The Locksmith's Sparrow

A dead locksmith's workshop holds dozens of keys with no matching locks—and a small tin box bearing the painted image of a sparrow. Obituary writer Iris Vallo arrived expecting a simple eulogy, not an encrypted puzzle spanning two decades. Each key she traces through the frost-scarred streets of her hometown points toward a person who vanished long ago, a silence the entire town seems determined to protect. Some doors, she's discovering, were sealed shut for a reason.