Free Eight Keys by Suzanne LaFleur Page A

snuck into the barn, left my backpack on the ground floor, fished the key out of my pocket, and held it in my hands.
    I slowly walked up the steps. My shoes left prints in thedust. Uncle Hugh really didn’t come up here much. Or maybe he used the elevator.
    At the top of the stairs, I took a deep breath and looked at the row of doors. They stood in a tight line, like soldiers at their stations or trees planted to grow up together, seeming not like simple doors but like living things. The breeze that danced through the drafty hallway made it feel like they might even be breathing.
    There was nothing to tell me what might be different about each of them. I decided to start with the closest one.
    The key didn’t fit.
    Next door.
    It fit.
    Already! On the second door. The room
was
for me!
    I gave the key a twist, and the door unlocked.
    I stood back and pushed it so that it opened wide.
    I could see years of dust on the floor. A lot came up in the air, disturbed by the door opening, fuzzy in the yellow afternoon light passing through a single warpy-glass window. I coughed and covered my face with my arm.
    I took a few steps inside. The walls on the long sides of the narrow room seemed to be shiny, like glass. I crept closer to look.
    The walls were covered in framed pictures, many of the same woman. Some pictures were of a baby, or a girl, or a teenager.
    I knew who the woman was. And the baby and the girl and the teenager.
    We had pictures of her in the house, but not like this. The ones in the house were there all the time, faded into the background, like wallpaper or furniture. These were meant to be looked at, thought about. I walked up to one, pressed my finger to it. “Mom?”
    There were at least a dozen portraits. I stopped and looked at each one carefully.
    In one she perches at the top of a slide as a three-year-old. She wears a huge smile, her face framed with soft dark curls. I stayed at this picture for several minutes.
    In another she looks almost exactly like me. I looked at my own reflection on the glass to compare it. Maybe she’s twelve, too, in the picture.
    Then I found one with me in it. You couldn’t see me, exactly, but I’m there. She’s pregnant. The picture is from the side. She isn’t looking at the camera but down, at the bulge of stomach resting on her linked arms. She’s looking at me—a me she can’t even see—with the same expression that Annie uses to look at Ava.
    She’d never even met me—how could she look at me that way?
    I heard something crunch under my feet. I was stepping on paper. No, a message.
    I picked up the slightly yellowed paper. It said, in typed block letters:
    KNOW WHAT YOU COME FROM.
    I turned to see if there was anything else in the little room, and there was: a big, comfy chair under the window.
    The chair was occupied.
    At first I thought the lump was a pillow, but it was a teddy bear. He was missing an eye, his sewn-on bow tie was crooked, and his fur was worn through to threads in several places. But he was a literate bear, because he was holding a note. Sure, the “Elise” on the outside of the folded paper matched the ones on my birthday letters, but the inside of the note said,
    Hello, Elise,
    It’s nice to see you again. My name is Miles. I belonged to your mother a long time ago. I was her most special toy. When you were a baby, I sat in your nursery and watched over you while you slept. You never quite took to me like she did (you preferred Bunny-Rabbit), but I knew you both.
    Please take care of me.
    Love,
Miles
    I remembered Bunny-Rabbit. My favorite soft toy, who had been on several trips through the washing machine and had almost fallen apart. She sat on the top shelf of my closet now, safe.
    I picked up Miles, buried my nose in his fur, and breathed in deeply. Miles didn’t smell like a person, just an old stuffedbear. I felt silly for expecting more than that. He made me cough because he was so dusty.
    When a stuffed bear asks you for help, you