By Krisi Keley (A Key ~ Noon ~ Falling Leaves)
Glancing at the time displayed on his car radio, Matt Connors shook his head in dismayed amusement. 9:45, read the clock below his dashboard, and here he was cruising along the expressway, heading for an old farmhouse in Chester County near Valley Forge National Park.
Not that that was strange. A lifelong resident of Philadelphia, he’d been out to sightsee in the suburbs on numerous occasions. Strange was what brought him out here today, or perhaps that he’d felt compelled to make the trip, despite that it was painful. His mother was buried in a cemetery out this way and, in fact, he and his wife would have been making a trip to that cemetery on this very day – his mother’s birthday. Would have been – if his wife had not died two weeks ago, making this journey a double-whammy of grief his broken heart shouted he was not ready for.
But my heart is playing second fiddle, Matt thought, still with that concerned amusement, because something else in me is compelling me to do this.
The concern was over the event inspiring this compulsion, for though Matt Connors was far from a superstitious man, there was a sense of the mystical in this he absolutely couldn’t deny. What amused him was that, if a client had confessed to experiencing such a feeling in similar circumstances, Matt would have gently assured him it was the mind’s way of dealing with grief.
“And, nonetheless, here I am,” he spoke aloud, taking the ramp from the expressway to Route 422. Speaking aloud was another thing that might have concerned him, had he not been so distracted by his memory of what had placed his feet on this odd road.
He’d been standing at his wife’s gravesite on the day of her funeral, the prayers done and the undertakers waiting for the mourners to leave for the after-funeral luncheon, so they might lower the casket. There were still a few friends and family about, but they had given their final condolences – at least those offered at the service – and he stood alone now in his grief.
“I have something for you,” spoke a soft voice, and he looked up with rather detached surprise to see a young woman standing by his side. She held a small treasure box toward him, and he took it in some confusion before even considering why he was accepting this from a stranger.
“Some keys open different doors than those they were designed for,” she told him, and he was jolted to an alert clarity he hadn’t felt since before his wife’s death.
“Go to this address,” she instructed, slipping a scrap of paper into his free hand. “Find the old chest in the barn and open it at noon.”
Matt looked down at the box for a brief, stunned moment and then lifted its top. Inside lay a small, old-fashioned key.
“Who are you? Are you an acquaintance of Beth’s?” he asked in dazed wonder, unable to pull his eyes from the key.
“I’m your mother’s oldest friend,” she responded, bringing Matt’s head up quickly in shocked surprise, only to discover no one stood beside him.
But everyone at the luncheon had seen the box, though no one the woman, he thought now as he pulled his car up before the old farmhouse. And if the box is real, so must be the person who gave it to me.
But how eerie her words. The exact words his mother had spoken to him on her deathbed when he was only ten years old. Words he’d remembered often in his lifetime when his plans and how things actually turned out wound up being very different. How wise he’d always believed his mother because of this and how much he felt looked over by her when he was able to survive unforeseen and even painful challenges with much more ease than the clients he counseled at the psychiatric center.
Autumn’s falling leaves seemed to glow with the colors of the precious stones they resembled as he trekked across the house’s yard to the barn, dry grass crackling beneath his feet.
A time to be born and a time to die, he mused as he opened the barn door. A time for everything under the heavens.
The chest was easy enough to find – an old, paint-flecked wood for which the key inside the tiny box seemed a perfect mate. It sat in the middle of the barn on some hay which appeared strangely fresh, and he knelt before it, taking the key from the box and inserting it into the lock. With calm anticipation, he creaked open its lid and peered inside.
It was empty.
For a moment, Matt felt profound disappointment well up inside him, before his mother’s words, spoken again at his wife’s funeral, echoed in his mind. He sat back on his heels and, as he did, he noticed that the sunlight streaming down through the rafters was shining off the key where it still remained in the lock. It made a brilliant reflective beam that shot up toward the barn’s loft, and his eyes followed it instinctively.
There’s a door up there, he realized in wonder and then rose to his feet to climb the ladder to the loft, the chest’s key clutched in his hand.
He put the key in the lock and turned it, blinking back the tears that rose in his eyes at the sight behind the open door. Not at the light radiating from the woman from the gravesite, but in joy to see his wife and mother holding her hands, one on either side.
“Welcome home, Matt,” they said in unison and his heart was filled with peace.
The cause of the man’s death in the abandoned farmhouse, last owned by a Megan Connors in 1908, was a mystery to the coroner, but for Matt the only mystery that mattered from then on was love in eternity.
