1MORGAN
The key was a blackened talisman, tucked into her leather cuff. She’d gotten in the habit of keeping it there since it had become the only tangible thing she owned when, three months ago, her entire life was reduced to ash and ruin. The fire department had already come and gone by the time she arrived, her boots crunching on caramelized glass and stepping over hissing metal. Everything was wet and charred—mannequins with their faces melted in, the once larger-than-life Mylar tree shriveled to a root—which meant that whoever had left the key had watched and waited, like a tiger stalking its prey. But Morgan knew better. Only humans tortured their food before eating it.
A red balloon floated in the sulfurous haze, tethered to a small, coffin-shaped box set on a step of the smoldering staircase. A simple note scratched on the back of an envelope revealed it was for her: My Ruin: All roads lead back to home.
A puff of vapor escaped her lips—a silent scream, perhaps, at the omen from beyond the grave. The only person who would have used that moniker was dead. The last image Morgan had of her aunt Bern was of her lying faceup with her skull shattered on the concrete, mouth open to catch snowflakes. It was one of few childhood memories she hadn’t overwritten. Rather, she kept it sequestered in a safe place so she could recall it at will, the way normal people preserved memories of their wedding day or the moment their first child was born.
Now, standing on the Reynoldses’ back porch, she turned her wrist and pressed her thumb to the key, tempted to free it from its holster. The iron stung. The key would not fit, she determined, as she considered the aperture in the ornate metal plate.
All roads lead back to home.
This was not her home. If the sea glass–colored mansion at the top of the bluff hadn’t tipped her off on her drive in, then the twelve-foot-tall gothic gate that swung inward to grant her entrance to the estate made damn sure she knew she wasn’t on her side of the tracks anymore. This was Reynolds country, she’d thought, following the cobblestone path that wended past topiaries draped in white lights and a pair of concrete tigers, their faces frozen in mid roar and thick necks wrapped in festive, Fair Isle scarves. Then, she’d parked her salty little Honda Civic next to a newly waxed Land Rover and felt more than a little inadequate.
The Reynolds family was enshrouded in wealth, status, and mystery; and Black Harbor’s entire eroding shoreline belonged to them. What remained of it, anyway. Over the past decade or more, Lake Michigan had eaten away the limestone as effectively as the city’s grim atmosphere gnawed on people’s morals. If they’d had morals to begin with. In her thirty-one years on this planet—most of them spent here in this frozen purgatory—Morgan had learned that some people were born purely and inherently evil. And Black Harbor was their breeding ground.
Morgan surveyed the snow-covered estate. Giant red bulbs hung from evergreen boughs, and three wreaths decorated the middle tier of a stone fountain. A lone lamppost wore a gold velvet bow and to her left, fairy lights twinkled as they wove through the crosshatched trellis that would work well for group photos. It was creeping up on two o’clock. The golden hour would be here soon, when the sun was low and its amber hues came alive to brush its subjects’ skin tones with a warm glow. She raised her camera, snapped a test shot, and returned her attention to the door. Her worries melted away. It was just her and the keyhole. She felt the autofocus lock into place and took a photo. She could add it to her collection—the one she’d started since inheriting the key—of all the doors and their corresponding keyholes into which it didn’t fit.
Not terribly unlike herself.
Pierced and gangly with a death stare that could intimidate a bull, Morgan didn’t really fit anywhere, either.
Except The Ruins. She’d fit there. And then it all burned down.
Morgan considered the keyhole again and sucked in a breath. This wasn’t home and yet, was it so wrong that she wished it was? That her childhood had been spent here, running free through an orchard and pushing siblings on a front porch swing; not curled up on the floor, left to lick her wounds like a dog and pray her door remained closed until morning.
