Part 21

        It must have been a good five minutes before I could steel myself to go anywhere near those chemicals again. I still couldn't get the stinging scent out of my nose, but, I could breathe at least. I took a few last deep breaths of fresh air, and turned the sharp corners of the short hallway back into the dark room. I decided that this was the last shot I'd do prints of that night, so I straightened up some of my things while waiting for the chemicals to finish washing off the print. After a few minutes, I drew the photo out of the running water, let it drip, then carried it into the next room to take a look.
        I pulled out a shelf on the drying rack, and laid my picture down on the thin wire mesh, smoothing the corners down to make it lay flat. I tucked a stray strand of hair back behind one ear as I leaned over the image. Overall, it looked alright, but I decided the shadows weren't quite dark enough, I'd have to do another print with a little higher contrast. Especially the door, it looked a little too flat there... and there was something wrong! I'd have to check the negative, that smudge was totally still there by the handle. I bent down even closer to the picture, trying to decide if it was something on the paper, or if it had been something on the negative, or even a fly or something that flew by just as I took the original photo. I squinted, peering intently...
        And it wasn't any of those.
        It was something attached to the handle, something I didn't remember seeing at all...
        And I could swear it was a key.
        ...no way. It had to be a smudge of some kind that just looked like a key, like seeing shapes in the clouds. No freaking way there was a key in the door, I looked right at the handle! I tried opening the damn door, I think I'd have noticed something like that. I laughed wryly at myself, shaking my head. And here I'd made fun of those "ghost photos" people always tried to use as proof of ghosts, where there was some weird blotch on the image that, if you looked at it right, looked kind of like a face. Guess I was just as susceptible to that as anyone else...
        But I couldn't quite shake it off. I ran a fingernail over the paper, but the surface seemed smooth, it wasn't anything weird on the paper. I pulled the negative out of the enlarger, brought it out into the light, but there was no dust or anything on it. The door handle was way too small in the negative for me to be able to tell if the splotch was on there or not, I could barely make out the handle let alone anything else. I had no way to figure out if it had been something flying between the door and my camera when I took the picture... so I decided to run off another print, I'd wanted to anyway. I set everything up, making the adjustments I'd wanted, and exposed the paper to the projection of the negative. I tried to see if the "key" showed up in the projection, but it was too dim, I really couldn't see the details that clearly.
        When I brought the developed image into the other room, I saw the "key" was still there. I was so confused, I tried looking at it from all different angles, trying to figure out what it could be... but couldn't sort it out. Otherwise, the print looked great, so I left it on the rack to dry. I'd have to take a fresh look at it later, and decide whether it was enough of a blot on the picture to actually ruin it. I really hoped not, the composition had worked really well, once I'd adjusted the lighting...
        I went back to the enlarger, and flipped the light on, letting the image shine down onto the empty paper frame beneath it. I enlarged it as big as I could get it, focused as sharply as I could, and brought the brightness all the way up, staring intently at the portion with the door handle. Whatever it was, it really looked like it was on the same plane as the handle itself, it didn't seem to be something in between the door and my camera... I turned off the light, and grabbed a sheet of paper, slipping it underneath the enlarger. I made a guess at the exposure time - it didn't really matter if this was perfect, I just wanted a close-up look at that handle. I ran off the print, developed it, and brought it into the other room. I grabbed a sheet of paper towel and put it underneath the print, flopping down in a chair next to a table in the center of the room.
        I shook my head slowly, completely dumbfounded. It was a key. It couldn't be anything else. I was looking at an image of the handle four inches tall, and there was no mistaking it. It was a key. The lighting wasn't all that great, especially since I'd made such a guess at the exposure, but it was definitely a bit of metal sticking out from the lock just above the handle, with what looked like a pretty intricate clover-leaf shaped top. I sat back, looking away, taking a few solid breaths and moving my eyes around the room. Then I looked back at the photo. Still a key there. Unless breathing in those chemicals had really done a number on me, there was a key there, that somehow, I hadn't seen when I was standing right there in front of the freaking door.
