Chrys slammed the door behind her, the loud bang an oddly satisfying expression of her anger. Why had he told that woman about the file? He had no bloody business. She’d told him in confidence. Just to earn points, that’s what it was. She walked briskly onto the path, her steps determined and unyielding.

Chrys knew full well that’s what he was doing, telling their line manager so he could get into her good books. She had no idea why they called them line manager. Stupid. She rolled her eyes, the collection of spruce and firs silent witnesses to her ire.

I mean, it’s not like they were in some damned factory putting together some widget, for God’s sake. She couldn’t stand that woman, one of those upstarts fresh out of university climbing the corporate ladder. Vigorously, she waved away the cloud of insects clustering in the shade of a tree. She tripped, soon regaining her footing. “Damned bugs.”

Image by Hands off my tags! Michael Gaida from Pixabay

It had to end. That’s all she knew. Chrys had come to intensely dislike where she was working. It was useless. They worked to all hours with meeting after meeting. And her life was not that much better now that Marigold was gone. Thinking about the accident was like a sharp knife in her heart. It was still difficult to believe she was gone. She kicked at a rock propelling it into a bush.

Face stern and dispirited, Chrys walked along the path, extending her hiker’s stick just in case she ran into a stupid dog. That’s all she needs. After the last time, she thinks it was a couple of years ago, she never walked without some sort of pole. People are forever walking their dogs and more than half of them couldn’t control the bloody dogs if they tried. She swiped at some brush on the side of the path. The small dogs are the worst.

Keeping her head down, she walked past a couple of other walkers coming the other way. She never bothered to greet anyone any more. Sure, some might find it off-putting. Still, Chrys reckoned they’d only be saying hi because she was looking up. Otherwise, they wouldn’t say anything—obviously. So, why bother bugging them in the first place—better that way. She took another swipe at the brush.

“Excuse me.” Chrys heard a faint singing voice from behind. She turned around suddenly, scanning to see the source of the voice. There was nothing. She rolled her eyes. ‘I must be hearing things,’ she reckoned. “Excuse me.” This time she could swear she heard something. But it was up ahead. Chrys swung around and she just caught sight of something just off into the woods.

‘What is going on?’ she thought, walking to the place where the person had gone into the woods. Should she bother, was her first thought? Sounded like a kid, though. What if they were in trouble? So, she pushed the tangle of branches apart.

“Hello?” she said, trying to raise her voice. “Hello,” she said more loudly. She heard a giggle from up ahead. She walked a little further. “Hello,” she said, slight irritation entering her voice.

“Over here,” she heard, then more giggling. When her head swung around, she encountered the two little twin girls. Twins?

Image by Jacek from Pixabay (twins at sunrise)

“Wait a minute,” she said, her voice just barely a whisper. They were looking very familiar and all of a sudden Chrys realised at whom she was looking—herself. And Marigold, of course. They were dressed alike, as they always were. Their mother doted on them and had only stopped when they reached six or seven. It was her mom who named them after her favourite flowers—Chrysanthemum and Marigold.

The two of them were holding hands and skipping in a circle, first one way and then the other. ‘I must be dreaming,’ she said to herself. She couldn’t believe it. They were singing “The Rainbow Connection” at the top their lungs.

It hurtled her back in time. She remembered how she and Mari used to constantly sing that song. It was their favourite, accompanied, of course, by their total and unmitigated adoration for Kermit the frog. Their dad would play the guitar and they’d sing it at the top of their lungs.

Chrys’s mind returned to the present.

“You’ve gotta come join us,” the one sang out.

“Yeah, we know you you’d love to come. Right,” the one sang to the other. Both held their hands out, welcoming her to come.” Chrys stood there, unable to move, thoughts of what’s gone wrong in her life flooding to the surface. Feelings repeated in her ears—it’ll always be this way. There’s no hope. Give up. What’s the point.

But then, she looked up and met their smiling eyes which were just begging her to forget, to let it go. And like a break of sun through thick impenetrable clouds, finally Chrys couldn’t resist the urge to smile.

She walked towards the two little girls, herself and her sister from another time and clasped their hands. The three of them began to dance in the circle, all to the tune of “Rainbow Connection.” Round and round they danced.

Finally, when she unclasped her hand with young Mari, in her hand was a locket she remembers losing years ago.

Image by Esther Chilcutt from Pixabay

“Oh my God!” she said, startled. “I lost that years ago,” Chrys said, clasping her hands around the locket. She knelt down next to Mari who was beaming. “Mom gave them to us and I was so heartbroken when I couldn’t find mine and then … at the funeral, we made sure you had yours for wherever you were going.” She put her hands around her face, tears flowing. “I felt so torn apart. When I couldn’t find my locket, I felt for sure I’d lost you.” She hugged Mari, her hand tight around the locket.

Chrys opened her eyes, squinting at the light. She didn’t know immediately where she was. Upon looking around, though, she realised she was on the sofa near the big window in her front room. Putting her head against the cushion, she couldn’t help but smile. It was astonishing.

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Chrys remembers vividly thinking in the dream how it must be a dream and not real life. She wondered if that’s what people call a lucid dream. She’d heard of those, when the dream is particularly real.

Regardless, Chrys felt like a new person. It was phenomenal. She remembers how she felt when she was dancing and singing. Laughing aloud she thought of the locket. Maybe now, she could finally forgive herself for having lost it.

Chrys went to go put on her jacket because she thought she really would go for a walk. It was like a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Grabbing her sunglasses, just in case it cleared up as they said it would, she placed them in her pocket. There was something else in the way. Pulling it out, she couldn’t at first believe what she was seeing.

There dangling from a chain was her locket. Chrys looked at it with complete disbelief. “It can’t be,” she said in hushed tones, plunking down on the bench by the door. “I mean, I thought I was dreaming. But here’s the locket Mari gave me.

She opened the locket to make doubly sure it was the right one. When she did, sure enough, there was a picture of Mari. That’s what they’d done for fun. Being twins, nobody would know that Mari was in Chrys’s locket and vice versa. So, does that mean I really did go for a walk and meet them? Because Mari sure as heck did give me a locket,” she said looking down at the locket. “It just can’t be.”

Chrys sat in the porch, trying to make sense of what had happened. Holding the locket in her hands, she remembered meeting her young self and Mari, thinking of how wonderful it had made her feel. She hadn’t felt that good in years, to be honest.

Image by Milada Vigerova from Pixabay

She got up from the bench, placing the locket around her neck. Chrys pondered, “I suppose, in the end, what does it matter whether it was a dream or reality or a little bit of both,” Chrys thought. Seeing her young self and Mari was like a sign. Everything was still the same and yet it was not. In its reconciliation was the peace for which she’d been searching.