Chapter 6: The Key*
1165 Words
The locket was still warm in Damien’s palm.
It shouldn’t be. The air in Blackwood Manor at dawn tasted like wet stone and old iron. Her breath fogged. His didn’t.
They didn’t speak as they walked back. Their footsteps echoed off the marble, too loud, like the house was listening.
Evelyn could feel it on her skin. The house. Watching.
“Give it back,” she said finally. Her voice came out hoarse.
Damien stopped mid-hall and turned to her. The morning light from the tall windows cut across his face, making the shadows under his eyes look deeper.
He opened his hand. The locket sat there, but the tiny key inside glinted. Black iron. Old. The teeth worn down like it had been used a hundred times.
“Why is there a key in it?” Evelyn asked. She didn’t reach for it. Not yet.
“Because it’s not a locket,” Damien said. “Not really. It’s a keychain.”
Evelyn frowned. “That’s ridiculous. Who puts a key inside a locket?”
“Someone who needed to hide it,” he said. “My mother.”
The word hung between them. _Mother._ Said like a bruise.
He snapped it shut and pressed it back into her hand. His fingers were freezing. Hers were burning.
“Put it on,” he ordered. “And don’t take it off.”
“What if I want to?”
“Then you die,” he said, flat. No drama. Just fact. “Whoever is in this house thinks you’re her. The girl from the photo. The baby that was stolen. And they will do anything to get that key back.”
Evelyn’s throat tightened. “I’m not her. I’m Evelyn Carter. From the Bronx. My brother—”
“I know who you are,” Damien cut in. “But I don’t know who they think you are.”
From downstairs, a door clicked. Soft. Deliberate.
Both of them froze.
Martha. Probably. Or maybe not.
Damien’s jaw ticked. “The west wing has no keyhole on the outside. I’ve checked. A hundred times.”
“Then where does it go?”
“Inside,” he said. “Which means someone has to let you in. Or you have to find another way in.”
Evelyn laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “Great. So we have a key to a door we can’t reach.”
“Not we,” Damien corrected. “You.”
He started walking again. Faster this time. Toward the main staircase.
“Wait,” Evelyn said, catching up. Her wet shoes squeaked. “You think I’m the one who’s supposed to open it?”
“I think you already have,” he said without looking back. “The crying stopped when you touched the door last night. The candle lit itself when you walked into the chapel. The house knows you.”
The air got colder as they passed the portrait gallery. The Blackwoods in their oil paintings seemed to follow her with their eyes. Men in suits. Women in pearls. All of them with the same gray eyes as Damien.
All of them except one.
A portrait near the end of the hall. Covered with a black cloth.
Evelyn stopped. “Who’s under that?”
Damien didn’t stop walking. “Don’t.”
“Damien.”
He turned back. Impatient. Angry. “It’s my mother, Evelyn. And I don’t want you looking at her. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because you look exactly like her.”
The words hit her like ice water.
“No I don’t,” she whispered.
Damien crossed the space between them in two steps. He didn’t touch her. He just lifted a hand and, with his thumb, brushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek.
His eyes dropped to the locket at her throat. Then back up to her face.
“You have her mouth,” he said, voice low. “Her chin. The way you tilt your head when you’re lying.”
Evelyn stepped back. “Stop.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you for twenty years. And now you’re here, wearing her key, and the house is bleeding again.”
“B-Bleeding?”
A thud. From the west wing.
Both of them turned.
Another thud. Then a scrape. Like fingernails on iron.
Evelyn’s heart slammed against her ribs. The locket pulsed. Hot. Then cold. Then hot again.
Damien grabbed her wrist. “Run.”
They didn’t run to her room. They ran down. Past Martha, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs with a tray and a face like stone. She didn’t ask where they were going.
They ended up in Damien’s study. Dark wood. Floor-to-ceiling books. The smell of leather and whiskey and something metallic.
He shut the door. Locked it.
Evelyn leaned against it, breathing hard. “What was that?”
“The house,” Damien said. He poured water with shaking hands. Missed the glass. “It’s remembering.”
He handed her the glass. She drank. It tasted like copper.
“The key,” he said. “We need to figure out what it opens before they do.”
“They?”
“Whoever left you the photo. Whoever sent the message. Whoever was in the chapel.” He set his glass down too hard. “Someone inside this manor wants you dead, Evelyn. And someone outside wants you alive.”
Evelyn looked down at the locket. She turned it over. Ran her thumb across the seam.
It clicked.
The locket opened.
Inside: not just the key. A folded piece of paper. Yellowed. Tissue thin.
Damien saw it and went still.
“Don’t,” he said.
She unfolded it anyway.
Five words. Her mother’s handwriting. Shaky.
_Find the girl. Protect her._
Evelyn looked up at him. “Your mom wrote this?”
Damien stared at the paper like it might bite him.
He reached out and took it from her. His hand was trembling.
“She died holding this,” he said. “The police said she was alone. But she wasn’t.”
He folded the paper and put it in his pocket. Close to his chest.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Only the fire crackling. Only the rain starting again against the windows.
Then Damien said, “You need to sleep.”
“I can’t—”
“You can. In my room. Where I can see the doors.”
“That’s not part of the contract.”
“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”
He walked to the door, unlocked it, and held it open for her.
“Come on, Mrs. Blackwood,” he said. “Before the house decides to talk again.”
Evelyn followed him out.
Behind them, in the study, the fire popped.
And on the desk, where no one had put it, lay a second note.
_SHE HAS THE KEY NOW._
- Writer
