The cookie jar at Grandma’s house was always on the same shelf, blue ceramic, shaped like a cat, with a crack by the left ear. When it vanished one Sunday morning, no one batted an eye.

“Probably broke,” Uncle James shrugged.

“Grandma’s always moving stuff around,” Aunt Rae added.

But I knew better.

That jar didn’t hold cookies.

It held the key.

Not a metaphorical one, either. A real, cold, tarnished key with a sun emblem on the handle. I’d found it a year ago, hidden beneath stale snickerdoodles. When I asked Grandma about it, she just winked.

“Some things are best left alone,” she said.

I didn’t leave it alone. I’d seen the trapdoor in the cellar, the one with a sun-shaped keyhole. And last week, I finally worked up the courage to try it.

The key fit.

The door creaked open. And just before I could look inside, Grandma called me upstairs for tea. When I returned, the key was back in the jar.

Now both were gone.

And Grandma?

She smiled too calmly when I asked.

“I gave it to someone who needed it more.”

Someone else had the key now.

And whatever was behind that door…

was no longer locked.