Locke & Key: Small World

[cyberghostface]

This story is a one-shot. All you really need to know is that the series follows different generations of the Locke family of Keyhouse. Keyhouse is home to different 'keys' which can unlock unnatural forces; depending on the key you can turn into an animal, change your gender or even leave your body as a ghost. This issue follows the Lockes in the early 19th century.





Jean, the youngest daughter, forgets to take the key out after finishing. A spider crawls inside the dollhouse with predictable results. The now-giant spider begins to web up various members of the family.









With the spider dead and everyone safe, Jean curls up and falls asleep with the cat.

Comments

[kamino_neko]

I love that last page.

This whole story, though, really makes me wonder how the 'only kids remember' thing that got added later seemed like a good idea. This is more careless than the actively stupid crap the modern kids got up to, sure, but it should have been remembered as evidence that kids shouldn't be given the keys without adult supervision....

[beardedjellybean]

It's mentioned in the series that the original creator of the keys made the whole "only children younger than a high-school graduate can experience the magic" rule, as compared to an adult they are unlikely to be malicious enough to use the keys as weapons.

You do have a point though, even though they were in their late teens if someone had tried to stop Rendell Locke and friends going crazy with the idea of creating their own keys a lot of people wouldn't have ended up dying.

[richardak]

Yeah, that was pretty dumb, but it was believably dumb. It was the kind of bad rule that someone might make if he didn't think it through very thoroughly after the experience he had with adults misusing the keys.