The Starless Sea

The Keeper closes the office door and leads Zachary down one of the book-filled halls. This space feels more underground, like a tunnel, lit with occasional candles and lanterns, with a low rounded ceiling and turns that do not follow any obvious pattern. Zachary is thankful for his compass after the third turn through a maze of doors and books, one hall branching off into others, opening up into larger chambers, and funneling into the tunnel-like hall again. Books are packed onto shelves that curve with the rock or piled on tables and chests and chairs like a literary-centric antique store. They pass a marble bust wearing a silk top hat and another sleeping cat on an upholstered armchair tucked into an alcove. Zachary keeps expecting to encounter other people but there isn’t anyone. Maybe everyone is asleep and the Keeper is on the night shift. It must be very late by now.

They stop at a door flanked by bookshelves peppered with small glowing lanterns. The Keeper unlocks the door and gestures for Zachary to enter.

“I apologize for the state—” the Keeper stops and frowns, looking in at a room that requires no apologies.

The room is…well, the room is the most glorious hotel room Zachary could imagine, except in a cave. There is a great deal of velvet, most of it dark green, fitted over chairs and hanging in curtains over a four-poster bed that has been turned down in anticipation of its guest’s arrival. There is a large desk and multiple reading nooks. The walls and floor are stone that peeks out from between bookshelves and framed art and mismatched rugs. It is beyond cozy. A fire burns in the fireplace. The lamps by the bed are lit, as though the room had been expecting him.

“I hope this will be to your liking,” the Keeper says, though a hint of the frown remains.

“This is awesome,” Zachary replies.

“The washroom is through the door at the rear,” the Keeper says, gesturing toward the back of the room. “The Kitchen may be accessed via the panel near the fireplace. The light level in the hall will be raised in the morning. Please do not feed the cats. This is your key.” The Keeper hands Zachary a key on another long chain. “If there is anything you require please do not hesitate to ask, you know where to find me.” He takes a pen and a small rectangular piece of paper from his robes and inscribes something. “Good night, Mister Rawlins. I hope you enjoy your stay.” He places the rectangle of paper in a small plaque by the door, gives Zachary a short bow, and disappears back down the hall.

Zachary watches him go and then turns to look at the paper in the plaque. In calligraphic script on ivory paper placed in a brass plaque it reads:

Z. Rawlins

Zachary closes the door, wondering how many names have occupied that spot before and how long it has been since the last one. After a few seconds of hesitation he locks the door.

He rests his head against the door and sighs.

This can’t be real.

Then what is it? the voice in his head asks and he doesn’t have an answer.

He shrugs off his paint-stained coat and drapes it over a chair. He makes his way to the washroom, barely taking the time to register the black-and-white tiles and the claw-foot tub before washing his hands and removing his contact lenses, watching his reflection slip out of focus in the mirror above the sink. He tosses his contacts into a bin and briefly wonders what he is going to do without corrective lenses but he has more pressing concerns.

He returns to the blur of velvet and firelight in the main room, kicking off his shoes as he walks, managing to remove his suit jacket and vest before he reaches the bed but he is asleep before he can deal with additional buttons, linen sheets and lamb’s-wool pillows swallowing him like a cloud and he welcomes it, his last thoughts before sleeping a fleeting mix of reflections on the evening that has finally ended, questions and worries about everything from his sanity to how to get paint out of his hair and then it is gone, the last wisp of thought wondering how you go to sleep if you’re already dreaming.

Once there was a man who collected keys. Old keys and new keys and broken keys. Lost keys and stolen keys and skeleton keys.

He carried them in his pockets and wore them on chains that clattered as he walked around the town.

Everyone in the town knew the key collector.

Some people thought his habit strange but the key collector was a friendly sort and had a thoughtful air and a quick smile.

If someone lost a key or broke a key they could ask the key collector and he would usually have a replacement that would suit their needs. It was often faster than having a new key made.

The key collector kept the most common shapes and sizes of keys always at hand, in case someone was in need of a key for a door or a cupboard or a chest.

The key collector was not possessive about his keys. He gave them away when they were needed.

(Though often people would have a new key made anyway and return the one they had borrowed.)

People gave him found keys or spare keys as gifts to add to his collection. When they traveled they would find keys to bring back with them, keys with unfamiliar shapes and strange teeth.

(They called the man himself the key collector but a great many people aided with the collecting.)

Eventually the key collector had too many keys to carry and began displaying them around his house. He hung them in the windows on ribbons like curtains and arranged them on bookshelves and framed them on walls. The most delicate ones he kept under glass or in boxes meant for jewels. Others were piled together with similar keys, kept in buckets or baskets.

After many years the entire house was filled near to bursting with keys. They hung on the outside as well, over the doors and the windows and draped from the eaves of the roof.

The key collector’s house was easily spotted from the road.

One day there was a knock upon his door.

The key collector opened the door to find a pretty woman in a long cloak on his doorstep. He had never