Her Magic Rings
Alicia’s eyes slowly fluttered open; they felt exceedingly heavy. Scrunching her eyes together a few times and attempting to stretch, she sat up in her bed. Everything felt stiff—was she hung over? She had definitely had a couple the night before but nothing to suggest the effects she was most certainly experiencing. Rolling onto the floor of her dorm room, she scuttled to her dressing table to look into the mirror. Everything seemed alright; her eyes were a little bloodshot perhaps, and the dimly navy bags under her eyes may have been a little deeper than usual—but nothing out of the ordinary, she thought.
Glancing at the clock, she noted she must’ve skipped her alarm and cursed under her breath. It wasn’t the afternoon.. not just yet anyway.
Feeling the need to ward off the hangover, she reached for the can of coffee she kept for emergencies in her bedside drawer. As she did so, her eyes scanned past something that didn’t belong to her, politely sitting in the front corner of the drawer far from her other belongings; a small, golden ring. As she saw it, flashes of the night before began to come back to her.
It had been on the finger of someone she had met. As the night’s escapades washed through her mind, she saw the girl’s face, heard her voice, remembered taking her back to the dorm room. Where was she now?
The details were hazy, but she recalled clearly the ring, surrounding the finger of the mystery girl. They had talked about it at some length. Why was it in Alicia’s possession now? Where had her strange companion gone to? Alicia realized she didn’t remember the final hours of the night. She knew they had come back to the room together, but the rest was hidden behind a murk of gray, a thick haze she couldn’t yet break through. With time she might remember, she reassured herself.
The ring stared at her, filling Alicia with curiosity. It felt odd to characterize it that way, but she was sure it was watching her somehow, and her attention kept being drawn to it. It occupied her more and more as she watched it silently taking up space in her drawer. Her mind wandered back to the night before, to the many rings adorning the fingers of her encounter. She couldn’t shake the feeling that they had some kind of weird importance.
For something so important, it seemed unbecoming of her acquaintance to leave it behind. What had they talked about?! It was getting more frustrating to Alicia the longer she felt the presence of the ring eating away at her. Absentmindedly, she let her hand slip down toward it, hoping to bring it closer to inspect it. Lifting it to her face, she noted the intricate detail of it. It was a pretty rose gold color, with a tiny green stone set into it. Alicia wasn’t much of an aficionado, but the jewelry struck her as being quite special and beautiful. Almost instinctively, she slipped it onto her finger to see how it looked in its proper place. It fit snugly onto her ring finger, perfect. She held it at arm’s length, watching it glint in the sunlight that was streaming in from her uncurtained window.
It was gorgeous.
Fixated by her new treasure, she strained her head to recall more details of her encounter. She had been out at her regular bar, she knew that for sure. Perhaps they had met there; she had definitely been with her there. They had sat at a booth for a while, just the two of them—talking for what felt like a very long time about this and that, getting to know each other better. That must’ve been when Alicia observed the plethora of adornments on her new friend’s hands. There were similar looking rings on half her fingers at least—sometimes multiple ones on a single finger. It was still too hazy to discern the words they had exchanged. Everything felt decidedly muddled and unclear. The image of the girl’s hands moving as she talked, her rings glinting subtly in the bar’s lighting, drawing attention to themselves; the conversation growing more and more personal; the silky and low patter of her voice, like thick, sweet cream—it drew her in even as the blanket of gray clouded the details.
Thinking harder, and sipping her emergency coffee, she summoned an image of them walking on the roadside near Alicia’s dorm building. It had been quite late indeed and they were talking about… something. It was getting more frustrating to not be able to recall the events, the discussion.
In a flash, a memory popped into her mind. They had exchanged phone numbers! Her head filled with images of her handing her phone to the mystery girl. She had punched in her number and handed the phone back. Evidence! Evidence of her existence! She could find out what happened, she could see her again. Relief came to her in that moment.
Alicia hurriedly searched her bedroom for her cellphone. It couldn’t have been far away, even if she did have a penchant for misplacing it.
Finding it in her jacket pocket hanging on the back of her bedroom door, Alicia opened the Contacts and started screening for a name she didn’t recognise. Someone who Could be the ring’s owner.
It took a little while, but she eventually got her girl. Partway down, she found the name. The girl had entered it herself, that was for certain. The thing that gave it away, but that also filled Alicia with a pang of nervousness and dread, was that she had styled it.
Jaeger 💍
With a ring emoji. This was deeply frightening to Alicia. They had exchanged numbers before making it to the apartment, and now she had Jaeger’s ring?! Had she styled it this way because they had spent time talking about all her jewelry in the bar, a way to recognise her, or was there something else?
Alicia reassured herself that this was a game that her new friend liked to play. Like the apocryphal tales of people stealing mail to have an opportunity to start a conversation later. This was simply a way for them to reconvene at a later time, a trick to give them a reason to meet up. “How sly!” she thought to herself. It was peculiar to say the least, but it gave her a little comfort in that moment, even if she could not place why.
