Funk-N-Fiction

We’re thrilled to have this enchanting family tale from Winnie Winkle today.
And we’d love to hear about any special family jewelry pieces or important crystals that you keep close to you in the comments!

Grand’s Ring (excerpt)
by Winnie Winkle
©2024 Winnie Winkle
All rights reserved

This is an excerpt of a story the characters are still telling, in whispers, to my eager curiosities. As such, it may change slightly in its eventual publication. This is the way of stories, characters, and the beleaguered pen-wielders waiting for their next moves.

During the summer break, when I was six, Mother sent me to Grand’s for three months. I recall myself ready to go, squirming as she reached in through the car window to hold me, seasons seeming to pass while she held me pat. “Something special is happening for you. We’ll talk when you get home,” she told me with a big smile. I remember looking back as she grew smaller in the rear window, the sweet-sour taste of cherry candy in my mouth, juicy and memorable.

Grand’s rambling Victorian, full of stairways, cubby holes, secret passages, and an attic full of odd-shaped windows and interesting junk was a fairy house to my six-year-old self. Once arrived, I desired never to leave. Grand, tall and inspiring with her long white hair braided down her back, had blue eyes, I learned later, that saw all. I believed her house perfect for her because it had so many parts, some shiny, some dark, some unknown. I decided that Grand had done a better job of finding her house than Mother had because we lived in a tidy brick and stone structure of zero imagination.

The car rolled to a stop and I leapt, running for Grand. She sat, rocking and waiting on a big covered front porch that groaned under the weight of concluding wisteria. I climbed onto her lap for a hug, and Grand told me, “Come up to your room, I’ve got a project for you.”

We  waved goodbye to Dad, then slipped into the cool, climbing the big staircase and heading down the hall to the lavender room. It was a huge mess, boxes and heaps of things everywhere.

“This can’t become your room until you decorate it with things you love,” she said, gesturing to the mess. “Pick out the good stuff, and we’ll store the rest for another time.”

I squealed and dived, coming up with a white net that had gold threads running through it and tiny stars tied to the netting. Next came an impressive length of string sporting tiny unicorns, a bedspread of ivory scattered with purple flowers, purple glass bowls with tiny air bubbles caught inside them, a lamp with a glass shade of dragonflies, figurines of fairies and animals, and a mirror with a golden edge. I pulled out pillows with tassels in many sizes, a tall table with dragons carved on the legs and a vanity table that matched it, three huge flying seagulls and a big gold sun. Last came shimmery curtain stuff that seemed to change color before my eyes.

Grand’s eyes twinkled at me. “What I would choose at six. Beautiful.” She stuck her head out the door and called “Collman!”

I loved Collman. He was even taller than Grand and so thin you thought he would tip over most days. Collman loved licorice. He told me once in perfect confidence that candy was a window to the soul. I believed it then. I still do. He slipped in without jarring the door open one whit and pulled out my rejects, stacked in a crooked pile in the corner by the window. He headed to the attic with the last of the boxes as Grand and I got to work.

She threw the curtains over the rod, tying poufs in them with the unicorn string. Sun caught the little gold horns, winking. Collman came back in with the ladder, earning a smile from Grand. He went to work hanging the netting from the ceiling. Once in place, Grand handed up the seagulls to hang on strings of various lengths below the netting.

Together we moved the little vanity and Collman hung the mirror. Grand set the tall table near the bed and placed the lamp on it; I messed with the bowls and figurines on the vanity. Next came the bed, Grand shaking the spread out; it covered the bed, puddles of fabric pooled at the feet. I tossed pillows; all was done but the sun. Grand took my hand, and we revolved in a slow turn in the room’s center. Grand’s eyes inquired; I pointed to the wall across from the window. Grand squeezed my hand, her approval warming me from top to toe.

Collman hung the sun, and we three grinned at each other. The room was joy unbound in my heart. I didn’t want to leave it, ever. Grand told me to unpack and come down when I was ready, that she would be in the kitchen, unhurried. She knew I’d detach in my own time, compelled to come down, either by the scent of supper or a six-year-old’s inevitable desire to know ‘what’s next’.

Suitcases yielded their contents to drawers, cubbies and the big armoire, a closet with feet whose shape, I discovered, were lion-like.

I can’t believe this beautiful bedroom is mine, yet it was mine and it would never be right for another soul.

The magic within this room caught me in something I did not understand or even hold an inkling. I wandered, touching, perfect in the moment.

***

The days took the lovely pattern of beads well strung. Each morning, Grand and I would sit in her sunny kitchen and eat our cereal, topped with the changing progression of summer’s fruits. I perched on the big stool while she washed and I dried the few dishes of breakfast. We spent our mornings in the gardens before the heat set its fierce eye on the grasses, sizzling and steamy.

Each noon, we cleaned ourselves and made sandwiches before heading off to the big porch table overlooking the gardens. Grand kept an enormous bowl full of small stones of every color and pattern imaginable; we sat together working amongst them. Thousands of polished little chips of stone, drilled through with a tiny hole, shared the bowl with proper beads, cut into squares and tubes and animals.

“This is a rondelle,” Grand told me, and I repeated it, fingering the shape. Working our way through all the shapes and sizes filled the afternoons until I identified a 6 mm briolette or a 4 mm heishi from a pile of loose beads on the first try.

