Elfhame (Skeleton Key) by Skeleton Key, Anthea Sharp Page A

mauled to death, she forced herself to stand. The kitchen knife was still clenched in her right hand, though somehow she’d lost her cloak.
    The Darkwood was quiet about her. Stars peeked between the branches overhead. She pushed her sweat-dampened hair back from her face and tucked her blade away, then took a careful step forward, glad to discover she was only a little bruised from her tumble.
    But where was she? She’d never be able to find her way home now.
    Her fall had deposited her at the edge of a clearing. Two standing stones rose from the mossy ground, positioned about a meter apart and taller than her head. Her glowing guides hovered above them. The stones emitted a soft silver light that mixed with the golden radiance of the winged sparks, until the clearing was illuminated with uncanny brightness.
    Mara pulled in a reverent breath. Clearly this was one of the deep secrets of the Darkwood.
    She stepped closer, to see mysterious runes carved into the stones. The sparks whirled into a flurry as she approached. One of them flew down, made a circle around her, and then darted into the space between the tall stones.
    It winked out. There one moment, gone the next.
    The hair on the back of her neck prickled. This was true magic.
    The night wind kicked up at her back, pushing her forward. Clearly the forest wanted her to step through.
    Mara set her hand to her knife, took a deep breath, and walked directly between the two standing stones.
    The air flickered. For a moment she glimpsed a land steeped in indigo shadows, a sky full of strange and brilliant stars. The sweet scent of unfamiliar flowers wafted on the warm air.
    And then it was gone, and she fetched up on the other side of the clearing, the stones behind her. The wind died to a quiet sigh. Slowly, Mara turned to look at the doorway she had almost stepped through.
    An owl hooted from a distance, the mournful cry giving voice to her disappointment. Whatever that place had been, it was full of a wild magic that stirred her senses.
    “It didn’t work,” she said.
    Perhaps this wasn’t to be her adventure after all. But why had she been led to these stones, if she was not meant to go through?
    One of the other sparks spiraled down, flying close to the right-hand stone. Bits of mica glinted in the rock as it passed. Halfway down, it hesitated, then flew into the stone. No, not into the solid granite. It had gone into a small hole in the rock.
    A keyhole.
    “Oh,” Mara said, more sigh than word.
    Slowly, she slipped her hand into the inner pocket of her dress. Her fingers brushed against something warm and solid. Holding her breath, she pulled it out.
    The skull-headed key grinned at her, shining whitely against the shadows.
    “You trickster,” she whispered. “You didn’t abandon me.”
    She felt as though her heart would take flight like the bright-winged sparks now darting ecstatically above the stones. This was the moment she’d been waiting for her entire life. Her body was a bell, reverberating in a single, sure peal.
    She took three steps forward, until she reached the stone. The golden light darted out of the keyhole, and slowly Mara inserted the glass key.
    It slipped in smooth as water. She turned it carefully to the right. A soft chime filled the clearing, and the air between the stones shimmered. They key fell out into her hand.
    She tucked it back into her pocket, lifted her head, and walked through the doorway between the worlds.

 
    A shower of sensation drenched Mara’s skin, as if she’d stepped through a curtain of warm water. She took a gasping breath of flower-scented air while her body realized it was not, in fact, drowning.
    She stood between two standing stones in a clearing, similar to the one she had just left. Similar, and yet the air held a wild tang, and an unseasonably warm breeze wafted against her cheek. The sky above her was violet-black and spangled with unfamiliar constellations, including a bright spiral of seven stars