The Girl With the Golden Locket

[TRIGGER WARNING: DEATH, WAR AND GHOSTS]

The morning of October 31, 1944 was enveloped in a fog rolling in from the raging seas.
It reared its blurred and thick head, slowly swallowing all civilization, or what was left of it.
By this time, most of Konisberg, Germany had fled to South America to escape the desolate
war. The streets were deserted, and food was scarce. Bombs exploded above buildings,
raining debris and shrapnel onto the inhabitants’ heads. Nights were filled with the lullaby of
gunfire. Sons and fathers were stolen to fight in the “Great Patriotic War”, never to be seen
again.
15-year old Clara saw all this through hooded eyes, watching behind the comfort of her
father and her family. Her father had given her a golden locket, saying it would make sure no
harm would ever come to his precious child. Clara idolized him. Until her father disappeared
alongside her neighbors. Until the town she called home transformed into a skeleton town,
the people begging and scraping for food. Until the echo of playing with her best friend, Otto,
faded into the piercing memory of waving goodbye as he walked along the other men
towards their deaths. Clara knew they wouldn’t return. And she was right. They never did.
The war continued for longer than Der Führer had promised, turning into a never
ending abyss of despair. A day meant for silly macabre was altered into a reflection of a
conflict that would never end. Which is why most of Konisberg, Clara’s hometown, fled into
the safety and refuge in South America. However, the journey was more perilous than people
expected, causing them to surrender their tortured lives in the process.
This is how Clara found herself on a wagon heading across Europe towards the savior
land. How she found herself leaving the only place she called home towards an unknown
area with riches and safety.
Late nights were spent arguing with Clara’s mother and older sister. Clara didn’t want
to leave. She wanted to stay in the house that reminded her of her father, her older brother
and even her uncle. She wanted to stay in the house that comforted her, the house that
comforted her ancestors. There was a word in German, wunderschon. Clara’s favorite word.
It meant gorgeous. Like her house. Her house stood marvelously on pillars, replicating the
old roman houses and buildings. It was grand, the grandest in her town, maybe even the
entire world, Clara thought. Red bricks stacked around the walls created by her
great-great-great-great grandfather when he first came to Konisberg. During All Hallows Eve,
Clara’s favorite holiday, the candles lit would give the red bricks a blood like texture, adding
to their theme. They would adorn their costumes with pride and waltzed around the house,
acting as they were haunting their home. Memories above memories were created in this
grand and gorgeous home. Memories that Clara never wanted to forget.

Reluctantly however, Clara was forced to leave her German Pantheon. Her roots. Her
memories.
The wagons pulled by horses clattered along the desolate roads of her home. Filled
with all the items they could carry, their journey started. Clara found herself fingering the
golden locket, the last commodity she would ever own. Their journey was perilous and filled
with the unknown dangers of Europe and the war. Nights and days were filled with dreams
of safety, of the rebuilding of their lives while bullets and bombs flew over their heads. Sleep
never came to Clara however.
Fear soon captured her in its iron grip. They would never make it. Food dwindled to a
piece of bread each day, and hunger clawed its way to her stomach. Winter’s frosty fingers
clutched her heart, freezing the only thing that kept her going. Her family mutated into what
resembled zombies fighting their way through the dead bodies that littered their paths. All
people who tried and failed to get to their haven. The reaper came for all of them, including
Clara’s infant sister, Lisa.
Cold resentment slipped its way into Clara’s heart, transforming into a blaze of fury
and anger. Der Fuhrer lied. Her family lied. Her government and her leaders lied. They all
lied. It would never go back to her life. She could never rebuild what she had lost. All
happiness and joy was removed from her memories and echoes of grief were planted in their
place. Each person she ever cared about was stolen from her. Soon the hunger, the thirst and
the sorrow overwhelmed her. Death rates were common among refugees. One day, Clara fell
in the snow. But she never got up.

The war soon ended. All the suffering and death was finally done. The people of
Germany were free of a tyrant, of the cold suffocating grip of the reaper. The dead were
mourned and the living rejoiced. Their troubles were forgotten. The world shifted into a new
era. An era with invention, collaboration, and peace.
But the Grim Reaper still hovered around Konisberg, even as the people forgot about
the sorrow. Clara’s house still stood however, and still stands today. Even as everyone forgot
about the girl. The fifteen year old girl who died on a journey to escape from the war. The girl
who was torn away from her home, her wunderschon home, by lies and death. The girl with
the golden locket.
Her house stood proud, now slightly altered and remodeled, and many more people
started to inhabit it. Each and every one of them however, heard screams. The tortured wails
of a person destroyed. And yet, as the sun rose, the screams stopped, as if calmed by the new
dawn.
But the eerie shrieking continued every night. Bedsheets were torn from their cozy
positions and lightbulbs shattered from the howling. The bloody bricks sang with the outrage
and sorrow of the screams. Police were called. Religious leaders were summoned. But none
could determine the source. The haunting continued.

