The Key

“This one,” Maddy said. She reached her ancient arm out and picked an old rusted skeleton key off of a dusty VHS tape. She held the key up to the light, looked through its holes and measured up its sides.

“Lilith!” Maddy called out. The young girl at the front desk closed a photography magazine and pushed her thick black frames against her chalky skin.

She made an irritated noise, acknowledging Maddy.

“When did you get this key in? It’s absolutely marvelous, dear!”

Lilith glanced at the key, and then brought her magazine back up and buried her face into it. “I don’t know. Yesterday?”

“What time yesterday?” Maddy asked. She was an avid thrift shop visitor, but was in no way an avid buyer. In fact, Lilith never sold Maddy anything, and Lilith had been working the morning shift of the thrift shop since she started college, three years ago. The way Lilith saw it, Maddy was a curious old lady, annoying and smelly, which came with the territory of being old, who came to the thrift everyday because it was more convenient then going across town to the museum.

“I don’t know,” Lilith said into her magazine. “Sometime after you left the store yesterday and before I opened the shop this morning.”

“Interesting,” Maddy said. “Very interesting.”

Maddy slammed the key down onto the thrift shop’s counter.

“I’ll take it!”

“I’m not even sure what that thing unlocks,” Lilith said.

“I’m sure it unlocks something,” Maddy said. “Back when I was a little girl, I had a jewelry box with a key exactly like this one!”

“Amazing!” Lilith said. Maddy wasn’t too keen when it came to sarcasm. She smiled widely.

“I lost my key so long ago, I couldn’t even tell you what was in that box! How much?”

Lilith shrugged. “A buck?”

“I’ll give you two, Deary,” Maddy said, and she dropped quarters out of her purse.

Maddy wrapped herself up tightly in her scarf and walked the length home. She lived in an old Victorian home off Main St. Nobody in town was sure how long she had lived in that house. Rumor had it that Maddy and the home were born at the same time.

Maddy sort-a/kind-a kept up with the house. She cleaned the few rooms she used and always cleaned the dishes. Since Philip passed, there were never dishes in the sink. The bathrooms were clear of cobwebs and dust, although there was some grime stained between the tiles. Her bedroom was the cleanliest of all the rooms. It smelt of old roses and was always very well lit. Half of the bed was made and had remained that way since Philip passed.

She turned the sink knobs in the kitchen and ran the key under the water. Maddy’s father once told her not to put keys under water, that they could rust and be ruined, but Maddy couldn’t remember that. She oozed orange dish washing soap onto the key and scrubbed the key’s black paint off. This was unintentional.

The old Victorian had a secret door in one of the closets which lead up to the attic. The attic was filled with little trinkets from Maddy’s childhood. They were all draped beneath white cloths, resting beneath layers of thick dust, sad and forgotten.

Discolored key in hand, Maddy searched each closet for an attic door. She was certain one of the closets had the secret door. She just couldn’t remember which it was.

The last closet she checked, a bedroom closet, which Philip always kept his belongings in, had the secret door. Maddy rarely went into the closet. It still smelt of Philip. His clothes still hung on the hangars, Maddy just didn’t want to get rid of them.

She reached over head for a small string to pull the stairs down.

“Hey, Mad!” she heard. “What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Dinner,” she muttered. “Is that the only you think about?” She tugged the string down hard. The door opened and a hail of dust fell upon her. She coughed and hit the white dust out of her white hair.

“Looking good, Mad. You really dolled yourself up.”

Maddy smiled and turned to one of Philip’s tuxedos. It was the one he wore to their golden anniversary party. Dust had fallen onto the suit’s shoulder. Maddy knocked the shoulder clean.

“You’re always making a mess of yourself, Philie,” she said.

“If I could go back in time, if I could change it all, I wouldn’t change a thing,” he said, and then their was the clinking of glasses and people applauded.

When her hands found the stair’s railing, and her left foot planted on the first step, Maddy felt ten years younger. Her white hair was dark in places and she no longer held the posture of a spoon.

