SKELETON KEY

TUFF

"So, why all the heavy locks?" she asked, her eyes dancing with amusement as they roved over the house. The style, it seemed, didn't suit me at all. I set the large luggage down on the polished wooden floor, a recent addition from the renovations. "Sometimes, I..." I trailed off, uncertain.

She giggled, darting over to the window where a solitary artificial rose stood in a pot, her fingers tracing its leaves as though wondering how it would have looked had it been real. Would it have thrived with care, or, like most things in this house, been left to wither through neglect? Her curiosity brought my attention to the plant, cradled in her hands. She might have been a florist once; there was a tenderness in the way she handled it.

I could have answered her question, could have explained why the security measures were in place. But who really wants to know that Priest Jones Sellick is a sleepwalker?

"It's not bad," I murmured, absently running my finger along the edge of my lips. She turned, watching me intently, curiosity flickering in her gaze. "Uh-huh," she said, her voice nonchalant, though her interest in my odd mannerisms was palpable. I bit my lip and sighed, assuring myself that nothing was wrong. Dr. Brown's prescribed pills must have been kicking in.

"You sure you're okay?" she asked, her tone soft but pressing. I nodded quickly, eager to deflect her concern.

"Why Tuff?" she asked next, her voice trailing behind her as she moved from door to door, inspecting each room with a mix of intrigue and trepidation. "Why this neighborhood?"

I followed her, my footsteps echoing faintly through the old, creaking house. This place-spooky, weathered-had a life of its own, breathing beneath the floorboards, stirring in the basement we both avoided. We finally reached the main bedroom, and memories I'd thought long buried flooded back, pressing against the walls of my mind. This house held them all, though I couldn't say I loved any of it. That's why I'd renovated.

I glanced around, unsure of what to say to her questions. Which answer was the right one?

---

I grew up in Tuff, in Central Park. I was only nine, in the third grade, when it happened-that night when his demons surfaced. No one ever asked me what I saw. No one asked where she went. He covered it all up, buried the truth in layers of fear and control.

The foster home came the following year, and from that moment, I never saw those devilish eyes again. Maybe I wasn't his real son. Maybe I was just an enemy.

I did most of my elementary school years in Tuff, living with the Blacks. They didn't have children then, not until six years after I moved in. At first, I thought I'd been sold off, passed on like unwanted property. I was still a child, after all, trying to make sense of abandonment. I was homeschooled at first, then sent to a private school when Tim was born. By then, I was seventeen-caught in the tumult of puberty, withdrawing into myself. Even the Blacks, kind as they were, knew little about me.

But I learned to smile. I learned to communicate, though always cautiously. Mr. Black, whenever he returned from his travels, would talk about the importance of accounting, of securing assets-lessons I had no interest in. I preferred biology, though I struggled with the sciences. My school records were fragile, like everything about me. I kept my distance, retreating into my thoughts while the housekeeper, Mrs. Booker, discussed my behavior with Kimberly Berneth, the headmistress.

My father must have known the Blacks somehow, but what kind of father abandons his child without a word? Without explaining what happened to Susan? The only trace of him was a single letter during a summer long ago, the same summer I received an invitation to military school in Savannah.

That summer was the first time I left Tuff-the last time I left with any hope of finding out what really happened to Susan. Even the prayers Miss Black taught me felt hollow by then. I was hurting, missing the mother I never truly knew.

Savannah was my last stop before I lost touch with the Blacks entirely. By then, they had Tim to fill their lives. I had school supplies, clothes on my back, and a roof over my head, but their world no longer revolved around me.

The military college, Roseville HQ, was hard. "Live with it," they said. And I did, until I saw blood-until I saw soldiers dying in front of the camera, filmed by Lieutenant Sir Gregory Churchill in 1899. "Discipline!" they'd shout. Codes and principles were drilled into us daily, alongside the sweat and the bruises.

My father had been military too, after all. He retired after 18 years, buying Susan a house in Tuff. But I could never make sense of him without her.

Sometimes I cried, mostly in the shower, where the running water could mask my sobs. We stood in rows, shoulders squared, following orders, but the grief lingered beneath the surface.

Then came Jake. My first friend. Fast forward four years-two spent working, seven spent fighting in the war in Braam-and I returned home in a coma. Three broken ribs, a jagged scar along my back. I'd been thrown against a tank when the bomb went off, and though it wasn't my first time facing death, it was the closest call yet.

Twenty-nine days later, I woke to the blip of machines monitoring my heart. Tubes snaked into my veins, pulling life back into me. Slowly, I remembered everything. By the time I was out of that hospital gown, Jake had already been buried in Savannah. No one had come to claim him. I visited his grave-a vast, grey tombstone etched with his name-and realized men like us do cry. We cry for our friends, not our enemies. And that gives us the right.

As I prepared to leave Savannah for the last time, I sat on my bed, staring at the walking aid beside me. The bus ride out of the city felt endless, snaking through roads I barely recognized. Eventually, I made my way to Priston University in Pinetown, determined to start fresh. I had calculated my military pension to last five years on a tight budget. I'd figure the rest out later.

I graduated from Priston, and soon after, I found a job at the Pinetown police station. That's how I became Detective Priest Jones Sellick.

My first case? A murder in Bloomfountain. A young man, twenty-six, stabbed eight times with a broken bottle. And the crime? Just a snapshot of the theft and violence that simmered beneath the surface of the area.

Then there's Bruce, my station boss. He's the reason I sometimes find myself sitting in a dingy room, being questioned by Dr. Brown, my therapist. It's routine now-courtrooms, testimonies, the endless cycle of memory and forgetting.

"Do you remember who she was?" Dr. Brown asked once, her pen poised above her notes. I blinked, trying to swallow down the frustration. Susan? I shook my head. I didn't want to talk about her.

"What do you remember about the battlefield?" she pressed.

"Sometimes I don't," I replied, my voice heavy.

Her eyes softened. "What do you remember, then?"

But I didn't answer. I wasn't ready yet.