Petra and the Pearl Necklace

[Stephanie Bendinelli]

A young girl named Petra once lived with her Grandmother in a small cottage by the sea. Petra had unruly white curls and a delicate frame. She was not like the other girls her age. Other girls in the small village would play together and stay up late into the night dancing and telling stories. When the sun would set each day, Petra would watch them from her bedroom window. Before long she would start to feel fatigued. She would go to bed before her grandmother, often before seven o’clock.
In the early hours of the morning, Petra would usually find a tiny white bead underneath her tongue. Amused and a little afraid of their beauty, she would hide them away in a locked box under her bed. After she had collected a few dozens of beads, she decided to make her grandmother a necklace. She would use a needle to poke a tiny hole in each bead and pull a sturdy string through each one. When her grandmother would ask her questions about her long absences, Petra would give vague and unconvincing reasons.
Before long, she began to worry. Instead of her granddaughter spending time in the sand like she normally did, she would shut herself in her bedroom for hours on end. When badgering Petra didn’t work, she turned to threatening her. She would take away supper for the night and sometimes breakfast in the morning. When starving her didn’t work, she resorted to spying. When Petra had fallen asleep for the evening, she took the pin and slid it into the locked door. She tweaked it up and down and too and fro and before long, she heard a small click. She slowly pushed the door open, careful not to wake her. Due to her hefty size, each step she took made a loud squeaking noise. Petra slept through each step. When she crept closer to Petra she noticed her face was even more pale than usual. Her lips were a light gray and her cheeks lost their rosy tint. Grandmother Mae started to search the room for anything suspicious. She searched the nightstand and the trunk at the bottom of the bed. She kneeled with a large thud and looked under the bed. At the far end of the bed, she saw a brown box. With quite a bit of scrambling and maneuvering, she grabbed the box. It was locked. After several unsuccessful minutes of trying to claw it open, she slid the box back under the bed and decided to try again the next night.
The next morning Petra woke up with a pink-tinted bead in her mouth. She smiled as she pulled out the box from under the bed and began to poke holes in the remaining amount of beads. When she finished, she could hardly contain her excitement. She wanted to give her grandmother the necklace that very day. She finished sliding the beads on the string and tied a knot at the end. She placed it in the box and put it under her bed. She hurried throughout the house looking for her grandmother to no avail. She stepped outside and decided to search the yard. While she was looking in the garden, Grandmother Mae came out from the closet she was hiding in. She scurried over to Petra’s bedroom and grabbed the box from under the bed. Scurrying over to the closet, she began to knock the hinges off the box with the hammer. The box cracked open in seconds. Her eyes widened at the beauty before her. She picked up the glowing necklace and slid her fingers across each bead’s smooth texture. Her thoughts turned cold. How could my own granddaughter keep such beauty from me? She stuffed the necklace in her apron pocket. She listened for Petra’s footsteps before she scrambled out of the closet. She peeped out the window and saw her walking on the sand. She started to run out towards the woods, dreaming of a better life.
Petra saw her right away and began to run after her until she noticed a shimmering object hanging out of her apron pocket. When she looked closer she realized the object was the necklace. Not believing what she had just witnessed she ran into the house and into her bedroom. The box was nowhere to be found. She noticed the closet near her room was open. When she looked inside she discovered the shattered and empty box. She crumbled onto the floor. She picked the box up to throw it and discovered a note underneath it. The note said:
Petra,
I have decided to sell the necklace and collect my fortune. It is unfortunate you decided to keep this gift from your only living relative. I am ashamed of you.
–Grandmother Mae.
Petra’s eyes began to flood with tears. They began to fall onto the note. As the tears fell, they turned the note into white liquid. This white liquid formed into another bead. This bead was the largest of them all. She wiped her eyes and carried the bead outside. As she gazed at the sea she felt a fire she had never felt before. She did not feel weak or alone. Her sadness turned to anger and determination. She walked with resolve to the edge of the store. She tied the bead around her waist and started walking into the water. She continued to walk until the water swallowed her entire body. The weight of the bead held her down until her soul left her body and shattered into a million pieces. The pieces of her soul were scattered across the sea floor. These pieces of her soul began to grow. As they grew, they formed beautiful shells. These shells are now called clams, the makers of the beautiful beads we now call pearls.

[IceCool989]

It's a very nice story, but sad in the end because Petra commited suicide and not even told her grand mother that the pearl necklace that she made is gift for her. But I liked the flow of the story, unique.

[TheRavensWoods]

This is such a cool story! It sounds like the kind of legend or Grimm's Fairy Tale that our ancestors would have written in order to explain how clams and pearls were formed. I truly loved this story and I hope to hear more from you.