I’ve worked in a jewelry store for several years, and it’s a pretty routine job. One of the best parts of the job is when you work with a customer who is celebrating something, and you get to be part of their excitement and happiness. That’s a big part of the experience of buying jewelry. Someone isn’t just buying a ring or a watch, they are commemorating a moment, and the jewelry is simply a tangible symbol of that. And sometimes those tangible reminders of timeless moments need to be repaired for one reason or another. That was what started my strangest experience on the job.
It was a Wednesday afternoon when the first customer came in. An older gentleman wearing a flawlessly tailored three-piece suit, he had slicked back grey hair and eyes that seemed to study everything they encountered.
“Hello, how may I assist you?” I asked him with a friendly nod when he approached me while I was at the counter.
“Yes, I’d like to have my watch repaired.”
“Of course. What is the issue?”
“The clasp isn’t working.” He took the watch out of his suit pocket and placed it on the counter. It was an expensive gold wristwatch with a small diamond in the center. To demonstrate, he tried to fasten it shut and it wouldn’t.
“I see. We can certainly fix that.”
Then I launched into our rates and prices, which he agreed to. Once he’d signed all the paperwork, his watch was taken to the back where it was properly cataloged and stored away until one of our professionals would fix the clasp. Once that was done, I went back to work and that was it.
I didn’t see the gentleman in the suit until a week later, and the watch was ready to be picked up. He came dressed in a different, but equally expensive suit. Then he gave his name, and I hustled to the back to pick up his now fixed watch.
Once he signed the paperwork confirming he’d picked up his order and paid the bill, he took the watch, placed it on his wrist, and closed the clasp, where it shut with a satisfying click. The gesture made him smile.
“Good job Michael,” he said to me.
“Thank you. Our staff are the best.”
“I know, that’s why I’ve always come here. There’s no chance I would go anywhere else for this. It means the world to me. I had a nasty spill at home, and the clasp was probably broken in the fall.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“That’s very kind of you. But I was fine. Lucky too. But anyhow, you have a wonderful day.”
“You do the same.” I smiled as he turned around and left the store.
I didn’t think anything more about him until about two weeks later when I saw on the news, he had been in a car accident close to where he lived. He was unharmed, but his car was completely totaled. No one would be able to fix that.
Since I was about to leave for work when I saw that, I shut off the TV and headed out. My day at work was uneventful until the end when a young woman in her late 20s walked into the store. By that time of day it was quiet, and she was the only customer. She was casually dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and she looked like she felt a little out of place in the store.
“Hello, how may I assist you?” I asked as I gave her my most welcoming smile.
“Hi,” she smiled in return as she hesitantly walked to the counter. “I’d like to get a bracelet repaired.”
“Of course. And what bracelet would we be working on?”
“This one.” She reached in her sweatshirt pocket and took out a black velvet box. She opened it, took out the bracelet inside, and placed it gently on the counter. It was a beautiful gold bracelet dotted with sapphires. Right in the middle, there was an empty space where a sapphire should have been.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She nodded solemnly. “And here’s the sapphire that fell out.”
She reached into her pocket and took out a small plastic bag. The missing sapphire was inside.
“Very good.” I took the bag in hand, set it on the counter, and got to work with the paperwork. Once she had her pickup time in hand, she left the store, and I went to put both the bracelet and the bag with the sapphire away. I had just put both away when I got a very odd feeling. The best thing I can describe it as is unease. But I shrugged it off, reminding myself that the customer was obviously going through something. It happens a lot, as jewelry can be inherited for sad reasons, or just bring a lot of emotions to the surface. So I finished logging the order and returned to the counter.
I was there a week later when she returned for her repaired bracelet. This time she seemed slightly more at ease, and when she saw the repaired bracelet, her eyes lit up.
“Thank you so much,” she said with a wide smile. “I feel so much better now that it’s back to normal.”
“That’s terrific. That’s what we’re here for.”
“This bracelet means the world to me, so I was beyond upset to see it get damaged.”
“Completely understandable.”
“It was a gift from my husband. For our wedding anniversary. We took a vacation together and it was a disaster. Our luggage got stolen and it was downhill from there.”
“I’m truly sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry for rambling in the middle of your store.”
“No, it’s ok. That’s what we’re here for. Jewelry tells a story, and no two pieces tell the same story.”
“That makes a lot of sense.” She nodded. “Thanks again for your help.”
“Of course. Have a great day.”
“You too.”
She turned away from the counter and walked back outside. Then I went on with the rest of my day.
The rest of the month went by without anything noteworthy until one day, a woman with long grey hair came in towards the middle of my shift. She was dressed in a black business suit, wore glasses over intelligent green eyes, and carried a small black purse.
“Hello, how may I assist you?”
“Good afternoon, I was hoping to get a locket engraved.”
“We can certainly do that. Which locket would we be engraving?”
“This one.” She reached into her purse and took out an elegant gold locket, which she carefully placed on the counter.
“And what are we engraving on it?”
“For Marissa.”
I wrote that carefully on the order.
“And where do you want that?”
“Inside the locket.”
“And what script would you like?” I asked before I presented her with a list of the various options she could go with.
She studied it for a moment before she pointed to an option halfway down the list.
“That one.”
“Good choice.” I nodded approvingly before I wrote that into the order as well. “Is there anything else you would like to incorporate? Or that we should know before we file this order?”
“No, that’s it. It’s for my niece. She’s getting married.”
“Congratulations to her.”
“Thank you. We’ve always been very close, so I’m very happy for her.”
“That’s great.”
