The beginning of The Name and the Key starts with tragedy–thirteen-year-old Lily Bellamy finds her mother’s body in the marshes.

Lily’s mother is prone to flights of fancy–she literally leaves the house whenever she feels like it, and goes to wild places. The Rookwood is a vast forest and Lily, her father Kale, Andresh, and his father Jolan, all make up a hunting party when Lily’s mother doesn’t return home.

I’ve always seen pictures of beautiful women drowning:

But the thing is, I’m writing dark fantasy. It has some horrific moments in it. And…bodies do not do well in water. I’ve researched body decomposition for years during the writing of The Name and the Key and Lily’s mother does not look like herself when she is discovered. This image of her corpse haunts Lily in mirrors, glass, and still water for years.

However, I always thought of the marshland itself to be kind of a beautiful place. What inspired me for Rookwood Marshes are different locations at my hometown’s Gorman Nature Center. I don’t know if it technically qualifies as a marsh, or if it’s a pond, or what, but this is where I envision Lily’s mother dying:

It’s kind of haunting, isn’t it, in a beautiful way?