(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot)

Well, I didn’t quite get a whole story out of this one (or at least, not yet), but it was certainly worth a chapter or thereabouts (around 1,500 words). In order to keep from cluttering things up here, I’m going to post the entire snippet over on my story blog, but here’s a teaser for you with a link at the end:

The Locked Door
(c) Sheila McClune, 2010

The locked door puzzled and fascinated her. Why on earth, she wondered, would Gran have locked the door to her attic, when spells had always been sufficient to seal it before? And with a lock of cold iron, no less. Surely she’d have known that would make it impossible for Kintheriny to unlock it, key or no key? After all, Gran had been a spellcaster, too. She made a mental note to ask the solicitor about it tomorrow when they met to finalize arrangements. Perhaps Gran had left her some special instructions in a codicil to her will, or a sealed letter, or something. She’d read about such things happening in books, anyway.

She ran her fingers over the elaborately carved and painted surface of the door. Gran had been extraordinarily skilled in so many ways. The wood had been carved by hand, not through the use of magic, but its surface was still as smooth and as polished as glass. The colors were still as bright as Kintheriny remembered them from the earliest of her childhood visits, when she would sit on the landing and stare in awe at the intricate design. She especially loved the little red dragon down in the corner, the one with eyes as green as Kintheriny’s own. Sometimes she could have sworn that she saw it move…

(The rest is here…)