Necklace

Written by Lily Greco, Edited by Emily Fischer

Face by Emma Gregory

I can picture the necklace almost everywhere I go. The thick gold chain, the two brown beads, and the golden cross front and center. The necklace felt cold upon touch. The beads felt so smooth, but everything else was rough and rigid. The cross almost felt sharp enough to cut skin. What kind of place would keep this out in the open?

My old school would. I went to the infamous Gailstone Academy. It was an all-girls Catholic boarding school just outside a small Pennsylvania town. I’d been going there since I was five years old and spent my whole life there. My class was the last class to graduate in 2002. Even before that time, we knew that the Gailstone Academy was seeing its final days.

Gailstone Academy was stringent — the rulebook was about five hundred pages. We were forced to be happy the whole school day, even if we were having a bad day. Our skirts had to be a certain length, and we could not go over or under that length. Stockings were a must, and they had to be white. Not black, navy, or grey. White. No colored hair was allowed unless it was natural. But the most important rule was to always wear your cross necklace. Once you get your cross necklace, you cannot take it off, even while sleeping.

I guess I started to notice something strange was going on at the beginning of my junior year. I saw this girl at her locker while I was on my way to my physics class, and she didn’t have her necklace on. The poor thing looked kind of nervous. I decided to check in on her.

“Hi, is everything ok?” I asked her.

“It’s awful! I lost my necklace.” The girl said to me.

I couldn’t help but stare at her bare neck. Being at the school for over a decade at this point, I’d never seen someone without their necklace before. Not to mention she was clearly distressed, which was breaking the “always be happy” rule.

“I’m sure it’s somewhere in your room,” I assured her.

“I’ve looked everywhere! I can’t find it. I think the chain might have broken while I was running.”

I assured her that everything would be fine. I was sure if she talked to Dean Marie and explained to her what happened, she would be just fine. She would understand that it was a mistake. It’s not like she purposefully took off her necklace to break the rules. She thanked me and went on her way.

Two days later, I was walking through that same hallway and thought about that girl. However, I saw that someone was cleaning out her locker. I’d assumed it was her parents. I was shocked and had no idea what was going on. I turned to the nearest student and asked her what was going on.

“You didn’t hear? A student disappeared two days ago.”