Once there was a girl with a dragon necklace.

She was idly playing with it - a small silver pendant on a leather cord - while visiting by a village campfire, tucked in
the jungles of Suriname. As she and her new friends laughed and told stories late into the night, the necklace caught the firelight and twinkled. One of the toddling children, cuddled on the girl's lap, reached up to touch it, and the owner obligingly took it off and dangled it above the sleepy head. "Pretty trinket," agreed one of the young men, white teeth flashing. The village girl sitting next to him gave him a push. "Was that a gift to you from some special friend?" she asked pointedly, pulling on a beaded necklace of her own. "No, no," smiled the outsider, "I just found it in a box of beads and jewelry once, and I liked it." Except for the little one on her lap, still intent on the twisted metal shape, everyone looked a little disappointed.

"No story?" The girl shook her head apologetically. "That's all. It suits me." And so it did, as she sat cross-legged on the ground, in a black tshirt and worn brown cargoes. The toddler lost interest as he drowsed off, and she carefully refastened the cord around her neck. "Although...." she said slowly, and the group shifted curiously. "Yes?" came the question from two or three dusky faces. She looked up absently at the scattered stars. "I do have a small story... I lost this once." The cluster shifted to more comfortable positions in anticipation, some leaning on logs, some against each other, as she traced thoughts from before into a story between the faroff old days and the warm evening there in the rainforest.

"A few years ago, I moved North, taking the dragon with me. I found a cord for it in a market there, and wore it everywhere. And I wore it when I came back to the South to visit. I--" her voice caught a little. "I knew I would move back to the South eventually. And that scared me."

One of the village girls patted her shoulder quietly. "I have never moved," she offered carefully, "but it seems a hard thing." The outsider nodded gratefully. "It is a hard thing, even when it is a good thing. I knew God was with me, and to see my family and friends was special. But it was hard, to think of returning. I spent a lot of evenings at my sister's house, finding comfort." The heads around the circle nodded in understanding. They knew very well the strength of family- life in the culture often centred around it. To be family was to be bound together within and across communities. But the understanding turned to concern as the storyteller from a different land went on.

"It was at her house that that I lost my necklace, the night before I returned North. I missed it around my neck. When I wrote to her, she asked if she should send to me." "There's a good sister for you," came an approving voice. "That she is. But I told her to wait, to hold onto it for me, to give it to me when I returned." The one village girl stopped playing with her beads and made a confused face. "But wasn't it a long while till you came back?"

"Yes... nearly a year..." Raised eyebrows seemed to imply that she must not hold her pendant in high value, to leave it so far away for so long. "There were still days I wished I had it, to be sure. But..." her voice grew soft. "It made me feel better, knowing in some way it was waiting for me at her house. If I believed in magic, I might say it was watching over her, but only God can do that. Instead, it was a small reminder to me that it- and my sister - would be there when I moved to the South again. That I would have them, familiar, and precious to me, when other things might be strange, and unwelcoming."

She touched her dragon necklace as it lay comfortably in the hollow of her collarbones. "And now I wear it here, where a small child can play with it, and where I can share my stories with you, my friends."