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 enters the cottage. Each step kicks up more dust as he walks and it floats through the low sunlight, among leaf-shaped shadows creeping over the floors.
One of the more persistent tendrils of ivy has found its way through a window crack and curled around a table leg. Simon opens the window, allowing fresher air and brighter light inside.
Teacups are stacked in an open cupboard. A kettle hangs by the fireplace. The furniture (a table and chairs, two armchairs by the fire, and a tarnished brass bed) is covered in books and papers.
Simon opens a book and finds his mother’s name inscribed inside the cover. Jocelyn Simone Keating. He never knew her middle name. He understands where his name originates. He is not certain he likes this cottage, but apparently it is his now to like or dislike as he pleases.
Simon opens another window as wide as the ivy permits. He finds a broom in a corner and sweeps, attempting to banish as much dust as he can as the light fades.
He does not have a plan, which now feels foolish.
Simon had thought that someone might be here. His mother, perhaps. Surprise, not dead. Witches can be hard to kill if he remembers his stories correctly. It could pass for a witch’s cottage. A studious witch with a fondness for tea.
The sweeping would be easier if he swept out the back door, so he unlatches and opens it and finds himself looking not at the field behind the house but down a spiraling stone stair.
Simon looks out the ivy-covered window to the right of the door and into the fading sunlight.