satchel.
Zachary returns to the chair by the bed and reads. He is partway through a story about an innkeeper in a snow-covered inn that is so absorbing he can almost hear the wind when he notices the incense has burned out.
He puts the book down on the nightstand and lights another cone of incense. The smoke wafts over the book as it catches.
“At least you have your book back even though I don’t have mine,” Zachary remarks aloud. He thinks perhaps he will have a drink, maybe a glass of water to get the honey taste out of his mouth, and goes to inscribe a request for the Kitchen. His hand is on the pen when he hears Dorian’s voice behind him, sleepy but clear.
“I put your book in your coat.”
Simon is an only child, his name inherited from an older brother who died at birth. He is a replacement. He sometimes wonders if he is living someone else’s life, wearing someone else’s shoes and someone else’s name.
Simon lives with his uncle (his dead mother’s brother) and his aunt, constantly reminded that he is not their son. The specter of his mother hangs over him. His uncle only mentions her when drinking (also the only time he will call Simon a bastard) but he drinks often. Jocelyn Keating is invoked as everything from a trollop to a witch. Simon doesn’t remember enough of his mother to know if she was a witch or not. He once dared to suggest he might not be a bastard, as no one is certain of his parentage and his mother was with whatever man might be his father long enough for there to be two Simons so they might have secretly been married but that got a wineglass thrown at his head (badly aimed). His uncle did not recall the exchange afterward. A maid cleared away the broken glass.
On Simon’s eighteenth birthday he is presented with an envelope. Its wax seal has an impression of an owl and the paper is yellowed with age. The front reads:
For Simon Jonathan Keating on the occasion of the eighteenth anniversary of his birth
It had been kept in some bank box somewhere, his uncle explains. Delivered that morning.
“It’s not my birthday,” Simon observes.
“We were never certain of your birth date,” his uncle states with a matter-of-fact dullness. “Apparently it is today. Many happy returns.”
He leaves Simon alone with the envelope.
It is heavy. There is more than a letter inside. Simon breaks the seal, surprised that his uncle did not already open it himself.
He hopes that his mother has written him a message, speaking to him across time.
It is not a letter.
The paper has no salutation, no signature. Only an address. Somewhere in the country.
And there is a key.
Simon turns the paper over and finds two additional words on the reverse.
memorize & burn
He reads the address again. He looks at the key. He rereads the front of the envelope.
Someone has given him a country house. Or a barn. Or a locked box in a field.
Simon reads the address a third time, then a fourth. He closes his eyes and repeats it to himself and checks that he is correct, reads it one more time for good measure and drops the paper into the fireplace.
“What was in that envelope?” his uncle asks, too casually, at dinner.
“Just a key,” Simon answers.
“A key?”
“A key. A keepsake, I suppose.”
“Harrumph,” his uncle grumbles into his wineglass.
“I might pay a visit to my school friends in the country next weekend,” Simon remarks mildly and his aunt comments on the weather and his uncle harrumphs again and one anxious week later Simon is on a train with the key in his pocket, staring out the window and repeating the address to himself.
At the station he asks for directions and is pointed down a winding road, past empty fields.
He does not see the stone cottage until he is on its doorstep. It is concealed behind ivy and brambles, a garden left to its own devices that has nearly consumed the building it surrounds. A low stone wall separates it from the road, the gate rusted shut.
Simon climbs over the wall, thorns tugging at his trousers. He pulls down a curtain of ivy in order to access the cottage door.
He tries the key in the lock. It turns easily but getting inside is another matter. He pushes and shoves and clears more ivy vines before convincing it to open at last.
Simon sneezes as he