I read a book in the late 1970s (or maybe early 1980s?) whose title I don't remember, and I wonder if anyone can help me to identify it.
It was a children's book, with no internal art. The plot was like this: A young girl finds an old diary that her aunt had kept when SHE had been a young girl. The aunt, at the time she had written the diary, was superstitious, paranoid, and high-strung. She believed that her ring was cursed, and that it could do evil magic. Whenever something bad happened, the aunt believed that the ring was responsible. The aunt was afraid to go out at night, for fear of what the ring might do. (I'm sure I'm getting the details wrong, but it was something like that.)
The niece, now reading the diary, believes in the curse, and happens to get hold of the ring. She talks to her aunt, who has no memory of the ring, nor of what she had written in the diary. When the niece brings up the subject of the curse, the aunt has no idea what the niece is talking about. Clearly, the aunt no longer believes in magic.
The niece, over the course of the book, happens to meet some old man who has a pet bird. For some reason (perhaps because she's determined to know the truth about the curse?) the niece commands the ring to kill the bird at midnight. She immediately regrets this, and freaks out all night. Finally, unable to stand the suspense any longer, she visits the old man... and finds that the bird is fine. The whole curse was just a product of the aunt's imagination.
Any ideas?
Bump.
Another bump.
Sorry never heard of it.
***nm thinking of something else
closest my google fu could come up with...
The Pendragon Legacy by Joanna Challis
The Puzzle Ring by Kate Forsythe
That's what I thought as well, Dingo. At least some modern take on it.
Nope, none of those. But thanks for trying.