        This was completely ridiculous. How had I not seen it?? Granted, I hadn't like stared at every inch of the door, and most of the time I had looked at it had been spent looking at the intricate door knocker, but... I'd tried to get in. I'd looked at the handle, used it, seen the lock, realized it was locked.
        ...unless someone had come by while I was walking around the house, and put a key there. I shivered. That was really creepy... But what else could it be? I'd been pretty caught up in the house, and made plenty of noise floundering through the weeds and other plants, I wouldn't have heard anyone else walk up to the house. And I didn't really look at the handle when I came back to the door the second time, I'd just looked the check the light, and taken a shot of the knocker, and then backed up to take one through the wisteria. I guess I might not have noticed it, if it had been there at that point...
        But if someone had come by, wouldn't they have heard me? If they'd gone into the house, surely they would have heard me banging around outside, or seen me through a window... maybe not, if they'd been busy with something, but... Oh this was too creepy! If they'd gone in the house, they wouldn't have left the key in the lock, would they? I mean I'd done it once or twice when my arms were full or whatever, but... No, there couldn't have been anyone living there, the place looked so abandoned! There hadn't been anything like a footpath through the yard or gardens. Even the path through the wisteria, there were so many little tendrils hanging down over the entryway, if someone was living there they would have pruned it back...
        Unless they weren't supposed to be living there, or just didn't want anyone to know they were there. The image of the heartbroken fiancé I'd concocted a few days ago popped into my head right alongside the image of a psychopathic vagrant murderer.
        I shouldn't have gone there alone, and really shouldn't have gone without telling anyone where I was, all they'd known was that I was in the woods by the creek, that was a huge area to cover. I realized I was shaking a little now, thinking about just how much danger I might have been in.
        ...but I knew already I'd have to go back. I'd be more aware of my surroundings, but, I had to go back. I had to see if that key was really there, if anyone was living there, or if the house was as empty as I'd thought it was. It had to be abandoned, I'd been so sure of it... Some small rational part of my brain wondered if it wasn't just my girlish romantic fantasies that were rebelling against the prosaicness of everyday life, and that I just really really wanted the house to be abandoned, but... I'd been so sure!
        God this whole situation was just too weird. I sighed heavily and stood up, then moved the close-up of the handle over to the drying rack. It was time to go home and get my head away from these fumes for awhile, I'd come back tomorrow and see how things looked.

        Things looked pretty much the same the next day.
        I'd tried to put it all out of my head, but hadn't had a bit of luck doing it. All night, I'd stared at that photo in my memory, trying to puzzle it all out. I really had looked, pretty hard, for signs that someone was living there, and I hadn't seen a darn thing. That door was awfully heavy, and the walls old - if it had been opened and closed, surely I would have heard it, it wasn't like walking around the house took me that far away from the front of it, it wasn't that big a place. And if someone was living there, and they were forgetful enough to close the door with the key still in the lock, they would definitely have left signs of life somewhere around the place. I hadn't seen any other path leading out of the clearing, besides the one I'd come in on, and that only went down to the creek.
        I was going to have to go back. I wouldn't have time until Saturday... and I still had to decide what I was going to do about the safety issue. I'd make sure to take my phone, and maybe I'd leave a little note with a map in my room or something - an "in the event I don't return..." kind of note. Silly as it was, that idea actually made me feel a lot better. I could just tell someone where I was going, or take someone with me, but... somehow I couldn't bring myself to do it. The villa felt so private, so untouched by the world, that I felt a little anxious about leaving more of my own footprints there, let alone making its existence known to the whole world.
        ...that was really my strongest reason for feeling there was some other explanation for the key. It wasn't something I could really put into words, but that feeling I'd had while I was there, that ethereal atmosphere, that wasn't something that a vagrant, or absent-minded old man, would create. That was the feeling of a love story gone sorrowful, it was the feeling of beauty and regret. There was some story there, and I had to go back, to see if I could listen closely enough to hear a little more of that story...