The Heart Ring

Prologue – Grandpa’s Legacy

Two weeks after the funeral, Abby still expected Grandpa’s voice to fill the quiet. The silence pressed in closer than before. She half-listened for his laugh, the shuffle of his boots, the way his stories stretched a plain evening into a doorway to somewhere else. Each absence felt like the house was shrinking around her.

At the will reading, Abby pressed her hands into her lap, waiting for her name. Her cousins’ whispers pricked her nerves; still, she kept her back straight. The lawyer announced, “To Abigail, I leave the contents of the cedar chest located in the attic.” Abby’s heart thumped. That chest had always drawn her curiosity.

A ripple of confusion spread across the room. Uncle Jerry snorted. “Dad’s toy box.” He muttered it like an insult. “Nothing of value in there.”

The others nodded. No one argued when the chest was carried to the truck and then to Abby’s room. She was the only one who wanted it.


Now the cedar chest sat against her wall, bigger than she remembered, its brass fittings dull but solid. She ran her fingers along the lid. The smell of cedar lingered and, beneath it, Grandpa’s cologne.

Abby remembered curling up on his recliner, listening as he held odd trinkets—a key, a stone, a wooden bird. He would tell stories of faraway places while her cousins rolled their eyes; she never did.

“This isn’t a toy, girl,” he would say, starting every story the same. He’d smile when he said it, but his eyes never smiled.

Once, only once, he had rested his hand on the cedar chest itself, serious in a way that silenced her fidgeting.

“All these things, they’ll try to catch your eye,” he told her. “They’ll look harmless. Fun, even. But a chest like this doesn’t keep toys. It keeps trials. If you treat them like playthings, they’ll treat you the same—rougher than you expect.”

The words hadn’t made sense then—just another warning from Grandpa, or so she’d thought. But now, as the heavy lid creaked open and the quiet thickened, their meaning settled uneasily in her chest.

Inside lay a jumble of ordinary-seeming junk: a brass spring, a frayed yo-yo, a chipped toy car, a tiny metal gun dulled with age. Ordinary, except every one of them carried the echo of Grandpa’s voice.

At the bottom, she found something different: a small wooden box with three tiny locks. The adults must not have managed it. Surely it would be empty otherwise. Abby traced the grooves. More locks appeared, tumblers clicking, until the final latch gave way.

Inside, nestled in cloth, lay a smaller box marked with a single carved heart. Abby’s breath caught as she lifted the lid.

A silver ring gleamed inside. Its band was simple. Its stone was a small red heart. Next to it, folded neat, was a slip of paper in Grandpa’s familiar hand:

Know their heart, know them.

She read it twice. Three times. Each word was a stone in her chest, making it hard to breathe. The words weighed more than the paper. Heavier even than the ring itself.

Abby slipped the band onto her finger. For a moment, something clicked into place inside her, a quick certainty unfamiliar since Grandpa’s death—like the ring had been waiting for her, for this exact moment. The surprise steadied her, even as confusion lingered beneath it.


The next morning, as Abby headed into the hall, Sweety met her, tail thumping against the wall. Abby bent to rub her ears—and froze. A soft rose-gold shimmer glowed in the dog’s chest, pulsing faintly with every beat of her heart.

Abby blinked. The glow stayed.

Downstairs, Mom moved between the stove and counter, humming. The soft, multicolored glow from her chest startled Abby, a mix of comfort and sudden unease flooding her as she recognized the rose-gold inside it. Abby’s breath caught, a blend of awe and rising anxiety.

Randy slouched into the kitchen last, already scowling. His glow burned hot red, jagged orange licking the edges. Too sharp, too loud. When Abby slid the ring off, the colors vanished.

“What’s that?” Randy asked, eyeing her hand. “One of Grandpa’s silly things?”

Abby slipped it back on. “Yes. Of course.”

Randy’s glow curdled instantly, darkening into purple, then black.

“Well, you were always his favorite,” he muttered, grabbing toast. “I don’t need any of that crap anyway.” He shoved out the door without waiting for Mom.

Mom sighed and shook her head, her glow steadying into golden green. “Never mind him. He’s fifteen and mad at the wind.”

Abby nodded, but uncertainty twisted in her stomach. Even with Mom’s reassurance, the tension inside her refused to loosen, worry prickling alongside a hesitant hope.

If Grandpa was right—if the ring really let her see inside people’s hearts—did she want that? What would she discover in her friends that she didn’t already know?

And what would their colors mean?