Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Of course, it wasn’t like every relative I had was deceased. My mom was probably still around but I had been estranged from her for years. She would be in her late sixties now. I supposed I could try to reach out…but then I remembered all the horrible things she’d said to me. The way she wouldn’t believe me about Duke, my stepfather when I tried to tell her what he was trying to do to me…
I pushed that thought out of my mind fast. Even thirty years after the fact, it didn’t bear thinking of.
Craig’s parents had become my family when we started dating in college. They had welcomed me like a daughter and I had loved them dearly. Unfortunately, both of them had passed in the last ten years of our marriage and they didn’t have any other children—Craig had been an only child.
So I really was alone in the world. Remembering that made me want to roll over and go back to sleep.
Instead, I forced myself out of bed and into the shower. I washed and dried my hair and I even slapped on a little make-up. I thought about getting dressed and going outside for a walk, but it was past eleven by then—too damn hot.
As I said, I live in Florida where it’s pretty much miserable outside from May to October. I spend six whole months of the year scurrying from the car to the house or from the car to the grocery store—running from one air-conditioned spot to another. Anything to avoid the nasty, sticky heat that makes you feel like you’re being broiled alive under the glaring sunlight that’s always beaming down like a heat-ray.
When you were little, you could wish for a cloud to cover the sun and it would, whispered a little voice in my head.
I shook my head, frowning—where had that come from?
It’s true, whispered the voice. Remember Rebecca Hurly and the crayons? What about Dennis Stevens and his teeth? What about the crow with the crooked neck? Or the flower that never wilted?
My frown deepened. Why was I suddenly having these half-formed memories from a childhood I had done my best to forget? I pushed them away and pulled on a fresh nightshirt and a robe as well as my little ballet-type slippers that Craig always bought me. Then I went downstairs to make a cup of coffee.
As I drank it, I looked at the envelope again. The beautiful handwriting spelling out my name still looked vaguely familiar—where had I seen it before?
I looked inside to take out the keys and that was when I saw that I’d missed something. Folded up very small in the bottom of the envelope was a tiny piece of paper.
I dug it out and unfolded it to see more of the gorgeous, flowing script. I frowned as I read it—it was some kind of rhyme.
Use the key to draw a door,
From the ceiling to the floor.
Open it and you will see,
Where you are supposed to be.
“Huh,” I said aloud and took another sip of coffee. What the hell was this supposed to mean? Was I really supposed to draw a door with the key? And if so, which key?
I looked down at the two keys in my hand and saw that the larger one—the one that looked like it might unlock the gates to a mansion—was glowing.
I nearly dropped it out of reflex—usually anything metal that’s glowing is red-hot. But I realized that this wasn’t the case. The large metal key with the ornate head was still quite cool to the touch. It was just…glowing.
Maybe that’s the answer to your question, whispered that little voice in my head. Maybe that’s the key you’re supposed to use to draw the door.
It felt like a part of me—like a voice from my past that had just woken up for some reason. The question was, should I listen to it?
I looked at the glowing key in my hand again. It was either try drawing a door to see what happened…or crack open my laptop and start applying for jobs I knew I wasn’t qualified for.
No contest.
I put the chain with the smaller key around my neck and it settled between my breasts. Then I went to the wall closest to my dining room table with the larger key in my hand. Hmm…the poem had said I should draw from the ceiling to the floor but I couldn’t reach that high. Should I get a chair?
I did that, pushing the chair I had been sitting on right up to the wall. I dragged the head of the large key up from the baseboard—which needed to be dusted—up as far as I could. Then I climbed on the chair and continued drawing, extending the line all the way up to the ceiling.