Beyond the Apple Tree
an excerpt

Jordan held the key, seeming so tiny and delicate now, tightly. He wondered what the key hole would even look like, and how he was going to find it. For what seemed like hours he searched, even trying to climb the thorns and twisted bodies to the top. But there was no top, and no hole into which he could place the key. Frustrated, he turned to violence. He screamed as much as his shattered ribs and lungs would allow, and kicked at the looming edifice. He swore and scratched and clawed, his fingers bleeding and his hands caked in blood and gore. In a last, desperate move, he grabbed the key by the dagger’s hilt, and thrust it deep into a heart that still beat in a frantic rhythm.