THE 33 KEYS: Key 2 - ANSWER THE CALL "Listen for that Perfect Beat"

CHAPTER 11: OPEN THE DOOR

"Mary."

Matron Malika Caine knocks on the door three times then awaits my response.

"Mary?" she says again, her tone growing in concern.

I remain still, hoping she will disappear like the others before her. But this Matron is always a hungry dog with a bone. Malika Caine never lets go once she has you in her sights. And for some reason since her arrival almost three years ago, Mary Pethiel is the one who has caught her attention. Ahhh! There's nothing like a new person in charge who's determined to correct the ills of the past. Yet why begin with me? I'm not that special. Okay, I take that back.

"Mary," she says with a firmer tone. "Mary, open this door and settle your bill."

"Mary's not here," I whisper, as if she has ears that can penetrate my door.

Now the Matron is giving me another round of her persistent knocking. Geez! Just let go of the bone, doggy. This isn't a classical piece. And even if it was, you'd first have to have talent. Am I right? Yes, for the overbearing idiots in the back, that's how it works around these parts. I'm surprised no one's ever informed you. Now don't tell me you didn't you get a proper handover from the last annoying prison guard?

"Mary!" Matron Caine calls for the umpteenth time. "Mary Pethiel, open this damn door!"

I take a deep breath and try to exhale as much of my stress as I can. And like always, my mind drifts to better days when my mother took care of everything. But with her no longer around I now have to face certain truths about our world that I would have rather ignored. I have to open my eyes and look at this room, remember all that happened here when I have been trying my very best to forget.

So what now, I wonder? How am I going to handle everything on my own? If I am honest, what I really want to do is sink lower and lower. Plonk down to the bottom until the bubbles stop their grand performance. Let death have its way with me. Allow it to weigh my feet down while I am still suspended in the air.

But I have since learned that death never listens to those who whisper her name. She only embraces the ones who know how to hit those perfect high notes. So perhaps one day when I learn to reach down inside of my soul? Maybe then she will turn her head and see me.

And it is from this dejected platform that I realize the place has gone silent. I hear absolutely nothing coming from the other side. Is Matron Caine finally gone or just lurking around to pounce on me? Perhaps I should open the door and see for myself. After all, it is unmannerly to leave your visitors standing outside this long, is it not?

One or two knocks a girl can pass off as drifting through dreamland. Not a barrage though. Must keep the noise down. This is rule number two at the Bunny House. But apparently, Matron Caine has forgotten all about that. I let out the heaviest sigh I have ever managed in my short lifespan and sit up in the tiny bed. Then I am immediately assaulted by the intrusive sunlight, clearly reminding me that it is time to shake myself awake.

However, my bed thinks otherwise. It is whispering my name like a lover would on cold mornings, drawing me back into its arms. Yet, as uncomfortable as those arms are all I want to do is fall back in them. And so I begin drifting back to sleep until the voice which falls like rain enters my mind.

Open the door, Mary. Open it and let us in.

I stumble out of bed, looking around the tiny room for evidence of the expected maintenance routine I agreed to four years ago. As usual, the floor is a carpet of dust and my dressing table – a mirrored space on the left of my closet – has a plethora of items strewn about, like children no one ever thinks about.

So I shift a couple things around, close the novel spread out on page fourteen, steal a quick glance at the Mary I hate and the two fat yellow plastic candles I equally hate – the only things I have left to remind me of Ebony Pethiel – and sweep my waist-length micro twists up with a blue ribbon, then move towards the door, that dingy white wooden cemetery of residue from torn down posters.

Dammit! The candles. It's against the Bunny House's rules to have an open flame or do anything electrical in your room. I reach for them but grow weak, like always, when confronted with the blood-stained floor. It is one of the ghosts that keep me awake at night. Yet, no matter how I scrub it never comes off. Perhaps it is not soap and water it needs but a peeling back of time; someone to physically turn the hands backwards. That is why I light candles on mornings, hoping they will undo what happened here.

Matron Malika Caine pounds on the door three more times.

"Mary, I know you're in there. Open up!"

I toss the candles beneath the bed to meet my bags of copper coins then yank the door open.

"Eleven in the morning and barely awake," she squawks. "No wonder you can't keep a job."

Matron Caine looks the total opposite of me. Her light grey eyes are round whereas mine are narrow. She has thick long straight ash grey hair that has started to collect the dusts of old age. I refer to it as snowed-on because it graces the tips instead of the roots. Hers has three inches of white attached to the grey. And since she hardly trims, the setbacks will be fewer. She wouldn't lose as many years as the others who had.

The Matron, at fifty-one, also outshines me with grooming. Her skin is already super smooth compared to my harsh grater texture. So there is really no need to add insult to injury with those weekly spa visits of hers. Plus, she is medium height – bordering on tall – while I am stunted. And, as if all of that is not enough, her fully-developed curves cast a shadow on my slender neat ones, the only neat thing about me. But at least my breasts can win a shouting match with her tiny ones any day. She scowls at me with one of her two looks – the mean face. And for some reason she is being more stiff and uncomfortable than usual; so I look down at her hand.

"What's that?"

"What else?" she says loud enough for Tessa to hear. "Your eviction slip."

"Matron, but you know I just left my job. Where the hell will I go?"

"For the fifth time," she reminds me. "And we had a deal. I take it you do remember our deal?"

"Yes," I drag the response then sigh.

Who told me to open my big mouth during negotiations?

"Good. I'm glad that's settled."

"How long?" I ask, knowing I'll find a way to twist her arm later on.

"Twenty-one days."

"That's September 23rd. At least give me till the end of the month."

"I take it you want that shortened? Especially since you missed yesterday's inspection."

Matron Caine presses the red slip of paper onto my swollen breasts and turns to leave.

"Any chance you'll grow a heart before then?"

"Get a job and keep it. We'll see."

"What if I get one but can't afford the taxi fare to get to work?"

Caine turns around, feet on the second and third steps down, her snowed-on hair glistening.

"Now that's the Mary I know. Always finding ways to make yourself a worthy cause."

"So that's a yes."

"The last time I checked we were still into charity."

"Charity, my ass."

"Mary!" Matron Caine sucks her teeth. "I can arrange things for today if you'd like that."

"All right; all right. No need to swing into dictator mode. September 23rd it is."