Keeper of Keys Read Free

erupted to everyone's surprise because they all thought it was just a mountain. Just a plain 'ole mountain!

    It happened so quickly that no one was able to get into the temple to save the kings keys.

    Amazingly, everyone on the island got away unharmed. Not one person was hurt or killed. Not one. It was just amazing."

    And mama was amazed, I could tell by the way her eyes widened.

    "The natives believed that the volcano got mad because no one recognized it as a volcano and so to teach them a lesson, it erupted and took away the only thing that made their island special; the kings keys."

    My eyes would be just as wide as her's by then, not because it was a mystical tale, but because my favorite part was coming up.

    "So the natives named the volcano Kai…"

    "…Keeper of keys!" I would shout out and finish the story for her.

    "Yes, Kai keeper of keys." Alice would say and then cover me in kisses.

    Chapter Three

    But that wasn't the memory that moved me off of the railroad tracks. It was the memory of the last time I saw her alive. The last time our hands touched, the kiss she planted on my cheek and the pink lips she left there, the way she waved good-bye and the soft folds her white skirt made when the summer wind blew around us.
"Here," She said and stuffed a dollar bill in my hand.

    "Oh she don't need no money Alice," My grandmother had fussed. I was going to Georgia to spend the summer with my grandparents. I was ten years old.

    "It's a special dollar Kai," Alice said ignoring her mother's huffing. "You get to Sandersville and you buy whatever you like sweetie." Alice said and pulled me to her again. It was going to be hard for her, for both of us. We had never been apart, not like that.

    "Okay mom."

    I was so excited, it was my first time on a plane. I had a seat by the window, my Pan Am wings pinned securely to my chest and my special dollar clutched tightly in my hand. My stomach dropped when the plane tilted its nose to the heavens and I think I squealed like a mouse, but my eyes never left the window or the blue and white sky we sailed through.
"It looks like the sky in mommy's pictures," I told my grandfather, who was sitting beside me. "And the one she painted on the ceiling and the pipes!" 
Alice was close to thirty and had never been high above the world and swallowed by the sky, but she'd gotten it just right. The piercing cobalt sky that lay beneath the powder blue closest to the sun. The clouds that resembled the thin smoke that slithered from Eve's long cigarettes, others that were fat and round like the cotton balls my mother cleaned off her eye makeup with. Alice had gotten it all perfect with out going any higher than the observation deck of the Empire State building.
When I finally remembered my special dollar, the plane was touching the runway and the sound of applause blocked out the flight attendants welcoming words. I unrolled the bill, which was wilted and damp and saw that Alice had written something across George Washington's face.
I love you always, 
Mom
Alice's lettering was bold and spherical, like the bubbles that sometimes escaped from the Ivory Soap I washed my body with. I expected that one day her writing would carry her notes up, up, up and away, never to return.

    "You broke your what -" I heard my grandmother say a week into my stay. "Well how did you do that?" She said putting her free hand on her hip and shaking her head in dismay.

    "What?" I whispered. "What did she break? The cake plate? My record player?" Alice wasn't plain or boring, she was however, clumsy. 
My grandmother covered the receiver with her hand and whispered back, "Her arm."

    I wasn't completely surprised, I knew she'd eventually get around to breaking something on her body sooner or later.

    "Well how did you do that Alice?" My grandmother had a smirk on her face and was tapping her foot impatiently.

    "She won't be able to paint with one hand." I sang.

    Once again my grandmother