The Keyhole’s Client

In the autumn of that year, I found myself renting a basement unit in a decaying Victorian house in the outskirts of Portland, Maine. The streets were lined with ancient elms, their branches like gnarled fingers scraping the gray sky. I had moved there for work, a mundane data entry job that left my mind numb, so I often walked the neighborhood to clear the cobwebs. One crisp evening, as I rounded the corner of Maple and Ash, a man in a frayed overcoat nearly crashed into me. His hair was a wild tangle of rusty red, and his eyes had the glassy sheen of someone who hadn’t slept in days. He introduced himself as ‘The Agent,’ claiming he represented a pulp and paper company that had been in the region for over a century. He spoke in bursts, about ‘contracts’ and ‘signatures’ and ‘the mill that feeds on the forest’s secrets.’ I tried to sidestep, but he followed, his voice a low hum that grew more coherent as he revealed his business: he acquired ‘unique properties’ for his employer, and he had his eye on my building. I laughed him off, but he pressed a business card into my hand, the texture like dried bark. I shoved it in my pocket and hurried home, the card burning a phantom hole through the fabric.

Weeks later, my curiosity got the better of me. The card led me to a remote lumber town called Hollow Falls, hours from the coast. The Agent, whose real name was Elias Thorne, lived in a ramshackle farmhouse on the edge of a forest that seemed to swallow light. He invited me for dinner, claiming he had a proposal. That night, after a meal of greasy stew, he said he needed to borrow a cigarette from a neighbor and asked me to watch his daughter, a pale girl of three named Lily, who slept in a crib in the corner. I agreed, and he left, the screen door slamming. I sat in the dim living room, the only light from a single bulb swinging slightly, though no breeze stirred. Then I heard it: a faint jingle, like keys, from the porch. I looked up, expecting Elias, but the room was empty. Again, the jingle, closer now. I stood, peering into the hallway, where a dark doorway led to the bedrooms. A figure—tall, thin, in a long coat like Elias’s—slipped through the doorway and disappeared into the room at the end. I called out, but no answer. My heart hammered as I walked to that room, the floorboards groaning. I reached for the light switch, and for a moment, the room was empty: a bed, a dresser, a window with moonlight. Then I turned to go, and the keys jingled right behind me.

I spun around, and the figure stood inches from my face, but it wasn’t Elias. Its face was a smooth, featureless mask of wood, with grooves like tree rings. It held a single key, black and twisted, in its fingers. ‘The mill requires its due,’ it whispered, the voice a rustle of leaves. From the other room, Lily began to cry. The figure tilted its head, and for the first time, I noticed the door behind it was not the door I had entered through—it was a rough, bark-covered portal, and through it I saw a vast interior lit by green flame, where massive gears turned, and men moved like automatons. The key fit into the lock on the door, and it swung open, revealing a corridor of roots. I backed away, realizing the figure was not Elias, but something wearing his shape, and it had been harvesting people for the mill for years. The crying grew louder, and I turned to see Lily standing in the hallway, but her eyes were voids, and she held a tiny key. ‘The contract is signed in blood,’ she said, not in a child’s voice. The figure reached for me, and I ran. I burst out of the farmhouse into the cold night, but the forest had moved closer, the trees leaning in like spectators. Behind me, the house’s windows glowed with that sickly green, and I saw shadows of countless figures pressed against the glass. I ran until my lungs burned, until I reached my car, and I drove without looking back.

But the card was still in my pocket. I tried to throw it away, but it kept returning. At night, I hear that jingle, and I see the wooden face pressing against my window. I know the mill has a client list, and I’ve been marked. The keyhole is always there, waiting, and one day, it will open for me.