Welcome!

I'm really excited to share this with all of you! This is a new genre for me, and chances are I'll get a thousand things wrong, but I'll still be here with a story to tell! Hopefully you'll be here with me, too :)

Thank you to the wonderful ladies at TLS for featuring The Lost Key for their Sneak Peek yesterday :) All my thanks always to my writing team for putting up with me.

-TLK-

Heels on cobblestone should be abolished.

Even the most accustomed woman shouldn't have to be put through the utter exhaustion of finding solid, even ground every time she walks outside, all the while maintaining an air of ease as if the safety of her own ankle doesn't dangle precariously in the balance.

Nevertheless, she doesn't waver as she walks down the street, cobblestone be damned. Her head is held high with dark curls appropriately pinned away from her face, ignoring the stares she gets as she makes her way towards the inner part of town.

She doesn't belong here, and it's as obvious as the day is light and the night is dark. She tightens her overcoat around her body, trying to keep out the chill from the air around her. But as always, she doesn't let it dissuade her from her decision to come to the town. She pretends the looks from the people she passes are figments of her imagination, and with a determination she inherited from her father, she proceeds on her route and turns right at the next intersection.

"You're crazy, girl!"

Her mother's words echo soundlessly in her ears as she walks past billows of smoke from the mouths of the men on the street, not bothering to wave them out of her way as she continues forward. Truthfully, she doesn't know the exact location of where it is she's supposed to be going, but she knows it's not far.

After a few more minutes of wandering the city, she stops a boy on the corner and asks for help. He appears harmless, though she was told not to trust a single soul once she steps foot outside of her own town.

"I'm looking for 4th and 17th?" She asks, hoping a smile will convince the boy to point her in the right direction. She is not sure how people around here take to strangers; maybe it's something she should have thought about before but now holds no relevance. She has already asked and can't take it back.

"Oh, The Lost Key?" The boy, no more than ten years old, replies. He motions with his chin down a dark street to his left before getting back to his sweeping. "Two blocks over. Can't miss it."

She never did tell the boy the name of the place she was looking for, and the fact that he had automatically assumed she was looking for The Lost Key does not go unnoticed. She dismisses the chill that runs down her body when she hears the name and instead keeps the thoughts to herself. She thanks the boy and heads on her way. The streets are somehow more uneven here, so she slows her pace just a little.

She can't walk into the place with holes in her stockings, can she?

"You have no business going there."

Again, her mother's words nearly stop her in her tracks, and as much as she tries to brush them off, she can now see their validity as she approaches her destination.

On the corner of 4th and 17th, beneath the overcast skies of mid-morning, sits The Lost Key. It's no different from any other pubs here in the city; rich mahogany doors hide men trying to forget what brings them to a place such as this so early in the day. Large windows overlook the streets to see who wants to enter, and she wonders who can see her now.

She stands at the corner, not quite ready to go inside, a ball of nerves suddenly sending her stomach into knots. She had been fine the whole way here! She had remained steady on the train, determined as she had walked the streets and resolved when her eyes had first landed upon the pub that had most certainly changed the course of her life.

But now, her eyes scan the front of the building, stopping at the uneven sidewalk, and an uneasy feeling brings her hands up to her throat.

Was this where he died? Right here in these streets in front of this pub?

It's a question that has plagued her family for months. No investigation. No explanation.

Just a visit from the local police chief on their doorstep.

Then, the trip to identify the body.

A family now torn to pieces, searching for meaning in a world that has gone saddeningly dim.

So many unanswered questions plague their minds, keeping them up at night and distracting them during the day. Most days, her mother, once an undeniable force in their household, barely has the strength to move from the rocking chair on their porch. Her eyes remain glued to the lone street leading to and from their house as if her son could somehow appear to them all once more.

But someone made sure that wish would never again be possible, she thinks, as she eyes the street where her brother took his last breath.

Today she puts her plan in place. Today is the last day all their questions remain ignored. Today is the day she begins to unravel them.

One.

By.

One.

But it can't begin unless she actually enters the pub. So with her heart pounding almost as loud as her heels against the sidewalk, she turns the handle on the door to The Lost Key.

Somehow she knows she's walking into more than just a new place.

Perhaps into a whole new life.

"Can I help you?" A disinterested voice asks from a corner of the room she can't see quite clearly. Taking a few steps into the pub, she spots him on the other side of the bar, taking down chairs to place at some of the tables around the room.

"Perhaps." She smiles, and she hopes the man doesn't hear the tremor in her voice. She reaches into her coat and pulls out a torn piece of newspaper. "I read you're looking for a barmaid?"

I have more teasers and songs for this fic posted in my Facebook group, Lily Jill Fics.

See you soon!