"Well, Ms. Virginia, we've looked all over that house. We can't find no trace of him. It's like he disappeared into thin air."
"They took 'em. That's what I reckon. And now he's stuck somewhere, just aching to get back, just a pinin' for home. Ain't nothing to be done about it, neither, lessen you can find the key."
"What key?"
"Why, the blasted key that got him into this mess. Gurney was rootin' around in the attic, though I warned him not to, and he found it up there. Been lost ever since my pappy put it away up there. Said it caused enough trouble."
Jack Daly slipped his hat off and scratched his head. He was tired, and hot, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. He took out his handkerchief and shook it, wiping his forehead before tucking it back in his pocket. Just what he needed. Some crazy woman talking about spooks and a magic key and people being stuck on the other side.
"Jimmy. . ."
"It's Jack, Ms. Virginia.
"Oh, whatever. . . what are you gonna do, just sit there?"
"I ain't got much to go on, ma'am. I mean, where do I start looking? Where's this key you're talking about?"
"Well, I don't know! You're the investigator. That's why I called you."
"I'll have a look at this old house again, see what I can find."
"You do that. You just do that. Look for the key, Jimmy."
Oh, what's the use, thought Jack. She'll never get it right. He stood up slowly from where he crouched, extended his hand, and shook Ms. Virginia's doughy white hand.
"I'll be seeing you."
"Let me know what you find."
"I will. You can bet on that."
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Sheriff Daly bumped along a rutted road leading down to the Shepherd house. The road was overgrown and barely passable, tree branches overhanging the road, Spanish Moss hanging down and dragging the top of his car. It was ridiculous, he knew, a wild goose chase. Gurney had likely run off to the next county, tired of living with the old lady and being subjected to her eccentricities. It was no kind of life for a kid.
As for a magic key, Jack just shook his head, mumbling "crazy ol' fool," wondering why he even listened to her delusions. Hardening of the arteries had done got to her, he suspected.
He was here. The old clapboard house was leaning, like some kind of Suess house, the porch rotted through, a tree growing up through a gaping hole. It was slowly going back to nature, back to the forest it was.
"Probably a mess of snakes up in there," said Jack to himself. "Just my luck I'll get bit and die out here."
He gingerly stepped on the porch, testing the flooring before each step. Looking down, he glimpsed a glint of something shiny in the corner of his eye. "Well, I'll be. . .
He stooped down and picked up a key, a key that looked as new as one fresh from the hardware store. Other than that, it looked pretty ordinary, emblazoned with the word "SARGENT" on the side. Jack turned it over and over. "Don't feel magic,' he said aloud, still a skeptic.
Pulling back the screen door, he tried the key in the lock, and it slipped right in. Jack paused a moment, hesitating, before turning the key and cracking open the door, and stepping in.
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They found Jack's car later that week. Junior said he figured the Sheriff was sick when he didn't come in. Finally, he went out looking for him.
Ms. Virginia said what got Gurney got him too.
But all Junior found was a musty smelling old house, empty, rat-infested, and falling down. No spooks. And certainly no magic key.
Thirty years later they put a golf course on Ms. Virginia's old land. Tore down the house. But they never could get any grass to grow where it'd been. Put a sand trap there. They said if your ball went in there it'd never come out.
Gurney never did come home. Somebody said he joined the circus. But I think he's still out there, trying to get home.
[My daughter found an old key and asked me to write a story about it. So I did.]
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