Flori Alexandris' Pendant: Object Post 61
Source? Her childhood friend Tally made it as a token
called a come-to-me
Significance? It was the only tangible
proof Flori had of Tally’s existence
Fate? Flori still wears it
Author’s inspiration? I needed
something a child could have made that would last a long time
Appeared in? Floribunda
and the Best Men
“…my
mother said Tally was my imaginary friend.”
“Is that possible?”
“I’d
wonder, if not for one thing. She gave me this.” Flori fished a pendant out of
her cleavage where it usually nestled out of sight and showed Pen the carved
wooden disc.
When Flori
was a little girl, she used to play with a child she knew as Tally Beech. When
they parted, Tally made a pendant as a gift for Flori. As an adult, Flori made
several attempts to find Tally, but she didn’t show up in any easily accessible
records.
When she learned her new friend Pen’s fiancĂ©
Duffy Inkersoll specialised in finding people, she asked if Duffy might find
Tally. This is loosely arranged for after Pen and Duffy’s honeymoon, but at
their wedding Flori met two men: Gervais and Hamish. Hamish noticed the pendant
first.
“What’s
this, lassie?” He ran his fingers down the chain she wore around her neck.
“My pendant.”
Gervais has a look as well.
Gervais came up and took hold of
Flori’s pendant, turning it to the light. “I’ve seen this before, or something
like it. Where did you come by it?”
“A
friend gave it to me a long time ago.”
“I
thought you didn’t know any fairies other than us
and the rest of the wedding party?”
“I
don’t.”
Hamish responded;
“It’s
beech clan work by the look of it. A beech gift is for life.”
“My
friend made it herself. I saw her do it.”
“She
was a fairy then. This is one of the traditional patterns, though I don’t know
what it means. You were special to her.”
With the men’s help, Flori met the beechmaster,
Moss, who, having ascertained she meant no harm to his young relative, told her
it was a come-to-me, meant as a
little trinket to be sure the childhood friends met again.
She put the chain back over her head,
letting the wooden charm lie visibly on her bodice. “Tally Beech?” She called
three times, but there was no response.
Nevertheless, Flori and Tally did meet again and
Tally, though married to a leprechaun and the mother of four children, was just
as joyous as Flori remembered her.
A
woman peeped round the door under the leprechaun man’s arm. She looked across
the green, uttered a squeal, and raced over, fleet-footed and laughing under a
tumble of brown hair. “Flori!” She flung her arms around Flori and got on
tiptoe to kiss her cheek. “My Flori!” She beamed around to her husband who was
sauntering after her. “This is my Flori. The one folk said I’d wished up in my
head. See? She’s wearing the come-to-me I gave her.”
“I
always wear it.” Flori bent to hug Tally back. “I’m so happy to see you again.
It’s been so long I thought you would have forgotten me.”
“Never.”
Tally Beech danced a few steps away and
reached out her hand to Flori. “Tread the leaves with me, Flori!”
Flori closed her eyes and remembered. The
old magic came back, and she took Tally’s
hand.
Flori, Tally and the pendant appear in Floribunda and the Best Men (2017)
ABOUT THE BLOG
Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)
The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!
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