The Birthday, the Key, and the Manor

It had started out like any other birthday. My sister Carley woke me up at eight in the morning with breakfast in bed. It was pancakes, as usual. The morning was filled with games and I didn't have to do any chores. My friends came over for the party after lunch. We went to the old theater and saw a movie. It was really great. It was a science fiction drama based off a book, like most popular movies nowadays. We had a yellow cake with purple and white frosting, and then came the presents. Again, just like any other birthday.

Until...

That evening, I was sitting alone downstairs as the light outside dimmed and shadows lengthened, when I heard a knock at the door. It was a thick, sharp knock, repeating several times like the police at the door of a kidnapper, but with a craftiness to it. I opened the door to a tight, tall, straight man in a suit and a plain green tie. He had a bald head and a stern, educated face with thin black eyebrows. He glowered at me with brownish grey eyes the color of stone.

"You are miss Elisabeth Jones?" He said in a slightly accented and suspicious voice.

"Um, yeah I'm Lisa," I replied, hoping he wasn't a kidnapper.

"I am Mr. Schofield; I was your grandmother's lawyer. Silvia Jones was her name?"

I perked up at my grandmother's name. She died a few months ago of cancer. "Yeah, that's her name. What are you doing here though? Did she have debt or something?" That was highly unlikely, though; she was quite rich.

"No," he said, slipping a small box from his pocket, "She left you this."

I took it from his palm. "What is it?"

"She instructed me not to open it. Before she died, she told me to give it to you on your next birthday."

I looked at the writing on it. It was purple, in Grandma's hand; 'To Lisa, from Grandma,' it said. I flipped it over, and on the back it said; 'Daylily'. I opened it up and took out a tiny, heavy, shiny brass key the size of a quarter. "What does it open?"

"I haven't the faintest," Mr. Schofield said, then spun around and walked off.

I sat in my room, fingering the key, and yelled for my sister Carley. When she came up the stairs, I told her about Mr. Schofield at the door just now, and about the odd key.

"What do you think it unlocks?" I asked.

"I don't know. It could be a room in her old mansion."

That'd be so cool, I thought. A secret room with a big surprise or something. My happiness wavered, "it could just be a keepsake. Like, for a necklace or something."

"Well, whatever it unlocks, if anything, it's bound to be in her house."

"Maybe a vault, or a chest. At the size of it it could be a jewelry box," I replied, "but we can't just go snooping around in there, It's owned by great uncle Bart." Bart was Grandma's closest living relative, and as no will was found, he had inherited her fortune and her house.

"Oh, come on. He'll be fine with it," Carley argued.

"Alright, fine," I gave in, "We'll do it tonight

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We crept up to the old mansion by the coastline. The roar of the sea and the whispering of the wind were more than enough to cover our careful footfalls. The home that looked so quaint in our visits to grandma's for lunch, filled with sun and flowers with deep blue and white paint now looked dark and gloomy, paint peeling and flowers no more than brown crisps. The old manor loomed down at us from an overgrown yard. The wrought iron fences were caked with vines and the grass was a fourth weeds and turning yellow. We were distraught. We hadn't been here since she died, and I couldn't believe the condition it was in. Why had Uncle Bart left it like this? Well, of coarse he couldn't do the work himself, but he could have at least hired a groundskeeper.