The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: keychain

  • The Night Chats

    The night chats were announced with a key and a location. No words were ever exchanged. No maps were ever printed. There’s no painted sign hanging over the door or bunting strung to draw attention. There was just a new place in the shadows where one did not exist before.

    Lani entered at the arranged time, through a doorway at the back of the day market. The air still smelled of spices and dyes and dung in the fading light. The aroma of trade.

    The pushers met her first on the other side of the door, while her eyes and her skin adjusted to the cool air.

    “Hey. Hey you. You wanna sleep?”
    “Hey, wanna dream?”
    “Nightmares! Quality nightmares here!”

    She brushed past them with their somni-pills and their potions. Their oily promises left a residue on her skin. (more…)

  • Lunar Trials (A Witch’s Daughter #1)

    When I went to unlock my front door one day, I noticed a glowing key on my key ring that hadn’t been there before. I had to pee and my phone was ringing, so I ignored it at first, then forgot about it.

    When I remembered the next day, I checked my key ring, ready to contemplate what it was for. But it wasn’t there.

    “Wacky imagination,” I muttered to myself.

    But I hadn’t imagined it, because a month later—on the day of the next full moon, to be exact—it was back.

    “Hello, key. Nice to see you again.” I held it up and examined it. “What do you go to?”

    The key, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer.

    My natural inclination was to procrastinate. Why do today what you can put off for tomorrow? And as I wasn’t presented with any unfamiliar doors with magical locks, it seemed easiest to not bother with it.

    But knowing it would be gone the next day added an intriguing layer of immediacy. I was curious. I was in possession of a key that would disappear the next day.

    So I wandered around with, my hand outstretched, as I made my way through my daily routine.

    There were no unusual doors in my apartment, on my walk to the bus stop, and certainly not on the bus. I ended up putting the key back in my pocket after several strange looks and a startled flinch from the bus driver.

    The bus arrived at the college campus where I worked and got off on my usual stop. I pulled the key back out and squinted at it. It didn’t appear to be any brighter or pulling me any specific direction.

    “Seriously, key. What am I supposed to do with you?” (more…)

  • Hope Chest

    The key hadn’t been on Georgia’s ring yesterday, but she found it there now. She held it up to be sure she recognized it—the antique brass key to her cedar hope chest. Lost for years. But how did it get on her ring?

    She narrowed her eyes, suspecting the orderlies. The staff at Pine Acres Independent Living were helpful, tidy, and efficient. They seemed to organize while Georgia wasn’t looking. Like the Brownies of folklore. Though they were sometimes so quick about it that her crossword books got re-shelved before she’d finished all the puzzles.

    No matter. Having the key back was a gift, even if an orderly had entered without knocking. She stood, mindfully as the occupational therapist had instructed, to reopen the box of whatever wedding gifts remained unused after 57 years.

    She opened the narrow linen closet door and lifted her heirloom quilt from the chest’s lid. She brushed about six years’ worth of dust from it—six years since she and Benjamin had moved in here together. Four years by herself. But they key had been gone long before they’d come to Pine Acres. She fitted it into the lock and turned. The antique mechanism clicked and Georgia lifted the lid. (more…)