The Key to Everything (13 page)

She quietly closed the door to the bedroom and checked on the girls in their pink princess room, breathing in perfect synchronicity. Watching for a few more moments, the tall woman shook her head in disbelief. Where did they come from? How did she get so lucky? Dismissing the twinge of regret scratching at the back of her mind, she walked to the top of the stairs.

Their black-and-orange tabby cat, Taffy, brushed against her leg and turned down the step, ready to follow to her food bowl the way she did every morning. There was movement in the shadows below. What was down there? The doors and windows all looked closed from up here. She must have imagined it. She lowered her foot to the first step, and the cat abruptly froze in place. Her fur was not raised in warning, however, and she did not hiss. Her front paw simply held still in its position a few inches above the burgundy carpet. 

The air in the great room was still. No sound of the wind outside came through the walls. Branches ceased their constant scratching on the roof. It was as if someone or something had pressed a pause button.

A light at the bottom of the stairs radiated from an unknown source. White outlines in the shape of people formed in the air, glowing brighter. Indistinct faces remained still at first. A man, yes, definitely a man’s shape mounted the first two steps. Behind him, a slender woman with long, flowing hair. Below them on the ground floor, more shapes came into focus. Two small children stood next to each other, holding hands. By their postures, they both looked like little boys. 

The four moved like shadows in reverse. White, cloudy-outlined images, hazily sliding over the edges of framed photographs hanging on the wall. Melting over the angles of the stairs up toward her. The bright un-shadows burned her eyes. Dedra’s eyelids seemed glued open. Her muscles strained unsuccessfully to raise her arms and protect her from the searing pain. 

Dedra stifled the scream in her throat, keeping herself from falling by leaning on the wall. The inverted shadow mouths were stretched inhumanly wide. Gaping holes with no teeth or tongues were instead filled with white and grey hissing static screeching up at her. Each of the four heads slammed to the right in perfect sync, snapping their necks at an absurd angle. 

Then Dedra did scream. Eyes slammed closed, entire body tensed and bracing for the inevitable pain she anticipated. She almost tumbled down the stairs when Abram touched her shoulder. Of course there was nothing there when she opened her eyes. Of course there wasn’t. This was the real world. Order was Queen. She was only dreaming.

She allowed Abram to lead her down the stairs after he checked the house. Discovering nothing out of the Queen’s order, he made her a cup of hot chamomile tea with two spoonfuls of honey. He sat with her in silence for a time. He was a good man, really. She told him everything was okay, that he should go back to bed, and kissed him on the lips gently. 

Two hours later Dedra was still sitting at the table, absentmindedly stirring her cold cup of tea as the sky turned from black into purple, then into a momentary flash of dark blood red. In that short span of seconds, a squirrel hopped onto the fence top. The animal stood on its hind legs and appeared to stare directly into her wide-open eyes. The sun coming up behind it made it difficult to see its face. 

Dedra walked to the edge of the sink and leaned closer to the window. The squirrel pointed straight at her with an outstretched hand, snapped its head violently to the right and leaped into the air. Instinctively, she ducked and heard a loud crack from the glass. She opened the silverware drawer with shaking hands and drew out a spatula. Fumbling with the oversized wooden utensil in her clumsy fingers, she dropped it and reached back into the drawer, struggling to grab hold of a knife.

The lights came on, and her chest lurched in shock. Maria, her youngest girl, stood with one hand on the light switch. With the other she rubbed her eyes and pointed curiously to the book and key sitting in the center of the kitchen table. 

-21-

Dedra: Opening and Closing

Dedra quickly slid the two strange items from the table and shoved them into a drawer next to the pantry. Making breakfast helped calm her. Reciting the recipe in her head, measuring the correct amount of milk, counting the eggs, stirring briskly for forty-five seconds in a clockwise direction, then forty-five seconds counter-clockwise. Order. It put everything in its right place. 

