was bewildered, in no small part because she hadn’t even heard Michael was dead yet. By the time she pieced the whole story together, she pulled the car over and yanked me into a tight hug.
“It’s not your fault, baby,” she said. “It was a terrible accident, that’s it. You just had that dream because you’d been thinking about him so much, that’s all.”
But she was wrong – it wasn’t a dream. I’d been the last person to see Michael on this earth, of that I was sure.
In the weeks that followed, I only became more convinced that I’d killed him. Everything added up. The suit they buried him in was the same one I saw in my dream. And the charm string? It had vanished – I never did manage to find it.
Eventually, I stopped talking about it. I let everyone believe that I’d finally gotten over it and understood it wasn’t my fault. Mostly, I did it so that people would leave me alone and my parents would stop fighting about me all the time. It worked, so I guess that was for the best.
But there’s one thing that I never told anyone. Not until now.
After Michael died, I did some more digging on charm strings. And it’s true, some people believed that 1,000 buttons on a charm string brought good luck.
But others believed that whoever gave you the 1,000th button was your fated future husband.
I accidentally married my crush to a dead girl, and I’ll never forgive myself.