I had come home to a flat that seemed just that edge of cleaner than it did when I left. The scattering of crumbs and the everyday dirt had disappeared from the rug. I knew in an instant that Tom had hoovered. I beamed.

Later, I was startled by a strange glint on the floor near the wardrobe. I thought it was a bead or a button, but when I reached down, I saw it was bigger than the small glint. It was a pin stuck in the carpet. I reached down, expecting the pin to be so far embedded that it would be a struggle to remove. The pin moved like a snake, undulating when I touched it. I pulled back, then bravely reached down again. The light had changed, and I saw that the object was not button or bead or pin or snake, but a chain. The chain from my favourite necklace.

I picked it up, looking carefully to see that I didn’t drop the charm from the chain. But there was no charm to be found. I felt along the top of the wardrobe, where the necklace had been last I knew. I bent down on my knees to feel along the groove where the carpet met the wood of the closet. I put the chain in the jewellery box and filed the thought away for later. The chain had been stuck in the rug enough that a vacuum wouldn’t pull it out. The charm was lightweight and might not have been as lucky. Perhaps the charm was in the vacuum.

Days later, after an anxious couple of days dealing with whatever developments of our life had been nagging at us, I remembered to ask Tom. “Have you seen my fairy necklace? The charm seems to be missing. Do you think it went up the Hoover hose?” He didn’t think it had, but he admitted he might not have noticed. It would pay to look everywhere else before blaming the vacuum.

I put it off. I avoided hoovering and I kept watch for the small thin silver fairy with huge blue wings. I cleared off the top of the wardrobe. I looked anywhere else in the flat I thought it might be. I tipped the shoes on the floor to make sure it hadn’t accidentally fallen in one. I just didn’t find it.

Finally, I knew I could not put it off anymore. I needed to vacuum the flat. I needed to put the question to rest. If it wasn’t in the vacuum bag, I was going to have to accept its loss. It would be hard, but it would be no one’s fault but my own for not putting it safely away in the jewellery box.

I laid a garbage bag inside out on the floor. The vacuum was easy to disassemble, and it seemed fairly easy to put back together, a theory I would bear out when I was done. I found the box cutter; I thought about rubber gloves but didn’t get them out.

Before making a cut in the bag, I felt through the brown-papered walls to see if I could get any idea of a solid piece of thin metal. I thought I felt something, but decided I was deluding myself. The bag walls were thick and probably the only thing I could feel was a lump of dust inside.

The box cutter slid through the bag easily, without me putting much pressure. I sliced it from top to bottom, and pulled the sides apart. There was a lot of dust, a lot of dirt. It was a big ball of dust that had coagulated over time to become a mass in itself. It is amazing how much dirt the vacuum picks up and how much a small vacuum bag can hold. I wondered how long it had been since we changed the bag.

I also wondered how I was going to find anything in that solid mass of dirt. An insect flew up at me, and I pulled away. The air was slightly tinged with a cloud of dust. I swatted at the moth, and nearly groaned. “Ew. Is this worth it?” I toyed with the idea of leaving the mess and trying to find rubber gloves under the kitchen sink. Another moth flew up and back down, settling in the dirt ball. Then it made another tentative foray, made it to the edge of the bag, and crawled in between the outermost layer of the lining, and an inner layer. The insects were going to have me running away very soon if many more of them came out. These moths were probably sucked up into the machine as eggs, and hatched inside the bag, never to feel the fresh air until I did an autopsy on my vacuum, to find – against rational hope – something lost.

I moved the bottom of the box cutter through the dirt, pushing the clot of material to one side. The second moth fluttered a bit, reluctant to leave the safety of the only home it ever knew. The first moth had gone within seconds of my cut, and flew far and away.

My eyes diverted from the crawling moth, and I noticed that there was a paper clip at the bottom edge of the bag. On the left side, I noticed some solid pieces of rock or dirt. The solid things seemed to accumulate on the edges.

I looked then, swirling the box cutter in the thinner dirt near the top right corner. A wink of blue. Could it be? My heart leapt, I quickly reached in with tentative fingers. It was! My fairy. I was right. It was definitely worth it!

I ran to the sink, and washed my fingers and the fairy, keeping a tight grip in case the fairy had something against me and tried next to flow down the drain. I rinsed it and dried it carefully on the hand towel. I did the same for the box cutter. I dug through my jewellery box and found the chain. I was pretty proud of my deduction that the fairy was in the vacuum bag, and even more amazed that I was right and it all worked out so well. The chain had a knot in it, and I worked the metal until the chain was smooth. I slipped the fairy charm onto the chain, and closed the clasp. Safe again.

I had been anxious to get the fairy back because it was one of the first gifts Tom had ever given me, and it reminded me always of his love. Early in our relationahip, he had gone to Camden Market to find me a present, and saw a pair of fairy earrings. Either he couldn’t remember if I had my ears pierced, or he knew I didn’t wear earrings anymore, so he asked if he could get a necklace similar to the earring set. The guy took one of the earrings, and put the charm on a chain, creating a necklace. I assume someone out there has a similar necklace, or maybe just one earring.

I was more concerned than I might usually be for two reasons. The first was that we are moving from this flat soon, and if I didn’t find it now, it wouldn’t be likely I could find it in the future. But the other reason was that it is what I had first taken a picture of for my photojournal, Jam Jar. On August 1, 2002, I did Theme Thursday’s prompt for adornment. A year later, I took a new photo with the same necklace for my anniversary entry. This year will be an amazing two years at doing the daily photojournal.

Needless to say, I am very relieved to have it back on its chain and safe from the innards of the vacuum, ready to be the model for this year’s anniversary entry.

Of course, I now have no excuse not to use the vacuum.