Art Pact 160

She dangled the key between her index finger and thumb, swinging it tantalisingly over my supplicant palm. I watched it travel to and fro, wondering whether Ian's warning about her hypnotic powers were actually true. I could hear her dog snuffling around my legs, and smell the wet hair scent, but I found myself unable to take my eyes off the key.

"You'll need this," she said. Her voice was low and gravelly, and carried an interlineal tale of cigarettes smoked in endless chains. I was struck with a sudden image - her body in a bathtub, details obscured modestly but tantalisingly by drifting islands of bubbles, a book in one hand and a Rothman's in the other, pale wisps of smoke drifting up from the ember end.

Her fingers stopped moving, and I snapped back to attention to focus on the key being lowered towards my hand. When it was within reach I quickly grabbed at it, only to have the prize whisked away from me sharply. I looked up to find her staring at me sternly, the index finger of the other hand help up rigidly.

"Not so fast," she told me. "Before you can take the key, you have to understand what it is."

"What is it?"

"It is a key," she said simply, then laughed. The laughter was the horrid laugh of a trickster, a joy in humiliation and cleverness, and I felt my face burn with shame. With her spare hand she took mine, spreading out the fingers again until the palm was flat and open, beseeching. "But what is a key?"

"It opens a door," I said - then, suspecting another trick: "Or a lid."

"It unlocks a door," she corrected me. "This key unlocks a door, but you must open it. You can open a door with-"

"With a handle, yes," I cut her off with malicious joy. "But which door?"

"Which door does this key open," she said dreamily, turning to stare up at the corner of the small room. "Yes, that is part of the question. I can tell you where the door is, but which door it is, that is something that you will have to find out for yourself."

She lowered the key again until the rounded bow rested cold against the centre of my palm. I tensed, but when I looked up again she simply nodded, and before I could react I felt the key fall from her fingers into my hand, which closed over it reflexively. It was cold at the bow end, warm at the bit end where it had rested between her fingers, and heavy. I had thought it metal, but it felt oddly as though it were made from some type of ceramic.

"Where did it come from?"

"Another good question," she said. She reached out one slender index finger to tap on the fist that I had closed around it. "Knock knock."

I tried to open my fingers, found that I could not.

"What's-"

"I will not take it back," she promised.

I was about to tell her that it made no difference to me if she did, but to my surprise her promise did make a difference to me, and I watched my fingers unfurl as though they were operating on their own will. Her finger hovered around it, circling above me as if teasing a child with a game of round and round the garden.

"I was given it, as I am giving it to you, but for a different reason. I was already on the other side of the door, and there is a second thing that keys do. The woman who gave it to me had got it from an older man, but there the trail ends because he was the man who made it."

"I thought-"

"You thought perhaps that it came from somewhere else?" she asked. "No. A key is made by a person, and this is no exception. So you understand that - that this is a thing made like any other, and that like any artifact, what one man makes can be copied by another. There may be other keys like this one, other women like me, other men like you. If you unlock a door with it, do not rely on that door to stay open."

She took her hand away again, and like a flower in the darkness my own hand closed over its prize again. I turned it over, looked at the veins on the back. I could feel the presence of the key even in my arm muscles, even in my shoulder - heavy, so much heavier than it should be.

"The door," she said, "whatever it is, is in the north part of the city. Over the bridge, in the old factory district. McFadden's factory. That is as close as I can tell you."

"Have you been there?" I asked.

"Once."

I nodded, and put my hand in the pocket of my jacket. It would not release the key, constricted by the tight material, and I withdrew it again. The pockets in my jumper were larger, but when I tried to release the key into them my hand refused again. It seemed that I was to be stuck that way until I found the door.

"When you open the door-" she stopped abruptly, corrected herself: "if you open the door, be careful. Listen at it first, to make sure that there is no-one on the other side. Unlock it, step through quickly, and close it behind you again. Once you are through, nothing can come in without the key, but there is a moment. A moment as the door is opening."

"I understand."

She shook her head.

"You don't. You can't. But you can follow my instructions."

I was annoyed, but I nodded and stood up to leave.

"One more thing," she said, just as I was putting my left hand on the door-handle. "I got it from someone else, who got it from someone other. You got it from me. Do you understand?"

"I'll have to pass it on in my turn," I said. My hand twitched uncomfortably around the little shard. I hoped it would be easy to give away, but I feared it would not.