The Seventh Tale:
The Misadventure of the Key
"It began here in Trifling when I was but a young boy." The storyteller began. "It happened that once there was a young girl, lithe of heart and joyous but very unlucky. She would misplace things all the time, break commonplace items and bruise herself most often.
"It seemed her lot in life to suffer the most inane of embarrassments and blessed she was to have the ability to recover gracefully. Her sense of humor kept her afloat, let that be your moral. But the story begins when our young girl, Elsie loses her key. It is an important key; it aids her in traveling from our world into the underworld so that she can visit with her mother. Her mother of course was none other than the Queen of the Underworld, Prosperina. Her mother gave her the key so that she may visit whenever she desired. But as she was of mortal lot she suffered mortal trials. Losing her key was the very trial she now had to endure.
"She would swear on all the gods that she had placed the key on her night table, but when she looked again and again she could not find it. She searched her entire house, looking behind cupboards, staring under sofas. No where was the key to be found.
"Finally she begged her friend Malmorda to look with her. Malmorda aided her friend in the search, but she prattled on the entire time saying only that someone must have stolen it while Elsie was not looking. Elsie of course, being the good and trusting girl that she was would have none of this theory, but the more Malmorda said it the more it seemed to make sense. She started to doubt and even to fear that her neighbors, the people she had trusted all her life had stolen her key.
"She became frantic in her search, tearing her house apart for the third full time in a row. She couldn't possibly lose this key, it was far too important. She feared her mother's wrath should the tiny piece of metal become issue enough.
"Some time in the deep of the night whilst Elsie lie in a fitful sleep she had a startling dream. It was a most peculiar dream wherein Elsie was wandering about her friend Malmorda's bedroom. She glanced about and peeked at the familiar surroundings where she had spent many afternoons gossiping. Her friend was no where to be seen, so Elsie did something she might never have done before. She opened a tiny box on the desk, a box Elsie knew to be very private that Malmorda normally kept under lock and key.
"The irony was that the key was in the box, and that it was indeed the same key that Elsie had lost.