Emily Voss's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The next morning Emily climbed the back stairs again. The east wing door would not give. Someone had fitted a new lock to it. She pushed until her shoulder ached, but the wood held. Behind it, faint and steady, the woman was weeping again. Emily went looking for her aunt. She found her in the front hall, arranging fresh flowers on a cracked table. Mrs. Vivian Voss wore a gown of blue and gold, spotless against the peeling walls. She smiled the moment she saw Emily. "You locked the east wing," Emily said. "For your safety, dear." Her aunt trimmed a stem. "The floors up there could give way." She reached out and pressed Emily's hand between her cold fingers. "You'll leave it alone now." "I heard her crying. She needs help." Her aunt's smile did not move. "There is no one up there." She turned back to the flowers, and Emily saw the truth. Her aunt held the only key, and she would never give it up. Emily walked out to the grounds. Near the old shed she found the groundskeeper, a huge man with a white beard, bent over a rusted mower. Rings of keys hung from his belt. Mortimer kept keys to nearly every building in town. He had greeted her once with a slow wave and a name she barely caught. Now he looked up and read her face. "Locked out of somewhere," he said. It was not a question. "The east wing." She hesitated. "My aunt sealed it. There's a woman inside. Crying." Mortimer's kind eyes went still. He did not tell her she was imagining things. He unclipped a ring from his belt and turned it slowly, thumbing through worn brass and iron. "That wing's older than the rest," he said. "Your aunt's new lock won't matter. Old doors keep old keys." He pulled one free, black with age, and pressed it into her palm. "This opened it before she was born. Doubt she changed the whole door. Just the latch." Emily closed her hand around it. "Why help me? She's your employer." Mortimer wiped his hands on his overalls. "I've heard that crying too. Fifty years now." He turned back to the mower. "Somebody ought to finally answer it." Emily climbed the back stairs a third time. She fit the old key below the shiny new lock, into a keyhole she had not noticed before. It turned with a heavy click. The door swung inward. The boxes stood where she had left them, flaps torn, the wedding portrait propped against the wall. The black moth waited on the glass, wings shimmering. In the far corner, near the water stain, the weeping softened. "I came back," Emily said. "I told you I would." The crying stopped. Cold air moved toward her, gentle now, almost grateful. She had her way in. But footsteps clicked in the hall below, sharp and quick, and her aunt's voice called her name.