iron · ward lock · long lost · no one
the lock is a ward-and-bolt arrangement at the head of the back stairs, set into a low door cut for shorter people. it has not been turned since, at the latest, 1949. the attic itself is reached by other means now — through the cupboard, with a stoop. the door remains because no one has thought to remove it.
the key was last seen on a hook with three others. by the time the hook was inventoried, in the year of the new tenant, only two keys hung there and neither was iron. it may be in a tin in the cellar. it may have gone in a coat to the cabin. it may have been buried, by the second child, in the garden, as keys sometimes are.
what the key holds back has not been opened by anyone living. the house ledger records two crates, a bird-cage, a stack of curtains, a christening-gown in tissue. these are written down in present tense, as the keeper writes everything.
field-note — the attic is colder than the building. you hear it through the cupboard ceiling, on certain afternoons, like a sea two streets away.
key museum · unknown key · cellar key · loss of keys · forget