The Specter Key Read Free

records and red cowboy boots.
    “Throw all that junk away,” Sewey commanded.
    Bran dumped them out, and at the bottom of the box, he found something else: a handful of glittery gold bracelets and earrings.
    Sewey leaned out from the crates. “Great Moby…” he said as Bran added the valuables to the pile. Sewey attacked his first crate and, with much heaving and hacking, finally split it open. It was stuffed with a worthless collection of balloons and streamers. They were so old that the air itself made them crumble to dust. He threw it aside in disgust.
    “No jewels here…” he muttered, jealously eyeing Bran’s pile. He started on the next crate with vengeance, breaking the lid only to find the box filled with one-eyed rocking horse heads.
    “Double rot!” he cried, flinging it away.
    Eventually he meandered his way over to Bran’s stack of cash boxes and sat on the floor across from him. Piles of things grew around them, and the heap of empty boxes multiplied in the dim light. Sewey reached to the top of the pile, sliding off a box. He peered at the tab and then squinted.
    “Hmmm,” he said.
    “Come on, we’re supposed to be doing these quick so we can leave soon,” Bran said.
    Sewey went on blinking at the box. “What a curious oddity.” He looked up at Bran. “Have you been poking about in the vault lately?”
    “Not until this evening,” Bran said, rattling the lock. “At least, not since…you know…the Accident.”
    “Well, that’s strange,” Sewey muttered, “because this one’s got your name on it.”
    “My name?” He was curious, though Sewey was probably just pulling a prank.
    “Well, your last name, at least,” Sewey said, still perplexed. “It’s a different first name.”
    Bran sat up straight. “What, who is it?”
    Sewey squinted at the tag. “Well, it’s hard to read, it’s so small. But I think it says…Emry Hambric.” Bran froze.
    It’s my mother’s.

Chapter 3
    Cash Boxes and Gnome Traps
    Bran dropped his screwdriver and yanked the box from Sewey’s hands.
    “Calm yourself!” Sewey spluttered. “What’s the matter with you?”
    But Bran wasn’t listening. He turned the nondescript gray metal box over in his clammy hands. Its contents rattled. Yet it also felt as if there was something large inside that was packed tight so it didn’t shift much. His heart was pounding.
    Sewey scratched his head. “I thought we searched this town high and low for anyone with the name Hambric years ago, and we didn’t find a single one…”
    Bran just blinked at it. Why would anyone leave a box here in her name? Did she leave it there herself, maybe for me to find? He was anxious to break the lock when he realized that Sewey was right there, staring at him. He caught himself and turned the box over one last time, holding it close.
    “It’s…probably nothing,” Bran said, trying to act natural. “Sawdust, like you said. I’ll just open it when I get home.”
    Sewey peered at him curiously, though he finally relented, shaking his head. “Oh well, I’m exhausted anyway, and famished as well. Leave this, and we’ll finish up some other day.”
    Bran started out of the vault, clinging to the box so tightly that his knuckles whitened. How many years had it sat there waiting for him? Had his mother hidden it there when she had put him into the vault?
    Sewey sealed the vault door, and they made their way through the deserted bank, everything neat and in order in the main room for business the next day. The place smelled of the artificial flower scents Trolan, the janitor, had sprayed before leaving. Bran’s shoes echoed against the hard floor. In the lobby, he passed by the desk of Adi Copplestone, Sewey’s secretary. When Bran’s eyes fell on her brass nameplate he knew exactly where he had to go to open the box: the only really safe place in the city.
    Adi’s house.
    She was someone he could trust, a secret mage, just like him. He followed Sewey out into the warm