Glancing at the time displayed on his car radio, Matt Connors shook his head in dismayed amusement. 9:45, read the clock below his dashboard, and here he was cruising along the expressway, heading for an old farmhouse in Chester County near Valley Forge National Park.
Not that that was strange. A lifelong resident of Philadelphia, he’d been out to sightsee in the suburbs on numerous occasions. Strange was what brought him out here today, or perhaps that he’d felt compelled to make the trip, despite that it was painful. His mother was buried in a cemetery out this way and, in fact, he and his wife would have been making a trip to that cemetery on this very day – his mother’s birthday. Would have been – if his wife had not died two weeks ago, making this journey a double-whammy of grief his broken heart shouted he was not ready for.
But my heart is playing second fiddle, Matt thought, still with that concerned amusement, because something else in me is compelling me to do this.
The concern was over the event inspiring this compulsion, for though Matt Connors was far from a superstitious man, there was a sense of the mystical in this he absolutely couldn’t deny. What amused him was that, if a client had confessed to experiencing such a feeling in similar circumstances, Matt would have gently assured him it was the mind’s way of dealing with grief.
“And, nonetheless, here I am,” he spoke aloud, taking the ramp from the expressway to Route 422. Speaking aloud was another thing that might have concerned him, had he not been so distracted by his memory of what had placed his feet on this odd road.
He’d been standing at his wife’s gravesite on the day of her funeral, the prayers done and the undertakers waiting for the mourners to leave for the after-funeral luncheon, so they might lower the casket. There were still a few friends and family about, but they had given their final condolences – at least those offered at the service – and he stood alone now in his grief.
“I have something for you,” spoke a soft voice, and he looked up with rather detached surprise to see a young woman standing by his side. She held a small treasure box toward him, and he took it in some confusion before even considering why he was accepting this from a stranger.
“Some keys open different doors than those they were designed for,” she told him, and he was jolted to an alert clarity he hadn’t felt since before his wife’s death.
“Go to this address,” she instructed, slipping a scrap of paper into his free hand. “Find the old chest in the barn and open it at noon.”
Matt looked down at the box for a brief, stunned moment and then lifted its top. Inside lay a small, old-fashioned key.
“Who are you? Are you an acquaintance of Beth’s?” he asked in dazed wonder, unable to pull his eyes from the key.
“I’m your mother’s oldest friend,” she responded, bringing Matt’s head up quickly in shocked surprise, only to discover no one stood beside him.
But everyone at the luncheon had seen the box, though no one the woman, he thought now as he pulled his car up before the old farmhouse. And if the box is real, so must be the person who gave it to me.
But how eerie her words. The exact words his mother had spoken to him on her deathbed when he was only ten years old. Words he’d remembered often in his lifetime when his plans and how things actually turned out wound up being very different. How wise he’d always believed his mother because of this and how much he felt looked over by her when he was able to survive unforeseen and even painful challenges with much more ease than the clients he counseled at the psychiatric center.
Autumn’s falling leaves seemed to glow with the colors of the precious stones they resembled as he trekked across the house’s yard to the barn, dry grass crackling beneath his feet.
A time to be born and a time to die, he mused as he opened the barn door. A time for everything under the heavens.
The chest was easy enough to find – an old, paint-flecked wood for which the key inside the tiny box seemed a perfect mate. It sat in the middle of the barn on some hay which appeared strangely fresh, and he knelt before it, taking the key from the box and inserting it into the lock. With calm anticipation, he creaked open its lid and peered inside.
It was empty.
For a moment, Matt felt profound disappointment well up inside him, before his mother’s words, spoken again at his wife’s funeral, echoed in his mind. He sat back on his heels and, as he did, he noticed that the sunlight streaming down through the rafters was shining off the key where it still remained in the lock. It made a brilliant reflective beam that shot up toward the barn’s loft, and his eyes followed it instinctively.
There’s a door up there, he realized in wonder and then rose to his feet to climb the ladder to the loft, the chest’s key clutched in his hand.
He put the key in the lock and turned it, blinking back the tears that rose in his eyes at the sight behind the open door. Not at the light radiating from the woman from the gravesite, but in joy to see his wife and mother holding her hands, one on either side.
“Welcome home, Matt,” they said in unison and his heart was filled with peace.
The cause of the man’s death in the abandoned farmhouse, last owned by a Megan Connors in 1908, was a mystery to the coroner, but for Matt the only mystery that mattered from then on was love in eternity.