Prompt: 4. Insides

The old cider mill is tumble-down and smells dusky sweet with apples that are long decayed and then dried- the odor worn into the wood by the long years of use. The mill wasn’t used for several years before the fire and there certainly was no reason to keep it up now that the trees are gone. Lillia steps into the mottled darkness below the crumbling roof. The mill is mostly in the shade of the tall trees that line the stream, so the light that comes through the holes is thin and wanting. She sits down on a bench that wobbles a little with her weight and pulls her satchel onto her lap. Reaching inside, she brings out the necklace she found in a hidey-hole beneath the floorboard of her bedroom. The clasp is broken and the silver of the chain is tarnished, but its value isn’t in its beauty- its value never was.

“She thought I was a damned fool for spending my money on a bauble for her, you know?” a deep voice tells her from the doorway. Lillia looks up and sees a very tall man framed by the daylight standing there. “She didn’t acknowledge me for a week the first time I gave it to her. Then she only gave it back to me and went off to ignore me a few more days. I had to keep giving it to her again and again.” He shakes his head and comes closer to sit beside Lillia.

“She does have a stubborn streak, that’s for certain,” Lillia agrees. This man is her father- a slightly older version of the man in the photographs Granny Lil won’t let Lillia’s mother keep hidden away.

“She had her reasons. There were lots of them. She just didn’t share them with me for a long time.” He takes the necklace from her hand and holds it up and tries to catch a glint of light on the grimy stone. Between the wan light and the dirt, there is no sparkle.

“Do you mean you wish you hadn’t given it to her?” Lillia asks because there are a million questions she wants to ask, but none of them fit the moment.

“No- I could never regret that- not any of it.…”

Then he gently places the necklace into the palm of her hand and folds her fingers closed over it.

Word Count 399

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