Moonstone Conviction
A Dickens Station Flash Fiction Short Story
by Donald Jay
Terrance Wickham lifted the scarlet velvet cloth to reveal an ornately chased and delicately filigreed three-sided gold tower. It stood eighteen inches tall and four inches wide on each side.
“What is that?” Auriel gaped, seating herself at the small round table.
Croia and Gemma circled the table, admiring the piece, then settled into chairs, each sitting opposite one side of the tower.
Gemma retrieved a loupe from her pocket and leaned in for a closer look. “Definitely father’s work. I can’t even do chase work that fine,” she mumbled. “What’s it for, Mr. Wickham?”
Wickham opened the three faces of the tower. A full-length window on each side revealed to each sister the tower’s contents: a 24-carat clear stone with a brilliant blue hue.
“My god!” Croia gasped. “The moonstone.”
Auriel leaned in. “It is the moonstone!” She pivoted. “Wickham, what’s the meaning of this?”
“The meaning?” Old Joe’s voice cracked with his Cockney accent, drawing the sisters’ attention. “Yer father, God rest ’is soul, left ’is final decision to you.”
“His final decision?” Gemma reflected.
“Yer fate,” Joe cackled. “Yer fate.”
“I don’t understand.” Croia looked at Wickham and then at Joe.
Joe grabbed the edge of the table, startling the sisters. He glared from sister to sister with his one wide eye. “You broke ’is ’eart, ladies. You broke ’is ’eart. You, with yer constant bickering over ’oo gets the stone, and ’oo should run the business, and ’oo leads the family. ’E says to me one night, Joe, ’e says they used to be so close. Triplets, ’e says. Inseparable, ’e says. But ’at stone. ’At stone ’as driven a wedge between ’em as sure as any curse.”
“It’s not the stone, Joe,” Auriel interjected. “It’s what the stone represents.”
Gemma slammed her palm on the table. “That stone is rare in every respect; its size, its adularescence, its clarity, its color—”
“That stone,” Croia interrupted, “led our great-great-grandfather out of a collapsed mine in Sri Lanka. Doesn’t that mean anything to you two? None of us would be here if it weren’t for that stone.”
Auriel shifted to the edge of her chair. “Those qualities Gemma values and the provenance so precious to Croia make ‘that stone’ worth far more to our family than its monetary value. In marketing terms, it’s worth a fortune. More importantly, the moonstone symbolizes our family, our business, and our prominence in the gem world. We’ve always known that whichever of us inherits the stone would be the head of the family and the business.”
“Wait.” Gemma stretched across the table to get a closer look at the tower. “Why are there two cleaving knives resting on the moonstone? And up here, there’s a weight.” She glanced at Wickham in horror. “If that weight falls . . .”
“It will cleave the moonstone into three pieces,” Wickham finished her sentence.
“No!” Gemma dropped into her seat, waving both hands.
Auriel squared off to Wickham. “Start explaining.”
“I will. But first, I think Joe, as your father’s closest friend, has something to tell you.”
Joe circled the table as he spoke. “Yer dad came to see me one night, all distraught ’e was. ’E ’ad just been told about the cancer. Oh, ’e wasn’t afraid of dyin’, you know yer dad. What was eatin’ ’im was, you three. Always bickerin’. ’Ow could ’e put one of you in charge of the family, or the business? ’Ow could ’e choose? There was only one answer. So ‘e devised a plan.”
“Of course, there’s only one answer.” Auriel shoved herself back in her seat. “Without the business, the family would have folded years ago. I kept us afloat when—”
“You kept us afloat?” Gemma pounded on the table. “It was my designs that built our reputation. Without my making the jewelry that high-end customers flocked to, we would still be selling friendship rings for a nickel apiece. It was my talent, my vision—”
“Will you two please stop?” Croia begged.
Wickham interrupted the silence that followed. “We’re going to settle this right now.”
“How do you propose we do that?” Auriel sniped.
Wickham retrieved a velvet bag from his desk, and from that poured four keys onto the table.
