The Locksmith's Daughter

She learned the pins before the alphabet, the small brass teeth that bit her palm when her father slept with the shop unlocked, his apron folded like a letter no one had been brave enough to send.

Each tumbler had a name he whispered: the stubborn one, the kindly one, the one that opens only after rain. She tested keys against her ear the way other girls tried on names.

Now her hands move without permission, fingers reading every door for the place where it wants to fail. Strangers thank her in the doorway, not knowing she has heard them weep.

She keeps her father's first key in a drawer beside the candle stubs and pliers, a small iron tongue that tastes of him. Some nights she holds it to the lock of a door she has not yet built.