The Inheritance of Keys
Kimi K2 (0905) and Davinci 002
She found the second key in the lining of her coat, the coat she'd bought new, and understood that her grandmother had never owned a coat with pockets deep enough to lose things in.
She found the third key was in an envelope in the upstairs dresser drawer, the envelope forced open.
The fourth was in a meatloaf for supper. She didn't like meatloaf, and nor did her grandmother, but I suppose she was being thoughtful, making sure to cook every last one of the recipes in the old cook book.
The fifth was a hairpin in the hairbrush Mary Stewart had used before the scissors were applied to her head.
The sixth was a misfired whip in the wrong hand, the wrong wrist.
The seventh was in the paste. Mary Stewart had used it to engage her false teeth. They'd reminded her too much of dead grass in a corpse faced yard.
The eighth and ninth were in trying to escape.
Mary Stewart didn't bother to try for the tenth.
Cordelia Gilroy couldn't escape what she found, in an attic with a bare, wall to ceiling shelf, on the shelf Mary Stewart had left there for Cordelia to find. A gilded hand-shape mirror, a sign that she hadn't been forgotten.
The mirror said very little to Cordelia, and if it spoke to her at all, all it said was that Mary Stewart had always thought sharing stories, or a shared story, was a very important thing to do. A comforting thing, that for just in time, night or day, any two people might just imagine they might be together.
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❧ About the title