By the time she finished making her biscuits, both girls were in their seats, fussing with each other’s hair and talking about what they were going to do at school that day. She tensed when Abram wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed the side of her neck warmly. He hesitated for a moment and then let go. She hoped he didn’t notice. 

Meal finished, dishes in the sink, and kids out the door for school in fifteen minutes. This just might have been a record, even for the Swindon family. Abram stood at the end of the driveway until the girls entered the gate of the little school down at the end of the street. He closed his eyes and stretched up to the brisk morning sky. He picked at a few weeds from the edge of the lawn, continuing his morning ritual, and came back in the front door. 

Dedra was already sitting at the table and motioned for him to join her when he came into the kitchen. As she walked him through the frightening happenings of her morning, Abram sat still and held his eyes steady with hers. When she finished her story, Abram remained quiet for a long time. When he eventually spoke, he suggested it might have been residual emotions from her nightmare earlier in the evening spilling over into her half-awake subconscious. 

That might have even been something she would suggest, if it weren’t for the key. She lifted the rust-covered piece of bronze from the apron in her lap and set it on the center of the table. Abram’s eyes stretched wider than she had seen in their twenty years of marriage. He looked back up into Dedra’s face and then quickly back down to the key, his expression shifting in miniscule degrees from world-weary terror to the Christmas morning surprise of a small child that only a parent could recognize.

His hand slid over the well-worn wood of the old table and stopped just next to the fantastical object. At his curious glance, Dedra gave the hint of a nod and closed her eyes. She didn’t know why she kept the book hidden away. It just felt wrong to show it to him. But the key… she knew of no one else who could decipher what the key meant, and what it might open. 

All of the equipment down in the basement, the hammers, the gloves, punches and chisels…each of them were there because he loved working with metal. Blacksmithing, casting, welding, any way he could beguile new shapes out of the unrefined alloys. He could make anything he wanted. Mostly he just made keys. Not the machine-made kind you find in a shopping mall or auto parts store. He forged his exquisite displays of workmanship by hand. They were hung on the walls of every house in the neighborhood. When politicians from all over New England found a hero who saved a cat from a burning building or an athlete who pitched a no-hitter to win the playoffs, Abram handcrafted their key to the city for them.

They were radiant. Some ornate and complex designs twisting the metal in and out like Celtic knots. Others gorgeous in their simplicity with fine lines and pure curves. Often people from nearby asked him to copy their house or car keys. They were all one of a kind and fit the user’s personality perfectly. He never charged them. He made them out of love, with love, for love. 

Abram didn’t like to think he made keys that locked things. Rather that he made keys that opened things. He thought keys could open anything and everything. When you unlocked your home to let someone in, they were welcomed into your life. They were entering your small part of the world and that was a beautiful thing. Abram’s keys opened more than just buildings and cars. Abram’s keys opened doorways to the unreachable places. 

-22-

Dedra: At the Bottom of the Stairs

Giant white Xs falling from the sky. That’s what they looked like anyway. The snow floating next to the window was protected from the winds so it fell straight down. The neighboring house just beyond the bushes was not as insulated from nature’s heavy breathing, causing the flakes to descend much faster and at an angle. Watching them all come down together created the illusion of thousands of three-dimensional white Xs punched across the sky in a gentle form of Braille.

A light dusting of soft white coated the grass. Heavy snows melted a few days ago when warmer, more comfortable days arrived. The kids didn’t have to put on coats when they were out playing yesterday. But the whiteness returned for today, at least. At this point in the weather, it wasn’t enough to fully cover the short rock wall running along the property line. Branches weren’t creaking and snapping under the weight of accumulation anymore. 

Everyone in the village grew excited for spring’s arrival. They acted as if a blue sky was something out of a fairy tale. That water flowing in the reservoir without a sheet of ice covering its surface was nothing but a rumor in the back rooms of hair salons and barber shops. Winter in this part of the country wasn’t that bad. It only snowed for two months. But locals seemed to exaggerate everything around here. No matter where folks lived, they loved to complain about the weather. 

