One morning Nanny is suffering from a fit of vapors, so Elphie is roped in to help Nessa dress for lessons. In pawing about Nessa’s small sisal sack of private items, looking for a brush to scrape through Nessa’s hair, Elphie spies a glint of something at the bottom of the bag. She pulls it out.
“What are you doing with this?” she demands of her sister, holding it up. A ring of dull brass.
“Oh, it was Mama’s,” says Nessa. “A wedding band, maybe.”
“How do you come by it?”
“I am not sure. I think Nanny told me Mama took it off the night she was delivering Shell. In fact I’m sure of it. I was there. I remember. Her fingers were swollen and it hurt.”
“Why are you keeping it?”
“Don’t look at me like a hyena at a banquet. I’m keeping it because I want it.”
“That’s no answer.” Elphie was full of rage for reasons she couldn’t name. “Why should you have it? You have no fingers to put it upon.”
“Maybe that’s exactly why I should have it,” Nessa lashes back. But she softens. “When Nanny was finally able to tug it off, I saw the mark it left on Mama’s finger.”
“So? What mark?”
“Elphie,” says Nessa, “it left a green ring on her finger. Her skin was green underneath the brass. It makes me feel closer to you to have it.”
“You are such a liar.” Yet this is classic repartee; Elphie doesn’t know if she believes Nessa or not. “You still think you’re going to grow arms?”
“If I do, and if I get fingers, one part of me can turn green, and we can be better sisters.”
“Huh.” Elphie is stumped by that. “Fat chance,” she says at last. Then: “And how really does it come to be in your possession instead of Nanny’s?”
“How do you think?” says Nessa, retreating from the mistake of sisterliness. “I hexed it there. You taught me all about hexing, didn’t you? And you don’t even remember.” A wreath of winking lies and feints in her expression. “Put it back, now, before I get to work and give you some trouble you won’t appreciate.”
Elphie does as she is told. Her hand is shaking as their mother’s ring drops into the darkness.