Well, there would be no better way to find out what happened last night than to call the number and ask the lady herself how the night had progressed. After all, she reasoned, Jaeger had left the ring on purpose to bring about this exact situation. Alicia didn’t mind that she had been played. It was kind of cute really.
Her thumb wandered over to the “Call” button. She didn’t quite understand what it was about tapping the button that made her so nervous. After a short internal fight with herself, the kind one sometimes feels when doing something that feels a bit nerve-wracking, she depressed the button and the dial tone began to ring out.
The other end picked up quickly. Oddly quickly.
“Hello, Alicia” sounded a smooth and joyous sounding voice from the other end. The soft and sonorous tone catapulted Alicia to the night before. It sent waves of curiosity and a rush of excitement through her entire body.
“Woah” She thought.
“Ahem” Alicia cleared her throat, trying to shake off the tingly feeling of her nerves off her skin ”I think I have something that belongs to you.”
“Yes, very good. I’ve been looking for it.” came the slow and deliberate reply from the other end of the phone. “You’re still wearing it I hope?”
Alicia paused, mouth slightly agape in the realization. Looking down to her free hand, the ring shone back at her, still glaring at her in a way that felt oddly right and comfortable. It was like not being alone—something tantalizing about feeling its presence. She almost didn’t want to give it back.
“Yes, I suppose I am.” Alicia stuttered, feeling the nervous tingle of excitement pass up her neck, through her head and into her forehead. What was this sensation?! It was so moreish but unfamiliar, she thought, a unique feeling; she had never had this kind of reaction to someone before. It coursed and waved through her every time Alicia spoke to Jaeger, and every time Jaeger answered. It was scintillating, and very strange.
“Very good. I’ll be right down.” whispered the intoxicating voice. Jaeger hung up the phone, leaving Alicia in only the company of her ring. She had so many questions, and she would not leave any of them to interpretation. Whatever happened last night, she was determined to know, and it filled her with a rush of excitement to know that Jaeger was coming to see her. Her eyes fluttered and she reached out a hand to steady herself against her desk. She couldn’t still be drunk, could she? Everything felt very loose and undefined again, almost like the murk of the night before was penetrating her present.
Fascinating.
Feeling self-conscious, she came back to herself and rushed to dress, in anticipation of Jaeger’s arrival. She didn’t know how long she had to compose herself before her visitor would arrive. Rushing to the kitchen to make a fresh cup of hot coffee, Alicia prayed that it would help her to get a grip. She needed something to steady her, to sober her up—she believed—something to help her come back to herself and push the queasy murk to the back of her mind and let her talk to Jaeger with clarity, without these washes of nerves and prickly blushes clouding her. She would satiate her thirst for understanding, she would make sure of that.
Determined, she took her coffee back up to her room and patiently anticipated the buzzing of the tannoy which would signal Jaeger’s arrival. Trying to calm herself, Alicia envisaged letting her guest in, waving her up to the bedroom and locking the door behind her. The visualization calmed her, knowing it would make the real thing feel less daunting. She would invite the girl to sit at the desk, and She would sit on the bed. They would talk about the night before and Alicia would get her answers—if Jaeger remembered.
Christ, what if she didn’t?! They had been together in the same space so recently, but Jaeger had slipped away into the night at some point. Had they… slept together? How did the night end? Alicia was overcome with her burning desire to know, and to know Jaeger.
The seconds and minutes ticked by while Alicia finished her steaming mug, the liquid inside giving her the feeling of control, of awareness, of clarity.
Towards the end of a moment of lapse, she noticed that she was playing with the ring—rotating it slowly as it rested on her ring finger. She studied it again, its tiny etchings and markings captivating her. It looked truly lovely sitting there on her finger. It would be a shame to return it to its owner. Despite only having held it for what felt like a few moments, it impressed on her. It felt good to wear it, to feel the slight weight of it on her hand, to see its subtle gleaming in the light of day.
The intercom by her door buzzed frantically, breaking her away from her fixation. All semblance of composure Alicia imagined she had, vanished in an instant. It could only mean that Jaeger was here.
Leaning on the wall to help her stay upright, she answered the intercom.
“It’s me, Alicia”
The silky voice invaded Alicia’s head and sent her spiraling again. The anticipation of encountering Jaeger again was doing inexplicable things to her head. Still dizzy from the brief intercom call, Alicia rounded the corner in the hallway from her dorm room and caught sight of the girl, peeping in through the narrow window that separated her hall from the outside.
Her eyes were incandescent, gazing into the hallway they were impossible to ignore. They seemed impossibly bright, a shining emerald green and strikingly shiny, like how a full moon penetrates a pitch black night.
For an instant, Alicia felt fear.
Taking a short breath in, she reached for the handle and opened the door.