Abram wouldn’t see any of it. He put himself away like an old unused tool behind the basement door. Dedra thought about knocking but didn’t. Calling to the girls, she told them to be safe while she went inside for a little while. Two small, absentminded hands waved quickly over their unturned heads and returned to whatever dirt-covered game they were playing in the pretty little thicket of bushes.

It was time for a break. Maybe they would eat egg salad sandwiches on the sofa together, watching TV. She wouldn’t complain about the crumbs this time. She didn’t even know why it bothered her so much. It’s not like they any company ever came to the house. No family was nearby to pay a surprise visit, and the neighbors all kept a safe distance. Always polite, but never friendly. That’s just the way things were around here. She made attempts to start some friendships. Nothing ever amounted to more than tentative plans that nobody ever followed up on. 

Dedra’s life was Abram and the girls. She tried not to be overbearing and press him for too much attention, but the loneliness overwhelmed her mind sometimes. There was no defense against it. Abram was a good husband. But like most men he needed his time to do whatever it was men did when they were alone. Dedra recognized how important that was to him and let him have his space. They never argued about it. Not a syllable was uttered in frustration. But hiding away in the basement for two nights and three days? It was time to bring him back out into the world.

Her knuckles struck the yellow door five times in rapid succession. She didn’t notice the hollow resonance of the sound. A large basement made mostly from concrete should have more of an echo. Putting her ear to the door she knocked again. No response. Dedra reluctantly turned the doorknob. Unlocked, the door opened without the squeak of hinges or creaking of old wood.

Light was visible at the bottom of the stairs. A hint of cinnamon swam in the air, mixed with the familiar odors of smoke and damp mahogany. Her slippers slid softly across the tops of each stair, providing the only soundtrack to her descent. She reached the floor and turned her head both ways, looking for Abram. Maybe he was taking a nap in the shadows behind the boxes to her left? His desk sat empty, and some of his tools lay discarded on the floor. 

Racking her brain, Dedra tried to remember when she last saw him come upstairs. The red-orange glow emanating from the boiler was too dark for any real heat to be coming from there. Abram obviously wasn’t working on anything down here today. But the door was open, and his tools uncharacteristically splayed around the basement, not neatly put away. 

There were piles of papers scattered everywhere. She resisted the urge to organize the confusion. This was her husband’s space. She could do whatever she liked in the rest of the house, but Abram kept his own non-filing system. Though her spine stiffened at each page on the floor and every broken pencil, she respected him enough to not move anything.

A light crinkling sound came from under her foot, walking closer to the desk. Picking up one piece of paper wouldn’t disrupt things too much, would it? Scratches of dark gray pencil lead coalesced into a more recognizable shape as wrinkles were smoothed away. Straight edges here, a beautiful curve there. Sharp teeth extended fiercely outward from a perfect circular shape. Abram’s drawing became a perfect facsimile of the mysterious key from the other night. More than simply lead lines laid out on the page, the image hovered above the paper in all three dimensions. 

Her eyes glazed over. In that moment she forgot herself. There was a brief glimpse into the universe existing without her self. No color. No light. Empty. Hollow. Unfeeling. An uninhabited void of white. 

Dedra snapped back into awareness. Her hands tore at the paper, shredding it into small pieces. She let them go. She let the images of that terrible whiteness fall away from her. The image of the key remained burned in her mind, floating, spinning slowly in the air above her hands. She was sure that she was not at all interested in finding out what it opened.

Defiantly, she took the last few steps over to the desk. Among all the dust and clutter, soot stains and malformed metal mistakes, the top of Abram’s desk was quite clean. Other than his dirty pair of gloves, there wasn’t much Dedra could complain about. It was sitting there right on the center of the workbench. He found it. She should throw it out. The old and fraying red thread opened, welcoming all to enter the world opened on the pages. Untied now, it gently draped over the edges of the pages.