He pauses before he lifts his head, holding on to the moment as long as he can.

When he raises his eyes the girl has already turned from him and walked silently to the opposite wall.

Her hand hovers above the key. She does not look over at the guard or back at the pirate. This is her decision and she needs no outside assistance in making it.

The girl slips the key from its hook. She is careful not to let it rattle against its ring or clatter against the stone.

She walks back across the room with the key in her hand.

The click as the key unlocks the cell, even the creak of the door does not wake the guard.

There are no words exchanged as the girl gifts the pirate his freedom and he accepts it. As they ascend the dark stairs, nothing is spoken about what might happen next. What will occur once they reach the door at the top. What uncharted seas wait for them beyond it.

Just before they reach the door the pirate pulls the girl back to him and catches her lips with his. No bars between them now, twined together on a darkened stair with only fate and time to complicate matters.

This is where we leave them—a girl and her pirate, a pirate and his savior—in a kiss in the darkness before a door opens.

But this is not where their story ends.

This is only where it changes.

New Orleans, Louisiana, fourteen years ago

It is almost dawn. A greyish haze pushes the darkness from night to not quite day but there is light from the street pouring into the alley, more than enough light to paint by.

She is accustomed to low-light painting.

The air is colder than she had expected and her fingerless gloves are better for brush-holding than warmth. She pulls the sleeves of her sweatshirt farther down her wrists, leaving traces of paint, but the cuffs were already well paint-smudged, in various shades and finishes.

She adds another line of shadow down the faux-wood panels, giving them more definition. The bulk of the work is done, has been done since the night was still night and not even considering becoming dawn, and she could leave it as it is but she does not want to. She’s proud of this one, this is good work and she wants to make it better.

She switches brushes, pulling a thinner one from the fan of painting tools sticking out from her ponytail, thick black hair streaked with blue that disappears in this particular light. She rummages quietly in the backpack by her feet and changes her paints from shadow grey to metallic gold.

The details are her favorite part: A shadow added here and a highlight there and suddenly a flat image gains dimension.

The gold paint on its tiny brush leaves gilded marks over the hilt of the sword, the teeth of the key, the stripes on the bee. They glitter in the darkness, replacing the fading stars.

Once she is pleased with the doorknob she switches brushes again, finishing touches now.

She always saves the keyhole for last.

Maybe it feels like something close to a signature, a keyhole on a door that has no key. A detail that is there because it should be, not out of any necessity of engineering. Something to make it feel complete.

“That’s very pretty,” a voice says behind her and the girl jumps, the paintbrush tumbling from her fingers and landing by her feet, pausing to smear her shoelaces with keyhole-dark black on its way down.

She turns and a woman is standing behind her.

She could run but she’s not certain which direction to run in. The streets look different in the almost-light.

She forgets how to say hello in this particular language and is not certain if she should say hello or thank you so she says nothing.

The woman is considering the door and not the girl. She wears a fluffy robe the color of an under-ripe peach and holds a mug that says Real Witch on it. Her hair is tied up in a rainbow-printed scarf. She has a lot of earrings. There are tattoos on her wrists: a sunshine and a line of moons. She’s shorter than the girl but seems bigger, takes up more room in the alley despite being a smaller person. The girl shrinks farther into her hooded sweatshirt.

“You’re not supposed to paint on there, you know,” the woman says. She takes a sip from her mug.

The girl nods.

“Someone’s going to come and paint over it.”

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