I want to tell you about something that happened a while ago that changed my life.
My name is Mary and I am an engineer for a small environmental engineering company in New England. I am 26 years old and live with my best friend Julia Cho in a condo near the beach on Cape Cod. My work for the environmental company takes me all over New England and I get to see many different things.
On one trip I was in a small coastal Maine town taking soil samples from a trench that a construction company had dug. They were installing a new water pipe and had dug into an old oil tank and the foreman thought the ground was contaminated so my company was called to investigate.
As I was bent over in the trench digging out a sample I saw something sparkle in the dirt. I brushed the soil away and found a large ring. It looked like steel or iron, but it wasn’t rusted at all.
Just then my phone rang. Distracted by the phone conversation I dropped the ring into the pocket of my jacket and forgot about it.
I completed my samples, packaged them up and got in my Land Rover for the long ride back home. I had spent the last few days in a cheap hotel room and was looking forward to hot bath and sleeping in my own bed tonight.
Four hours late I finally pulled into my parking spot. Tired and cranky form the long ride and the traffic. I climbed the stairs up to the front door and dragged my self inside. The place was dark, Julia wasn’t home yet. Going straight to the bathroom I turned on the tub and let it fill with hot water. I went to the kitchen, got a glass of wine and grabbed some cheese and crackers. On the way back I stopped in the living room and grabbed a book that I’ve been meaning to read for a month and haven’t had time to even look at.
I went into the bathroom, stripped off my jacket and clothes and settled into the hot water. It felt wonderful. After a few sips of wine I opened my book, nibbled on a cracker and started to really relax.
My relaxation was disturbed about ten seconds later by an cheery electronic “Beep be de beep be de beep ba beep!” My cell phone, it was in my jacket pocket, which was sitting 2 feet away on the sink. I sat there and seriously considered flushing the damn thing down the toilet. I wasn’t going to answer but then my mind started thinking that it might be important, or better yet it might be Anthony, the guy at the office I have been shamelessly flirting with for months.
I reached for the jacket and pulled it off and fumbled around in the pockets trying to locate the phone, as I did I heard a metallic “Ting” as something hit the floor. I couldn’t see what it was and just then my fingers found the phone and I yanked it out. I looked at the screen, it was Julia. I flipped it open.
“Hi. Are you back yet?” She asked in her perpetually bubbly, happy sounding voice.
It seems like Julia is always happy and cheery. She had a perpetual smile on her pretty Asian face. Julia is of Chinese descent. Her mother and father immigrated to the USA before she was born and worked in the vineyards of the California. Julia grew up there and moved to Boston to attended college. We were roommates freshman year and have been best friends ever since.
“Yeah, I just got in, I’m soaking in the tub, trying to relax.” I said, putting a little emphasis on ‘trying‘.
“Cool, well I’ll be home in about an hour, want me to pick up something to eat? How about a pizza?”
“That sounds good, I should be pretty waterlogged by then.”
“Great see ya in a little while” and she hung up.
As I reached over to put the phone back on the sink stand I caught sight of what had fallen on the floor. It was that ring I had picked up. I scooped it up and looked at it more closely. Most of the dirt had been brushed off while it was in my pocket and I could now see it better. It definitely wasn’t gold or even silver. More like steel but it wasn’t rusted so maybe it was nickel. It also wasn’t smooth like modern jewelry, it was a little rough like something made by a blacksmith. It was pretty big too, definitely a man’s ring not a woman’s. It really didn’t even look like jewelry, it was too big even for a man’s ring. Maybe something some farmer dropped or… who knew? Could have been anything.
Purely because it seemed the thing to do I slipped it onto the thumb of my right hand. I was way too big, I could have fit both my thumbs into it. I was just about to pull it off and toss it in the trash when to my shock, it shrank down and fitted itself to my thumb. Scarred I tried to yank it off but it wouldn’t come off, it was stuck tight. I yanked and pulled at it but all I was doing was hurting myself.
Seriously freaked out and shaking a little form the shock I tried to clam myself, OK, what do I do? How do I get this off? Slide it off? How? Hand cream! I’ll use some cream, then I can slip it off.
I jumped out of the tub, splashing water all over the bathroom and made a lunge for the cabinet. As I pulled open the cabinet door I realized suddenly that the ring was getting hot… very, very hot. It hurt! It was burning, I looked at it and it was glowing with a dull red color.
Panicked I stuck my hand into the tub to cool it, it didn’t help, it was getting even hotter. My whole arm was getting hot. It felt like I was slowly stepping under a scalding hot shower. I screamed and collapsed on the floor.
Suddenly it all stopped and I felt normal. There was no sense that anything had happened, no pain, no marks, nothing.
“What the hell was that!” I said to the empty room, not expecting an answer. I got one anyway.
That was the start of The Bond. If you are ready we will now complete The Bond.
said a feminine voice from somewhere.
“Who the hell said that!” I said to the empty room as I looked around wildly.
I did
. Came the voice.
I realized then that the voice wasn’t really spoken, it was in my head. “And who the hell are you, where are you?!”
