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Excerpt from FOUR KEYS
Chapter Two
“The Rabbit and The Basement”
...and the list went on.
Warren suddenly noticed a jar sitting back behind all the others. It looked peculiar for some reason. He grabbed it up and found out why. Unlike all the other jars, which were clear glass smudged to translucency with age and dust and capped with tin or steel lids, this glass jar was shiny dark amber, topped off with some kind of waxed cloth tightly bound with shiny golden wire.
“It looks brand new.” Warren wondered aloud.
“It is.” A deep voice said from behind. “And yet a product of an ancient race.”
Warren spun around and gasped at the sight of an elderly man crouched in the doorway. Warren felt his heart hammering against his chest.
“Grandpa's caught me!” Were Warren’s first thoughts. Then he realized just as quickly that this was not his Grandfather. Though they were not dissimilar. This strange man was of medium height, wiry, and had coffee brown skin much like Grandpa’s. His hair, however, was something else altogether. Where Grandpa had a short, well-groomed thatch of Grey curls still covering most of his head; this stranger had long silvery white hair that fell to his shoulders. Hair like a white man’s.
The stranger smiled and Warren felt the amber jar slip through his fingers. It hit a small rock embedded in the earthen floor and broke open. Warren looked down in shock.
“No!” Warren exclaimed.
Warren looked up quickly back towards the door and the strange old man was gone. A slight movement at the base of the door betrayed the rabbit Warren had chased the day before.
“Where'd he go?” Warren marveled. “The rabbit scare him away?”
For a split second Warren could have sworn the rabbit winked at him. An explosion of movement and it was gone.
Warren shook his head and dropped to his knees. Very careful to avoid cutting his hands, he picked up the half dozen pieces of the jar and its contents before standing up again.
Warren laid everything on the counter before him. At first he thought the jar had held little hinges but a quick examination told him they were long chunks of shaped metal.
Too little sunlight, however, made any further examination impossible. Warren slowly scooped up the glass into an empty nearby jar and pocketed the four pieces of molded metal.
Back outside in the sunlight he shoved the door closed and relatched it. He looked around quickly and saw no sign of either the rabbit or the old man.
“Maybe he's a friend of Grandpa's.” Warren thought to himself. “Maybe he's in the house now telling Grandpa I broke that jar.”
This thought depressed Warren somewhat and he emptied his pockets to check out his morning's treasure.
He had found four keys.
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