cold iron · ward and rim · stamped r.o. · the eldest
the lock is set into the iron door of the family vault in the south corner of the parish ground, beyond the yew. the door is older than anyone alive; the lock has been re-keyed once, in 1841, by r. ottmer the first, whose initials are stamped into the bow. the door is opened twice a generation, on average, and otherwise stays shut against the weather and the cold.
the key is the heaviest the house keeps. it lives in a small linen bag, in a box on the highest shelf of the bureau, alongside the stamped paper that records who is inside the vault and on what date. it passes by hand to the eldest of the generation when the previous holder lets it go. the keeper does not use the kitchen hook; the kitchen is not the right room for it.
the key has been used four times in the keeper's life — for an aunt, a father, a child, the mother-in-law. each time the lock has resisted before it gave, and each time the verger has stood near with the chapel key in case the cold made an instrument of either of them. nothing has happened, on these occasions, beyond what was meant to.
field-note — the key is the same temperature as stone in winter. holding it warms it less than holding any other key the keeper has held.
key museum · chapel key · mother-in-law's key · custodian · never