Herkimer Diamond

Hold one up to a window. Every face throws the light straight back, and nobody cut a single one of them. They grew like that, floating loose in a pocket of rock.

It is quartz. Not a diamond, and only the ones from Herkimer County in New York can honestly carry that name.

Aries, you never learned how to be attached to anything without losing the shape of yourself.

You were praised for how quickly you picked things up, long before anybody praised you for sticking at one. So quick became the thing you were for.

Now anything that takes a slow year feels like proof you chose wrong. You have quit two things that were about to work.

This grew slowly, in the dark, and finished itself at both ends.

Big, clear and cheap means somebody lied about geography. The same double-pointed quartz comes out of Pakistan, China and Mexico and gets sold under the Herkimer name.

The real ones grew in pockets in half-billion-year-old seabed rock in one county in upstate New York. They are usually small.

Taurus, you stopped trusting a bargain, and somebody taught you that lesson properly.

You bought a story once and found out later what it actually was. You did not make noise about it. You went quiet and raised the price of your trust.

Now the good ones queue outside for months, and one or two of them stopped queuing.

Check both points. Then decide whether you care.

Half a billion years ago this was a seabed. Silica-rich water crept into pockets in the rock and grew quartz that hung loose in the cavity, so both ends came to a point.

It is quartz, not diamond. The name is local, and only Herkimer County in New York can use it honestly.

Gemini, you have both ends finished and nothing holding you, and some nights that is not freedom.

You worked out early that being quick kept people in the room, and that the plain version made them look at their phone. So plainness started to feel like losing.

Somebody asked what you have been thinking about and you gave them a clever tour. The honest answer was one worried sentence.

People keep these by the bed for dreams. Yours have been loud.

Strip the name off and it is quartz. Ordinary silica, grown loose in a pocket so that it finished at both ends instead of one.

The word diamond is marketing and the word Herkimer is geography. Identical crystals from Pakistan and China wear the name anyway.

Cancer, you finished yourself off without help and nobody has noticed that you did it alone.

There was somebody in your house whose mood set the weather, and you learned the forecast before you learned much else. Being ahead of it kept things calm.

You still walk into a house and know within seconds who is upset. You have never told anybody that you do it.

Put it by the bed. Say nothing for a bit.

It is tough for its size and it polishes itself, but plenty of them hold a drop of ancient water sealed inside. Heat one, or drop it in an ultrasonic cleaner, and it can burst.

It is quartz, and only the New York ones own the Herkimer name. The big cheap ones came from somewhere else entirely.

Leo, you never needed anybody to finish you, and there is still a drop of something old sealed in there.

Being the warm one bought your place at some table when you were small, so you kept paying, and nobody ever mentioned the debt was cleared.

By closing time you know how everyone else is doing. There is water sealed inside this thing that nobody can see either.

Do not put it near heat.

Look at both ends under a lamp. A true one is finished at both points with no scar where it was attached, because it grew hanging free in a cavity.

That is the test the sellers hope you skip, along with the county. Only Herkimer County, New York, and it is quartz, not diamond.

Virgo, you finished yourself without help and you still act like you are waiting for approval.

You were the careful one before you chose to be. Careful children get trusted with more work and asked fewer questions.

So you check the small things twice, and the one big unfixable thing stays exactly where it is, quietly getting older.

Both ends. No scar. That is the whole check.

A seabed became dolomite rock, and roughly half a billion years later the crystals grown in its pockets are still perfect at both ends.

It is quartz, and the name is honest in only one county in upstate New York. The lookalikes from Pakistan and China are the same mineral with a borrowed address.

Libra, you have been finished and presentable from both sides so long that nobody checks in.

One wrong sentence at a table when you were young changed a whole evening for everybody. You decided you would never be the person who did that again.

So you answer in a way that cannot start anything, and by now you do not know what you would have said.

Say it anyway. Badly is fine.

Traders take double-pointed quartz out of Pakistan, China and Mexico and sell it as Herkimer. The crystal is the same. The name is the lie.

The true ones grew loose in pockets in old New York seabed rock, and they are quartz, never diamond.

Scorpio, nobody cut you, and you have spent years trying to look like they did.

You were being honest and you were young, and you watched a room cool by several degrees. After that you kept the whole one at home and sent a lighter one out.

Everybody gets on with the lighter one. You are the only person alive who knows she is an edited copy.

This crystal is finished at both ends. Nothing about it was trimmed.

Call it what it is. Quartz, hard enough to scratch glass, grown loose in a rock pocket so it came to a point at both ends.

Diamond is a nickname it picked up locally. Herkimer County in New York is the only address that earns the full name.

Sagittarius, you have never been attached at either end and you call that freedom on the good days.

Somebody promised you something enormous when you were a kid and then did not turn up. You decided the way never to be let down again was to keep moving.

It has taken you to places most people only read about. You also leave first every time. You have never once let it be the other way round.

If it holds fluid inside, keep it away from heat.

It is hard enough to scratch glass and it arrives polished by nothing except growth. What it cannot take is sudden heat, because some of them hold ancient water inside.

It is quartz. Only Herkimer County in New York owns that name, whatever the label on a big cheap one says.

Capricorn, nobody shaped you, and a small part of you still wishes somebody had bothered.

Somebody made you the responsible one when you were far too young for it, and then everybody else relaxed. You have been holding that post ever since.

Rest gets logged as waste. So do the years you spent keeping people upright, because there is nothing at the end of them to show anybody.

Nobody watched these grow either. Both ends came out finished.

Turn one slowly between two fingers. Every face is flat and bright and none of them were cut, because it grew hanging in a pocket instead of on a wall.

It is quartz. The Herkimer name belongs to one county in New York, and the identical ones from Pakistan borrowed it.

Aquarius, you grew up attached to nothing and you call that freedom on your good days.

You were the odd one somewhere early, and you handled it by stepping half a pace out and studying the room instead of being in it.

That worked, so it became permanent. You can name what is wrong in anybody's house. You cannot name one thing wrong in yours.

It grew with no wall to lean on. It still finished at both ends.

Silica-rich water crept into pockets in a seabed roughly half a billion years old. The crystals grew hanging free, which is why both ends came to a point.

They are quartz, and people keep them by the bed for dreams. The name truly belongs to only one county in New York.

Pisces, nobody cut you into this shape, and you still apologise for the way you turned out.

Everything anybody near you is feeling arrives whole, and it always has, and as a child you assumed everyone lived like that.

Nobody corrected you, so you never learned where you stop. Your head goes loudest at exactly the hour you need it quiet.

What does your mind do the second you stop watching it?