A gust of wind came and pulled tears from her eyes. She repositioned her gear bag slung on her shoulder and, turning her back to the wind, slid the key out of her cuff. It didn’t hurt to try. With the key pinched between her thumb and forefinger, she reached forward, when the door fell away. The woman who appeared behind it was so beautiful it hurt, Morgan thought, as she took in her verdant eyes and the short layers of russet hair that framed her face. She looked surprised, and Morgan suspected she hadn’t anticipated someone who looked like her—dressed all in black, with a pierced septum and two studs in her bottom lip, skin pale as the Ghost of Christmas Past—to be standing on her doorstep.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You must be the photographer! Morgan, right?” She shifted the chubby-cheeked toddler she was holding to her other hip. It stared at Morgan in that unapologetic way that babies do. Morgan estimated 1.2 seconds before the drool on its lip froze into a “spitcicle.”
She nodded and slid her key back into her cuff. Later.
“I’m Cora.” The woman smiled, showing teeth brighter than fresh-fallen snow. Her lips were painted holly red, the same shade as her knit, short-sleeved sweater. Goose bumps stippled her arms. “And this is Charlie. We were just about to get Mamó some ginger ale, weren’t we, Charlie?” Her voice pitched and fell. How easily some people could slip in and out of baby talk, Morgan mused, and she wondered, was Mamó some type of nickname for Mom? Grandma? Just like Omi, Oma, Nana, Yamma, and the cringey-beyond-all-get-out Glamma?
When Cora leaned over to grab a six-pack of cans resting atop a resin storage chest, Morgan stopped her. “I’ll get them.”
“Thank you,” Cora said, speaking like an adult again. “Come in, please. My mom will be so excited that you’re here. You’re her gift,” she added with a quick glance over her shoulder.
Morgan scrunched her brows. A gift? She’d never been anyone’s gift before, and yet, perhaps that was how the people who’d paid her aunt had looked at her—a guilty little pleasure they’d never tell a soul about. Her throat felt dry. She licked her lips, tempted to suck down one of those ginger ales. Being back here had that effect on her. One breath of Black Harbor was potent enough to turn her devil-may-care armor brittle. She imagined watching it disintegrate and fall away like fish scales, leaving her raw and exposed while she served herself on a silver platter to the black widow of Black Harbor: Mrs. Eleanor Reynolds, whose husband, Clive, vanished twenty years ago. Eleanor was the obvious suspect, and according to the court of public opinion, she was guilty as sin. The eleven-million-dollar life insurance policy she’d taken out on Clive just weeks before his death had been, for all intents and purposes, her hand hammering the nail in his coffin. And he’d had an affair. Which meant he’d pounded the final nail in himself.
Morgan’s ears pricked at the sound of the door closing behind her. Noting that Cora wore only Fair Isle stockings, she heel-toed her combat boots off in a mudroom she doubted had ever seen a speck of mud. Plus, it was larger than the space she’d recently moved back into at her parents’ house. She set the ginger ale on a bench to straighten the tops of her stockings, making them even, and hung her jacket on an empty hook. Her glasses fogged.
“Mom,” Cora called. Her voice carried through the kitchen, rose, and dissipated somewhere between the hardwood floors and the cathedral ceiling. “Morgan is here!”
Following cautiously in Cora’s wake, Morgan set the cans of ginger ale on a granite countertop and waited. A current swam through the great room, fragrant with cloves and thyme and buttery croissants. It smelled of roast beef, too, and seasoned potatoes. The countertop boasted a trove of mini mince pies and single-serve sherry trifles. Adjusting her camera settings, Morgan took a few photos to show her mom the spread. Up until six months ago, when the highway construction shut it down, Lynette’s Linzers—her mother’s bakery—had been a beloved staple of Black Harbor, serving homemade cookies, tarts, and biscuits on the daily. Now, it was simply one of dozens of vacant storefronts.
Over the home’s surround-sound system, a slow piano melody melted into a chorus of accordion, flute, and bagpipes. As the song picked up, Morgan recognized it as “Fairytale of New York,” by the Pogues, and smiled.
Where was everyone, she wondered. Cora had gone and disappeared with Charlie down a corridor, and aside from someone who was clearly a caterer coming to check the oven, there wasn’t a soul in sight. Had she gotten the time wrong? No, the email had stated two o’clock. She’d read it again this morning to be sure.
In a mansion this massive, there were a million places people could be hiding.
Copyright © 2022 by Hannah Morrissey