And each person swore that they saw a girl. A girl crafted from mist and snow. A girl
holding a candle over the inhabitants beds, watching their peaceful sleep, almost longing to
be in their place. A small girl, no older than sixteen. A girl with a golden locket shining on her
chest.
“Ah yes the haunted house,” reminisced Mrs. Zimmermann, a former inhabitant of the
home and the town’s famous busybody, when interviewed by the local newspaper. “The
screaming kept us all up at night. Made it nearly impossible to keep little junior asleep.”
The house puzzled all of Konisberg, now renamed Kaliningrad after the war. Rash high
school students dared each other to stay on the grounds for an entire night, but no one made
it through the first three hours. Investigators from all over the world explored the house to
find the source of the noise and haunting, convinced that this supernatural phenomenon was
a fluke. Even scientists theorized multiple explanations, but none could stop the haunting.
Soon the matter was forgotten, but not by the people of Kaliningrad. Rumors and wild
hypotheses floated around the town. New people were warned of the house and it remained
deserted, until a family from France decided to move in.
Alain and his family were ecstatic to move in. All of them heard the strange accusations
about the house, but disregarded it for common sense. There was no such thing as haunting.
At least that was what Alain’s family believed. Somehow, Alain was drawn to the house, its
blood bricks posing a new adventure and a new challenge for him to overcome.
The first night spent in the new house was peaceful and quiet, the rumors now
dispersed from their minds. Nevertheless, the second night, the haunting began. It started
small, the wind whispered loudly, gossiping about the events yet to come. Soft sobbing was
heard from certain rooms, yet when investigated, yielded nothing but the dust holding
memories from the past. The trees next to Alain’s room slammed onto the window, startling
him awake and planting the seed of fear deep in his bones. Trembling under the covers, he
strained his ears for more sounds. The soft crying had changed into the tortured wails of the
dead. The screams echoed through Alain, shattering all resolve and bravery left. He jumped
from his bed, tearing down the hallway to his parent’s room, to find them already up, eyes
wide with terror. The screaming grew louder, turning into a howl that reverberated
throughout the house. The family, huddled together in fright, slowly started to move toward
the noises. The lights turned on suddenly, igniting the fear in them. Through the lightning of
the lights, they could discern a figure. A figure composed of fog and pearl. A girl. The rumors
of the townspeople flew back into their minds and terror soaked into their bones. But as fast
as she came, she departed, leaving behind confusion and horror.
The next day, Alain, pale-faced and tired, emerged from his bed, peering around in
consternation. The ghost was nowhere to be found. That day was when Alain learned of
Clara. The day he learned of her life through Mrs. Zimmermann, although she never
connected the dots of her existence and the ghost. Only Alain came to that conclusion.
That night, Alain sat on his bed, waiting for the ghost that haunted his house. Right on
time, Clara appeared, wailing and screaming her heart out. Leaping out of this bed, Alain

sprinted towards her, slowing only as her howling became louder. As if comforting a wild
animal, he steadily crept towards her.
“You’re Clara, right? The Clara that used to live here before the war?” he whispered,
afraid of frightening her. She stopped shrieking, staring at him in confusion. “My name’s
Alain, I live here now.” More blank stares. “I know who you are, I know what you have been
through. I don’t know if anyone has ever said this before, but I’m sorry. If you want us to
leave, we can leave.”
Clara’s expression never changed, only a slight upturn in her mouth, but she slowly
moved across the hall. Turning around, she beckoned to Alain. She picked up the marker for
the whiteboard and started writing.
Alain, I’m Clara. Thank you. No one has ever bothered to learn my name, my past. They destroy
my home and my legacy. Thank you for being someone who listens.
Alain smiled, touched. “I will make sure that no one touches your home ever again.”
And he did. The house was no longer rebuilt and the inhabitants were left in peace.
Occasionally Alain would wake up to Clara’s soft crying over his bed, and other times would
find her watching him, protecting him from his dreams. The howling and shrieking stopped
and Clara seemed calm with the new family and Alain. Sometimes, he would see her walking
around the house, observing her home and his. Clara, the ghost made from pearl and mist
and fog and snow, no longer screamed. Clara, the ghost girl with the golden locket, was
finally content.