Maddy climbed and climbed and with every so many steps she would shrink smaller and smaller. By the time Maddy reached the attic, she looked down at her hands and her feet. They were tiny and smooth and her skin was flush with color. Her hair was a deep brown and healthy. It curled around her ears and tickled the sides of her neck.

Maddy was nine years old.

All of the dust and dirt, cobwebs and stale air had miraculously vanished. Even more miraculous was the trinkets up in the attic. They were no longer covered and forgotten beneath table cloths and unused blankets. They were exposed and perfectly restored, as if just created.

There was a Persian rug in the center of the attic. Maddy’s father told her that the rug was hers, and that it was very expensive and she should always take care around it. Beyond the rug was a dresser, complete with Maddy’s old make-up kit her grandmother gave her on her ninth birthday. She told Maddy, “You don’t need this stuff, Sweetie. You’re plenty beautiful the way you are and someday you’re going to make a man very happy.”

Maddy could remember bits and pieces of this. She had lost a picture of her grandmother long ago and had a hard time remembering what her face looked like. All she could remember was her smell and her crisp white, thinning hair. She wore her hair tied back and Maddy could always see her scalp. But as for her face, Maddy could hardly put it together. It was just a blank blob of flesh.

“I was going to give that box to my daughter,” Maddy’s grandmother told her, “But I never had one. So I gave it to my son and now he's giving it to you. I hope it serves you well, Little Miss.”

The jewelry box sat on top of a dresser, which pressed against the front wall, between the attic’s two windows. A wooden sign hung over the dresser’s mirror. It read, “Maddy’s Secrets.” Her father had carved the sign for her back on her fifth birthday, and ever since the sign was hung up, Maddy always retreated up to the attic to spend some time alone with her imagination.

Maddy’s thin lips curled when she saw her reflection in the clean mirror. Her young hands touched the back of her hair, felt the thick strands and curls. She shook her head around and watched her locks bounce and for the first time in decades, she felt no pain in her neck from doing so.

She sat at the dresser and picked up the jewelry box. The wood was heavy, but the box’s contents were light. She tilted the box, shook it around, and could only hear the light taps of rocking paper coming from within. It was then that Maddy remembered what she kept in the box. It was her memory box.

From the time Maddy got the box until she was a senior in college, Maddy would jot dot little notes, quotes she would hear and the good and bad things that had happened to her and lock them up in her box. The box always seemed to be overflowing, but in the decades that Maddy had and filled the box, she never actually managed to stuff it full.

All of the memories in that box were lost to her now. Her old friends, the way she felt on her first date with Philip, the dress she wore on the first day of college. Lost.

She took the key up and leaned over the box. The wood was smooth. It felt good beneath Maddy’s young fingers. The key slid into the jewelry box’s keyhole with ease.

All those memories. All those emotions. All those forgotten events that shaped Maddy’s life. They were so close.

Maddy turned the key. It did not budge. The box remained locked.

As Maddy looked up, she found that her skin and hair had aged. Her back grew taller and then bent over like old weeds. The attic was a sanctuary of white blankets, all covered in dust and covering old furniture.

Maddy looked forward, seeing a sheet of blanket standing straight up. She was fairly certain that behind that wall of blanket was an old, dust encrusted mirror. She didn’t want to pull the blanket away to see if it was.

Maddy left the attic and closed the ceiling door in Philip’s closet and went on with her day. In a month’s time, she forgot the entire experience. She visited the thrift shop everyday and everyday she would say something to Lilith and Lilith would try to ignore her and reply with the minimal amount of words possible.

One year later, Maddy passed away.

Her home was seized and workers were hired to go in and gather up all of her belongings. A pair of workers found the secret door to the attic in Philip’s closest. They were pleasantly surprised at all of the valuable antiques they found up there.

For the life of them, they couldn’t figure how the foot prints in the dusty ground were formed. They started small at the door and led to the home’s front wall, at which point the foot prints grew and trailed back to the stairs. Of all the things in the attic, a small jewelry box was the only thing not hidden beneath the white covers. It was completely free of dust, and although the workers didn’t know it, it was the most valuable thing the home had to offer.