Red beads bracelet

Another story created on one of the prompts.

I saw the box in the corner and the red beads bracelet with a little metal hook. The old woman saw the curiosity in my eyes. "Do you want it?" she asked, taking it out of the box and placing it in my hands. "The family across the road  were vacating and they left a dresser for the garage sale. I found this in one of the drawers."

For a moment I had goose bumps. Weren't those the beads I had given to Rani,  my seven-year-old playmate,  when she moved out of Delhi. She loved the red color and the smooth shining texture of the beads. She would borrow it when we enacted the little skit, "Lal Pari" and it was her turn to play the Pari.

Rani had promised to write a letter to me once a week when she left. The yellow postcards with barely legible scribbles came regularly for the first couple of months, then the frequency decreased and slowly the letters stopped completely. I continued writing but got no replies. Though I missed her terribly I was lucky to find new friends. But no one played the same games with me anymore. No one wanted to jump over the gate or walk on the pile of pipes lying in the vacant ground or enact stories made-up  in flat five minutes. "Who wants to decorate an ugly tall cactus plant on Christmas", I was told. But my argument that this is the one we have decorated for the last two years fell on deaf years.  

The red beads had brought back my childhood and my friend whom I had loved so dearly. But look at fate, she lived across the road, in the same neighbourhood, and I had never met her. Perhaps, met her but did not recognize her.

I put a hundred rupee note in the old woman's hand. "If anyone comes to claim it send that person to me. I live in the last house down this lane."

The sun was setting behind me as I walked away with the red beads bracelet in my hand and a little hope in my heart.