Chapter 23: The Spare Key

The package sat on Odette's back counter between the flour bin and the cat bowls.

It was a plain brown box the size of a bread loaf, tied with kitchen string.

My name was written on the lid in blue ink, in the same looping hand.

"Mara Larkin, Lighthouse Caretaker."

Nobody touched it.

"Who brought it?" Chan asked.

"A boy came in with it from the street," Odette said. "He said a man gave him five dollars.

"He can't have been more than twelve. He ran before I could ask."

"What did the man look like?"

"He said a coat and a hat. He said he didn't look."

Chan turned and went to the front window.

He stood at the glass for a count of ten, studying every roofline on Main Street.

Then he came back and took a pair of Odette's oven mitts from the hook.

"I'll open it," he said.

"No," I said.

"Mara."

"It's got my name on it."

I took the mitts out of his hands and put them on.

They had a pattern of lobsters, and I told myself that was funny.

I cut the string with Odette's bread knife and lifted the lid.

Inside was tissue paper.

Under the tissue lay a brass key on a loop of red thread, a square white Polaroid, and nothing else.

The key was old and heavy, with a worn bit.

I knew it before I turned it over.

I'd had that key cut in 1998, at a hardware shop in Halifax, for a lock from 1974.

"That's my door key," I said.

"You have yours," Hyunjin said.

"I have one. There's a spare."

"Where is it?"

"On a nail inside the woodshed, behind the kindling."

Nobody said anything.

I picked up the Polaroid by its white edge.

It showed my bed, with the quilt my grandmother made and the flannel sheets.

The tabby lay curled on my pillow in the lamplight, fast asleep.

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