The Hope Keeper
A whisper breaks the silence.
Two voices arise, four, many. I hear the clamor of footsteps and shattering windows, the splintering of wood, crashes and shouts and laughter as precious items are stolen from the king’s crown jewels. The stash he’d hoped would remain locked away and hidden from the mobs has been discovered.
Suddenly I am lifted from a once-locked drawer.
“Ain’t this the diamond from the Golden Fleece?” one man says to another.
A grunt and a shrug, a cacophony of voices swirl around me.
I am quickly wrapped in a handkerchief and shoved into a pouch.
Once more, I travel a long distance, across lush fields to the edge of the ocean where I embark on a journey to yet another kingdom.
A kingdom of sea cliffs and foggy moors, of moody skies and a grand, ancient city at its heart.
I disappear from view and from human thought for years. They believe I am gone for good, but I am lying in wait.
At last, my keeper presents me to an expert in a shop filled with curiosities and dark corners.
The jeweler gasps upon first sight of my dazzling facets. “You have the French Blue! How did you get it?”
My keeper shakes his head. “That doesn’t concern you. All that matters is what I will do with it.”
“You are a fool. It will be recognized,” the jeweler rasps. “The French government will demand its return. Napoleon will wage war on us.”
My keeper nods. “That’s why I’m here. Do with it what you must but make it new again.”
The jeweler’s eyes fill with uncertainty, with a tinge of disgust. To change something already perfect feels sacrilegious, but there are men who do not understand such matters. Men who are ruled by greed. “Do you know where you will sell it?”
“It’s better if I do not say,” my keeper says and departs with the promise to return.
The jeweler speaks to me as he works, admonishing my keeper for being so reckless.
For I am a diamond known not only for my size and my starkly unique color.
It is the story I carry with me: a story grown of bad luck, of death, of a kingdom’s destruction that has lent more value to my glittering facets than ever imagined.
But the jeweler cannot turn away from a challenge. He understands what must be done, and in one swift moment, I am cleaved in two.
My other half is gone.