Ghost-Conjuring Ring

Ghost-Conjuring Ring
© Surazeus
2024 12 22

Searching in dark attic of her old house 
for book of fairy tales to read her children, 
Beatrice finds rusty tin of photographs 
depicting people from last century, 
and below them, gleaming eerily green, 
a thick gold ring with a square emerald. 

While holding photo of a young blonde girl 
wearing a black lace dress and holding books, 
Beatrice slips the emerald ring on her finger, 
and blinks in flash of light that blinds her eyes, 
then stares surprised at girl in the photo 
who stands before her with moon-glowing face. 

"My name is Mary Williams, twelve years old, 
and I love to read epic poetry 
composed by Byron, Shelley, and Keats, bards 
who conjure worlds with magic of their quills, 
and I am mourning death of my young sister 
whose dress caught fire while cooking at the stove." 

Guessing the emerald ring conjures the ghost 
of the person depicted in the photo 
she holds, Beatrice picks one showing a man 
wearing a dapper suit with leather boots, 
who stands beside a saddle on a fence 
and cradles a shiny Winchester rifle. 

"My name is James Venable, twenty five, 
and I am helping guide our wagon train 
of thirty families on the Oregon Trail 
from Missouri over the Rocky Mountains 
west to lush wilderness of Idaho 
to build our new home safe in paradise." 

Instead of the book of strange fairy tales, 
Beatrice takes the tin of old photographs 
and ghost-conjuring ring to the living room 
where she and her children with eager eyes 
meet ghost of each ancestor in the flesh 
and listen to them tell tales of their lives. 

"My name is Bertha Ziebarth, thirty two, 
born near Gorka Castle in Thuringia, 
traveled with my family when I was twelve 
by ship across the wild Atlantic Ocean, 
to live in Minnesota, land of lakes, 
and raised four children with brick-making wealth." 

While Beatrice writes their stories on computer, 
her children draw pictures to illustrate 
events detailing their immigrant lives, 
then publishes book for children to read 
while they wear copy of the magic ring 
which conjures ghosts from photographs we hold.