Then she finished signing the paperwork, and once she was able to leave the store, I filed away the order and the locket for our experts. The rest of the day passed by, until I was left to close the place up. I went through the end of shift routine, closed up, and headed to my car. As I was walking towards it, I suddenly got the feeling I was being watched. So I immediately looked around to check the area.
Nobody was watching me, and there was nothing going on. Still, I carefully walked to my car, got inside, and quickly left once I had locked the doors. I immediately felt better as I drove away.
I didn’t see the woman with the locket again, but she picked up her order, and my boss told me she was thrilled with it. I wasn’t surprised I wasn’t there, because I was on vacation that week. I’d long been looking forward to seeing my best friend Craig’s new cabin out in the woods, so the first chance I got, I’d made plans with him to go see it.
It didn’t disappoint. It was like something out of a painting with its log structure and stone fireplace. And it had all the modern conveniences you could want, and plenty of room for guests. Craig’s parents and his sister Christina were also going to be there, so I was looking forward to seeing them as well.
“There he is.” Craig greeted me with a grin before he and his whole family took turns hugging me and saying it had been too long. Then I took my bags inside, got settled in my room, and we had some dinner. Then we all headed out to the backyard, where Craig and his dad built a fire that we all sat around for hours. After we all had our fill of s’mores and it had gotten late, we all went inside, said goodnight, and headed to our respective rooms. I was tired from the long drive out of the city, so I fell asleep quickly.
It felt like moments later when I was shaken awake by Craig.
“Mike, wake up.”
“Huh?” I mumbled out.
“Wake up,” he whispered intently.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s someone outside.”
That woke me up immediately.
“Someone outside?”
He nodded. “And we think there’s more than one. You weren’t followed here, were you?”
“No,” I said quietly.
I quietly got out of bed and crouched by Craig on the floor. My heart was thudding loudly in my chest, and I had no idea what to do. Not only was I in an unfamiliar area, I was in a house I had never been in before. But I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.
“Did you call the police?” I asked after what felt like an eternity.
“Yeah. They said they’d be out here as soon as they could, but out here, who knows what that means. At least we have an alarm system. And you know my dad.”
I did. Craig’s dad was the kind of guy you wanted to have with you in a situation like this. That was the one thing that kept me at least relatively calm, aside from the fact I wasn’t alone.
“Did he send you in here?”
Craig nodded. “Told me to stay here until he told me otherwise.”
Time seemed to stop as the two of us sat there, silently watching each other while I tried my best to ignore the fear creeping in the back of my mind.
It seemed like we’d been sitting there for hours when suddenly, there was a loud crash from downstairs that was immediately followed by the sound of an alarm screaming to life. Then came several loud bangs in rapid succession that were followed by the much quieter sound of footsteps fleeing from the cabin. Then, I heard Craig’s dad yelling at whoever was running away. I couldn’t quite make out what he said, but I didn’t blame whoever had been fleeing.
Craig and I had bolted upright at the commotion, but we stayed inside as Craig’s dad had said. Moments later, the alarm was shut off and there was a gentle knock on the door.
“Come on out guys,” Craig’s dad instructed us.
He didn’t need to tell us twice. We immediately bolted out of my room while Craig’s mom came out of Christina’s room, where the two of them had been during this time.
“Everything’s fine. They’re gone,” Craig’s dad said before he walked back to the living room where he’d been keeping watch with his gun.
We all quietly sat there until the police arrived and took statements about what had happened. They agreed to put a car outside the cabin for the night and keep watch on the area. By the time they left, I felt exhausted. So I fell asleep even quicker than before. Fortunately, no one interrupted my sleep this time, and I woke up late the next morning.
Craig’s mom made pancakes for breakfast, and since we were all starving, we were happy to dig in.
Once we all had our fill and were sipping coffee, the conversation drifted to other matters. At some point, I noticed Christina was wearing a necklace I hadn’t noticed before. It was a simple, but elegant gold hoop on a chain.
“Nice necklace Christina,” I said before I took another sip of coffee.
“Oh thanks. It was a birthday gift from Aunt Helen.”
“Nice.”
“She didn’t get it from your store, but it’s still nice.”
I chuckled. “No doubt.”
Then Craig’s dad, who had been reading the morning paper, turned the page. As he did, I saw the front page and saw there was a headline about some company declaring bankruptcy. The company didn’t sound familiar to me at all, but there was a photo of the family that owned it. In the middle of the photo was the woman who had come in to get the locket engraved.
My stomach sank and the pancakes I’d just eaten now felt uncomfortably heavy. Craig must’ve sensed something because he immediately asked, “Mike? What’s wrong?”
I managed to explain the story of the customers who’d recently come into the store and the unfortunate incidents that seemed to have happened to them. Craig and his family quietly listened to the story until I finished, then added that nothing like last night had happened to them before. Once we all got back to the city, Christina gave me the paperwork her Aunt Helen had given her with the necklace, and I did a little research. Since jewelry stores keep tons of information on file, it didn’t take me long to find out the scoop on Christina’s necklace.
The gold in it had come from a local mine in California. It had been doing quite well until one day there was a cave in, and a ton of workers died in the accident. The mine was eventually shut down, but not until all the gold that could be retrieved was gotten. And I didn’t need to look up the mine to know rumor was the place was considered cursed or haunted by locals. I’d been to the area years ago on a vacation, and the place had given me the creeps. But even I got chills when I looked later through the store’s records and saw documents that the man in the suit and the other two customers had all brought in items containing gold mined from the area.
Christina wasted no time in trading in her necklace for a ring made of silver. When she did, I got a text from her that had a picture of the ring next to a joke about hoping it was her own personal silver bullet to ward off monsters. It made me laugh.