Keeper of the Keys

13

F inally, one worked. He had to push hard against the door.

The living room, once home to geometric-patterned curtains, now flowery and strange, held a level of clutter he could hardly believe. Newspapers and magazines piled up in corners, along ledges, even on the couch. He had heard of such people. They hoarded, fearful of what?

He picked his way disdainfully past the moldering stacks, thinking, was it worse to hang on to every single thing, or better to let it all go without regard for its meaning or import?

He checked out the master bedroom and found nothing, then moved into his old room, the one with the three high windows. He hardly recognized it. This room had turned into a repository of neurosis, a place where damp publications mildewed and died. All three walls held moldering papers stacked up to the ceiling. He could barely walk inside.

It hurt, what they had done to his home. He was stifling. Throwing open the back door, he took a deep breath of fresh air to clear his lungs, wondering how much time he had. All the time in the world, really, because the world had come down to this mad search of his.

He moved swiftly back into the kitchen. Sca

Ah, yes, grimy lines that showed where the trapdoor existed. No handle stuck up anymore, however. He had to find a steak knife in a drawer and pry at the sides of it. After cleaning and picking at three sides, the door lifted open like an ancient tomb.

He peered inside. Black. Dank. Nothing. Cold air coming at him.

He didn’t have a flashlight. Frustrated, he left the trap open and wandered farther through the house, trying to find one. In one cupboard he found a hair cutter, shaver, curling iron, and hair dryer. In one, he discovered appliances: a bread maker, coffee grinder, blender, and sandwich grill. All these things reposed willy-nilly between oven racks, coffee mugs, and ca

Phew.

After placing the battery correctly in the flashlight, he poked it into the dark hole of the forgotten fruit cellar.

Webs, the overwhelming truth of the matter. Many spiders, many critters, owned this place. He saw jars he thought he remembered from his childhood, ugh, so old even he didn’t want to deal with them. However, he had no choice.

The rotting wooden ladder held his weight all the way to the dank floor. Waving the flashlight around, repulsed, intrigued, he dug through the dusty dank jars, watching for black widow spiders and another revelation.

After all, Esmé had thought of the cellar as a refuge from intruders.

Parked on the street outside, Kat watched Ray leave his car, debating whether to hop out and have a look through a window or two to see what Ray was up to.

“ A1A Beachfront Avenue!” the boyz on her cell phone shouted.

“Hiya. It’s me.”

“Well, hello, Zak.”

“A Chinese movie tomorrow night?” Zak suggested. “Not quite Crouching Tiger. More Man, Woman, Eat Tofu type of thing.”

“Er. Never heard of that one,” she said.

“Well, I forget the name, but it’s about a guy who doesn’t fit in with his girlfriend’s family. He’s not what they think he is. He can’t live up to their expectations.”

“He’s gay?” She usually passed on gay movies. She went to the movies for the immature purpose of identifying with a main character, wanting to be a beautiful babe who got it all, or got what Kat wanted, anyway.

“No, but there’s some kind of kinky sex thing. Does that bother you?”

“I’m okay with kink in moderation.” And sure, she liked sex things. She just didn’t like subtitled films. She didn’t understand Chinese history or French humor or Swedish angst. She liked great production values and a lot of FX.

Rollerblades and subtitles. Zak wasn’t easy to pin down, was he? One of these days, she would have to pry into his past, and get equal dirt on him.

“Sounds great,” she said, distracted, her eyes on the house.

“I’ll pick you up.”

She punched off and smiled at herself, an attractive young woman in dark sunglasses, examining herself in the driver’s mirror. Just before the call she had been a loser acting peculiarly. Amazing what a phone call could do.

Possibly she could change for Zak. She would watch Korean and Indonesian and Fi

Then she remembered with a wince her sister’s conversations lately, which had deteriorated into daily reports on her lack of sleep, the daily boredom of staying at home, how much she hated to clean. Maybe Jacki had been right. Kat didn’t know what would make her happy. But she was getting a definite inkling about what wouldn’t.

She touched her car door handle, preparing to exit, then stopped, as something moved in her rearview mirror.

She sure takes short walks, Kat thought, fear for Ray rising up in her. He was about to get busted in the worst way, by a frustrated, drooling big animal. She jumped out of the car and approached the woman, even reaching out to pet the scary guy who stood calmly by her side. She, who knew nothing about dogs, learned a lot in the next few minutes. When she couldn’t think of another thing to say, the woman said good-bye and approached her house.

Come out, come out wherever you are! Ray! Kat shouted in her mind, but stood indecisively beside her car, wondering what else to do.

The fruit cellar was creepy, even with the square of light above that led back to the kitchen and the day. Ray began to feel claustrophobic, and his movements got larger. He knocked jars off their shelves. Something splattered on the ground and a sickly-sweet fruit smell came up. He ran his hand high along the right wall. Nothing. Kneeling, he flashed the light along the webs and detritus of fifty years of winters and springs.

And there he found it, a filthy zipped vinyl bank envelope, lying against the wall under the lowest shelf, right on the ground. He recognized it instantly, even in this light. His mother had kept her papers in it. He seemed to remember her looking through it for some money to give him one morning when he was late for school, pulling it out of her underwear drawer.

She had put it down here for a reason. He held it, the flashlight trembling so that moving shadows were cast over the walls.

He heard a faint bang up there and his heart fluttered. Pushing the envelope into his pants pocket, he waited in the dark, cursing his stupidity in not shutting the trapdoor when he went down, just to have a little light.

Then he heard growling, then the most horrendous, cavernous barking and scrabbling of feet above his head.

The light through the trapdoor was cut off. “Who’s down there?” a woman’s voice demanded, muffled through the floor, and spiked by shrieks from her mad dog. He should have said something, “Utility man,” anything, but his tongue wouldn’t operate.

The trapdoor was pushed over the hole. He barely breathed in the blackness, but the sounds above were incoherent as bedlam.

He could guess what she was doing. He didn’t have much time. He climbed up the ladder and tried to push up on it, but she seemed to be sitting on it. It didn’t budge.

“Ma’am, please let me out,” he said. “Please hold back your dog. I’m with the water company.”