novella · Magical realism

Every Lock but Hers

A night locksmith can open any door in the city except the one she bolted on her own brother — until, for one hour after midnight, a lock starts opening onto the places she's spent three years refusing to go.

6 of 11 chapters written

▶ Start reading The blueprint (full spoilers)

Content note: Estrangement, a brother's old trouble, an eviction, grief kept at arm's length. Warm and hopeful, not bleak; nothing graphic. A standalone.

A novella of the Hollow Hours. Nell Corrigan works the two o’clock calls — locked-out drunks, snapped keys, the ugly closer jobs nobody else will take. She can open anything. She just can’t open the one door she shut herself, three years ago, on her brother.

Then, in the hollow hour, a lock she’s picking swings open onto somewhere it has no business reaching — and keeps offering her the way back. All it wants is the truth she’s kept bolted.

First person, wry and quick, a soft spot under the banter. Eleven chapters. The whole plan — including who’s behind the last door — is in the blueprint.

Every Lock but Hers

Chapters