The Glass Key

By Benjamin Parsons

All alone on a howling night, with the fire blazing in the hearth, you hear a key turn in the lock - and see the apparition of your long-lost love enter the room... For ten years Sam neither saw nor heard of his beautiful Araminta, who vanished before their wedding day - but now, suddenly she steps into his life again, with a fantastic adventure to tell: her journey to unlock the secret of the mysterious glass key. Part of the collection The Green Lady and Other Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin Parsons
• Release date: Oct 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301363070

Benjamin Parsons

I am a writer and artist from the Westcountry of England now living in London. I write and illustrate stories about love, hate, ambition, revenge, beauty, and the supernatural.

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The Glass Key

Copyright 2023 Benjamin Parsons. First published in 2012.

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What is the strangest story you ever heard? I was told a very curious one once, by a man who had it himself from the source— so he claimed— though whether the tale was actually his own invention, I never found out. It certainly concerned him through and through. His name was Samuel Hastings (Sam to everyone), and when I knew him, he was a quietish, retiring sort of fellow; hardly old, but nevertheless imbued with an air of settled disappointment, as if the lights of his mind and heart had dimmed, and barely had the strength to illuminate his eyes anymore. This was because the brighter days of his youth had suffered an eclipse, from which he had never completely recovered.

In his early twenties he was engaged to be married to a beautiful and charming woman called Araminta, who was funny without being satirical, lively without being frenetic, and wise without being too clever— all of which suited him so perfectly that he adored her, delighted in her company, and maintained that he would happily spend his whole life with her. And for her part, she confessed to similar sentiments about him: he wasn’t especially funny, but always ripe to laugh; not lively, but keen and able; and certainly not wise, but endearingly dopey— Sam was a doing person instead, and was handy in every practical matter. In short, they made a handsome couple.

But in the midst of their happiness— the date fixed, the friends invited, the cake ordered— the stars crossed them, and blighted their hopes— well, his hopes, at any rate.

Sam’s Best Man was a hot, impetuous fellow, as faithful as a dog and as quick to bark at enemies. One night he came running to the bridegroom with dried blood on his knuckles.

‘What’s the matter? Have you been in a fight?’ Sam asked, surprised.

‘Too right I have!’ came the reply. ‘But I may as well have saved my strength— I can’t make this good with my fists.’

‘Make what good? Who were you fighting?’

‘Sit down, Sam— no, sit down, or I’ll say nothing. There’s bad news— as bad as can be.’

The pugilist forced him to take a chair before he would continue, thereby increasing Sam’s anxiety no end; and, after two or three deep breaths, related how he had come straight from the pub, where several of their mutual friends were idling away the evening. Some were rather drunk, and in their merriment the conversation turned to Sam and his bride-to-be Araminta. She was generally admired, as usual; but one of their number, who had until then remained silent, suddenly implied that he was more familiar with her charms than the others were.

‘You’re all too quick to jump, calling her Mrs Hastings,’ said this person.

The groomsmen became defensive at once, and demanded: ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Just don’t hold your breath on the wedding day, that’s all,’ he answered— to which the Best Man’s response was to grasp this dissenter’s collar-front, and drag him to his feet.

‘You tell me what you’re getting at right now, or I’ll beat it out of you!’ —And that’s how the brawl started.

‘I did get it out