The key trembled between them for a moment before Mia took it, the metal warm from where it had rested against her mother's skin for three decades.
"You've had this the whole time," Mia said. "Since she died."
"I promised her I'd keep it safe. I never once tried it in the lock myself." Her mother's voice had gone thin, frightened in a way that made the hallway feel colder than it should have. "I told myself that I was respecting her wishes. I think, if I'm honest, I was simply too afraid of what I'd find."
Mia fitted the key into the lock, and it turned with an ease that suggested the mechanism had been waiting, well-oiled and patient, for exactly this moment despite thirty years of disuse.
The room beyond was small, windowless, lined with shelves that held nothing ordinary — old photo