Both Grand and Mother worked with stones. They each created the most unusual, fabulous jewelry that was more art than simple ornament. People, some men but most often women, were always stopping my mother and grandmother to ask the hows and wheres of the pieces they wore. My mother had an amazing collection, all self-made. I spent many hours up on her big bed, trying on piece after piece, believing myself astonishing, while she smiled at my combinations.

Being literally up to my wrists in beads was not new but the unlocking of the names was. Once I had mastered the shapes, my real training began. Agate, amazonite, chrysocolla, citrine, garnet, jade, larimar, malachite, rhodochrosite… the list seemed endless and enticing. I plunged my hands into the bowl, sorting and naming the bright bits of stone for Grand again and again.

“You remind me of your mother at six,” Grand smiled. “Sylvia took to beading like a duck to water.”

I liked that, thinking aloud of my mother beading at this table, just my size.

“Not here, Canda, your great-grand taught her as I am teaching you. This is how it is and was with the women in our family, each generation has a duty.”

I stilled, watching her face as she took my hands in hers, closing the circle. “I remember learning the stones, coming all the way in my father’s old car to my Grand’s house, back in 1932. My father’s relief at having one less responsibility for that depression-ravaged summer was clear; his gratitude over losing my hungry self for three months shone off his face. My first of seven summers with her began, learning all she taught me, earning one stone’s secrets each summer. I practiced under the watchful eye of my mother for the rest of the year. After the seventh summer, when I was thirteen, Grand held a special party for me, signaling an awakening of the stones within me.”

“Sylvia spent her summers with my mother, learning at an astonishing rate. Her quickness seemed unparalleled. In my place as the teacher, I see this is the way of all generations. Grandchildren amaze, Mothers, so involved in the details of raising, miss this amazement. Grands recapture and return it back. It is a fine pattern, one worth repetition.”

“That is how Cordee women do it. Girls learn, Mothers raise, Grands teach. In your time, you will learn, raise and teach.” I looked at her, the silence stretching. She released my hands. I felt smudged, somehow less sharp than an instant before.

Before me lay a necklace, my most recent effort and one I loved. I’d patterned shapes and stone types in a different order than any piece prior. Touching it whirled my senses. Every day, our work with the beads from the big bowl ended with unstringing and returning, ready to string again tomorrow. I did not want to unstring this pattern, and I said so.

She picked up the strand and let the light play across it. My choices included Amazonite, with its bluish-green layers of light, lemony-yellow amber, and an intense blue-green chrysocolla agatized onto bluer azurite, shot through with copper. I also chose deep blue Lapis, golden glints in its depths, green striped malachite, small round black obsidian beads, and quartz. She fingered the quartz, lost in thought.

“Each stone has stories,” she said. I sat, transfixed, as she touched and told of the stones in my necklace.

“Amazonite brings courage, it takes its name from the Amazon society, a matriarchy.” I blinked, and she smiled. “Matriarchy means that women run things. Amber is like a doorway to your mind. Clarity is one of its gifts. It is also a fighter’s stone. Chrysocolla enhances female energy.”

“Girl power!”

“You got it,” laughed Grand. “Girl power, indeed. You paired this Chrysocolla with Azurite, a stone that enhances psychic energy, your ability to see beyond what most people see.” Her fingertips continued to touch each stone. “Lapis Lazuli broadens your viewpoint, the way you think about things, your awareness of the circle of life. Wielded in the proper way, you gain wisdom in choices and enhanced communication, that sort of thing.”

“Malachite.” She laid her finger on the stone for a moment. “Your mother calls it the ‘no fear’ stone. It can enhance your courage, and it’s a watchdog for danger. A useful tool, but no substitute for using your head in the first place.” Grand sighed, and I looked at her. “Sylvia took time figuring that out. Obsidian is the stone of the mind, it’s a fascinating study, and an unforgiving one.”

She moved her fingertip to the quartz. “Smoky and  Tourmalinated Quartz,” Grand blew out a sigh. “I wanted to be done with this, but it seems the sins of the Mother, or Grandmother, in this case, are unforgiven. So be it.”

She seemed lost in thought and then spoke again. “Tourmalinated Quartz protects you from evil. Its true power lies in the ability to transmute negative energy to positive energy. Used well, it becomes a shield. Smoky Quartz will drive away evil spirits and a skillful bearer can force a storm. The best bearers can use it to combine with other stones. Quartz  is protective, grounding, neutralizing and detoxifying, provided you survive your initial encounter.”

Grand took my hands, one which held the strand of beads, and fastened her eyes on mine. “This is a powerful pattern, one that predicts an unparalleled seer. It is not safe, nor is it easy. Are you sure this is the pattern you want to keep?”

I stared at my creation. Already, I embraced the bond to it, felt it humming in my hand. I looked back at Grand. Her expression softened, her eyes deep blue like the lapis. “We will finish it then. Together we will walk this path you’ve set until you can walk it alone.”

She took the strand from me, deft fingers fashioning a clasp after adding a pearl to each end of the strand. “Pearls protect children,” she murmured, intent on her work. “I can’t be everywhere at once.”