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I felt the air change. The house groaned. Somewhere above us, a clock began to tick backward.
Now, this is Part 3. I arrived on a Tuesday in October. The leaves were the color of bruised plums. Uncle Shom didn’t greet me at the door. Instead, I found him in the parlor, sitting before a wall I had never noticed before. It wasn't a wall of plaster or wood. It was a wall of locks.
He pointed to a lock near the center of the wall. It was small, silver, no bigger than a thumbnail. It didn’t belong among the others. uncle shom part3
“You’re late,” he said without turning.
I looked at the silver lock. Then at the wall of hundreds of others, each one humming faintly, like a held breath. I felt the air change
“You didn’t tell me you had a third thing.”
He stepped back. And the wall began to turn. End of Part 3. Now, this is Part 3
By an unreliable nephew
Part 1 was the jar of fireflies that never died. (He shook it on Christmas Eve, and they spelled a name I’d never heard: Liora. )