Guardians of the Keys

After losing her two beloved great-aunts in a car accident, small-town librarian Elaine Colemar discovers a skeleton key in their antiques store. When she reads the foreign phrase engraved on it, the key's imprint burns into her hand. Clearly Elaine's stress is getting to her-her aunts are dead, she's drowning in debt, each contact with the key leaves her disoriented-and now she's seeing things ... right?

After meeting with Edmund Wallace, an esteemed professor and the director of a local history museum, Elaine seizes an opportunity to rid herself of the key-and alleviate her financial woes-by selling it to him for a generous sum. It is only when the key and Professor Wallace go missing that Elaine learns about her aunts' connection to an ancient Apothecary's Guild and the story of the five keys, which are portals to mystical places.

Knowing she must finish the task her aunts started, Elaine sets off to locate the missing source key before dark purposes prevail.

Megan J. Wheless was raised in south central Illinois and spent much of her youth listening to her family tell comical, adventurous, and interesting stories of her elders and ancestors. She infuses a blend of Midwestern sensibility, magical realism, and the landscapes of the prairie and woodlands of the region in her writing. A former English teacher, she credits her students and their shared discussions and insights as her biggest influence as a writer. She currently lives in northern Illinois with her husband and their two adorable pets, Bootsie and Lucy.