Hound and Key by Rhiannon Held

Author:Rhiannon Held
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fairy tale, map, fable, key, breath, lantern, hound, oral tradition, hand of the gods
Publisher: Rhiannon Held

Chapter 18

They came upon a palace worthy of a tsar, built into a great mountain. Around the palace stood a fence of human bones. Atop each post was a skull, and the third searcher spoke to one. “You must open for us.” And when Key touched it, a gate of bones opened.

—Traditional folktale, first recorded late eighteenth century

Once they’d cleared the well-signed bend and swoop of I-5 through Portland, Eric made Key stop exploring his phone and leave the GPS to its work. They’d have to leave the freeway sometime before Salem, or at least that was his memory of the overview map when he’d inputted the address before setting off.

The hours had ground down his sharp impatience to find Laura, warn her, leaving it an aching distraction at the back of his mind. The miles blended together, mild traffic in the middle of a workday and no actual rain to slow anyone down. Outside of the city, it was all gray skies and alternating trees, malls, and light industrial parks. And car dealerships. Highly traveled areas were washed slightly blue, like those streams of movement were being seen in summer twilight away from modern lights.

Key hadn’t spoken much the whole way, but now he noticed her body language tightening up, arms crossed over her chest and shoulders angled down as if she wanted to curl up and didn’t realize it.

“It shouldn’t be that much longer now,” Eric said, breaking the silence layered over low music from the radio. She glanced toward him with a jerk. “We’ll warn Laura, and then we can plan how to get the samples when I don’t have to pay attention to the road.”

“I know.” Key nodded, but her body language didn’t ease. Clearly something more was bothering her. Was being out of the compound hitting her hard again? Probably time to switch the radio from music to some kind of program with words to focus on, but Eric automatically checked first. “You okay?” No point trying to fix the problem with distraction if it was the kind of thing that needed talking out.

“Yeah, fine.” Key straightened her shoulders pointedly. A beat of silence, filled with the soft rumble of classic rock, then— “I just . . .”

Something she did need to voice, then. He hoped actively listening would be enough, because God knew he didn’t have any wisdom to address his own problems, never mind anyone else’s. He let her gather her words without further prompting.

“I was thinking about whether Hound would be impressed by any of this, since he has those books of places all over the world, but of course he’s—you’re—kind of here, and I don’t know if I even actually miss him.”

Eric made a prompting noise this time. Clearly that last part was the key one.

“We weren’t ever close. You couldn’t be close to him; there was nothing there to be close to. But he was one of us, you know? I haven’t cried or anything. I just don’t know . .

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