"Right this way, ma'am," the bellhop says, hoisting one of her Louis Vuitton bags a bit higher on his shoulder. She stifles the urge to brush away the honorific, because she's tired, and she'd rather just climb into her warm, cozy bed instead of have this argument for the seventy-sixth time. Anyway, she sighs internally, the bags under her eyes probably do make her look older than her sprightly thirty-eight years.
Shopping in Chicago is more robust than she'd initially given credit, and as her guide escorts her into her Deluxe room at the Peninsula, she sinks down onto the small settee and finally begins to relax. Her feet are raw and sore, and her entire body aches. The bellhop sets her bags on a bench in the closet, points out the bathtub and the room service menu, and makes a graceful exit with a hefty tip in his pocket.
A hot meal and a hotter bath do wonders for her, and she falls into a restful sleep with Charlie Rose's gentle monotone as a lullaby. Morning breaks, and with a hot cup of coffee in hand, she prepares for the day ahead. She picks a fairly conservative outfit - black cashmere crewneck, olive tweed blazer, and simple jeans - so as to blend in with the mostly-college crowd. She slips her ticket into a pocket, followed by her press pass as insurance, and rummages through a mound of luggage to find her most comfortable flats and-
A slim velvet box meets her palm, and she sighs. In relief or pain, even she's not quite sure, but she grabs it anyway and sets it gently on the vanity. Two pairs of identical eyes meet in the mirror, and they stare for a while until they both turn away. Her eyes fall to the marble, and ever-so-cautiously she levers open the case. On a bed of plush silk lies the only piece of jewelry MacKenzie Morgan McHale has ever cared enough to lock up. She bought a safe, before she left; carted it to her parents' house and asked them to please put the necklace inside it and keep it in her old room until she came back home.
She couldn't take it with her, even though she knew she'd miss it. And, though the foolish, teenage portion of her brain (you know the one, that even though you're grown and mature, it doesn't go away) warned her that she needed it to protect her - needed him to protect her - she didn't listen. But she couldn't get rid of it herself. So she made her parents do it for her; let them have one more chance to protect their little girl.
Her stomach cramps slightly, and she twists away from the pain. Sometimes she can still feel the steel against her flesh, biting and scraping against her most vulnerable parts. She wonders sometimes if the necklace would've warded off that evil, but shoos away the suggestion as frivolous nonsense.
She's read up on the Griffon. She knows that, in heraldry, the griffin represents courage, leadership, and military strength. She also knows that griffins are known for guarding treasure, and are sometimes symbols of the divine. She closes her eyes tightly, as if to block the most painful fact from surfacing - griffins mate for life.
The delicate, barely-there coins jingle slightly as she lifts them from the case. She pulls the chain around her neck in a manner some might gird themselves for battle. She looks herself dead in the eye as she struggles to fasten the lobster claw, but she finally hooks it, and the necklace drapes across her collarbone. With a shaky hand, she reaches up to touch it, thumb and forefinger rubbing against the gold in disbelief.
Suddenly, she yanks out the neck of her sweater, tucking the ornament roughly underneath. She can't bear to look at it; that glinting reminder of what she once had. But as it nestles, cooly, against her bare skin, she settles. Breathes more easily. She sits back against her chair and is calm. She gathers her things - purse, coat, leather portfolio - and goes down to eat breakfast and catch a cab to Evanston.
"Alright, Billy," she murmurs as she walks into the Northwestern auditorium. "It's time for Don Quixote."