The promised heatwave hit this morning. I opened the windows in shade, shuttered the ones in sun, and decided to spend the day indoors, digging through my old junk chest.
It was less of a chest and more of a pocket dimension if I’m honest, and I never knew what would come out of it. I was trying to determine where the various items came from but had no workable theory yet.
The first item I pulled out was a skeleton key. Always useful to have around. I tried it on the chest, its key had been lost before it ever came into my possession. It worked. Now that was useful, and a little unexpected, none of the others I had tried worked. Maybe the chest was from the same place as its contents. It would make sense after all, and so the keys and the locks would be built along the same logic (whatever that may be).
The next pieces were a mix of pure junk and odds and ends I could either use or trade. A broken pot, a red ribbon, a child’s apron, embroidered around the edges with forget-me-nots, a rusty knife. It wasn’t terribly full today.
I reached in one last time for the bit of metal my hand had been bumping against while fishing out the others. A flute. Hmmm, it didn’t look magical, but you can never be too careful, especially with instruments made from only one material. They hold enchantment far better than mixed up instruments like a violin or a harp. I’ve never heard of anyone successfully hexing a pianoforte.
I closed and locked the chest, I wonder if that will affect the traffic of items into it. Then I took the flute over to my worktable and went for a hagstone. For all people scoff at old wives’ tales, sometimes they’re spot on and looking through the hole in a hagstone is a quick and reliable way to ferret out magic.
Sure enough, the flute had some sort of spell laid over it. Only one way to find out what it was. I went outside, to my ward-circle, activated the defences, and began to play…
The DNA of Stories 