Scooping them into his hand, he walked around the table and handed each sister a key. “I will now share the instructions left to me in your father’s will. When I have finished giving you these instructions, I am to activate the box’s timer immediately. You will have three minutes to decide which of you will inherit the moonstone and control of the family and the business.”
“Facing each of you at the base of the tower, there are three keyholes. You will place your key in the left keyhole to vote for the sister on your left, the right keyhole to vote for the sister on your right, or the center keyhole to vote for yourself. Turning your key casts your vote.”
“When time runs out, if all three votes point to one sister, the mechanism will deliver the moonstone unharmed to that sister, and she will inherit full control of the family and the business.”
“If all three votes do not agree, the mechanism will release the weight, cleaving the moonstone, and I am instructed to sell the family business and give the proceeds to charity.”
“Charity?” All three sisters gasped.
Wickham inserted his key into a keyhole near the top of the tower and turned. An hourglass inside the jewelry box inverted, and the sand trickled through.
The three redheads sat dumbfounded.
“You only have three minutes,” Wickham consulted his watch.
Auriel pointed with her key. “You two vote for me.”
“But that gives you control,” Gemma scoffed.
“I’m the most logical one.”
“Since when?” Gemma shot back.
“Will you two stop!” Croia sobbed, drawing their attention. “We only have three minutes!” She slumped in her chair. “What does it matter? Let the stone be crushed. I wish we could go back to the way we were when we were teens.”
“You mean innocent and stupid,” Auriel sniped.
“I mean, inseparable, like Dad said,” Croia retorted.
“Time’s running out, ladies,” Wickham nudged them. “Which sister do you choose?”
“I can’t choose!” Croia screamed.
“I vote for Croia.” Gemma looked lovingly at her sister. “She’s the least competitive and would be the most fair.”
“Me?” Croia’s eyes got big. “I don’t know how to run the business. I just want to be appreciated for the customers I cultivate and the things I do for our family. Gemma, you should —”
“I don’t want to run the business, and I certainly don’t want to be responsible for family decisions,” Gemma admitted. “I only want my sisters, the two people who matter most to me, to respect my work, my talent. I was never good with people like you or smart like Auriel.”
“You think I’m smart?” Auriel’s eyebrows raised.
“Yeah.” Gemma shrugged. “Who else could have … I mean … I wouldn’t have had the materials to work with if you hadn’t been such a shrewd businesswoman. You should run the business.”
Auriel held up both hands. “Oh, I can run the business alright, but don’t saddle me with family matters; that’s Croia’s domain.”
Croia opened her palms. “Isn’t this what Dad’s been trying to tell us? Instead of competing, we should appreciate one another. Our business, our family, needs all three of us.”
Wickham checked his watch. “One minute left.”
“But there’s no way for us to vote for ‘all of us’,” Gemma reiterated. “And we have to agree, or Wickham’s going to give our inheritance to charity.”
“Dad constructed a no-win scenario,” Auriel reflected. “He’s forcing us to live out our no-win scenario.”
“What do you mean, Auriel?” Croia asked.
“Our way, fighting, no one wins. But he’s also showing us the only way we can all win. ‘The only answer,’ as Joe put it.” Auriel scooched forward in her chair.
“How?” Gemma asked.
“By choosing a different path. The only way we can all agree, but not on one sister, is not to vote.” Auriel pivoted. “Wickham, what happens if none of us vote?”
Wickham remained silent.
“Joe?”
“I don’t know, lass. But I do know there are many ways to lead.”
“Fifteen seconds,” Wickham chimed.
Auriel raised her key. “I say we call a truce.”
Gemma did the same. “And combine our talents.”
Croia joined them. “And appreciate one another.”
The last grains of sand dropped in the hourglass, and the tower’s glass sides rose.
The sisters reunited after that, each taking pride in their individual role. Auriel oversaw the business. Gemma continued to produce world-class jewelry. Croia mothered them all and cultivated their exclusive clientèle. And the moonstone? It stands prominently displayed in Victoria’s Jewelers in Dickens Station, Vermont, as a symbol of strength through family unity.
The End