The Spare Key
A weird tale of New England horror
Senchas Claideb is happy to present this month’s short story, “The Spare Key”, for all horror-lovers, Halloween-enjoyers, and fans of New England, autumnal mood pieces.
“The Spare Key” follows an English teacher at a New England preparatory school who receives a strange key in addition to his regular set. The key does not seem to open any doors or other locked items in the school. However, the mystery begins to unravel as a series of dreams prompts the teacher to investigate the secret of the key and the school itself.
The keyring I received upon arriving at Yarrow Preparatory Academy for Boys held the standard keys for a teacher—one for my classroom, two for the faculty lounge meeting room, and one for my on-campus apartment. After matching each key with its respective lock, however, I discovered a fifth key among them. It was brass and slightly larger than the rest, and it did not fit any of the locks my other keys went to. Between my lesson planning and preparatory meetings, I wandered the ancient main school house searching for the lock that the key fit. The halls, empty of students, carried the creaks of the dark floorboards and dry shuffle of feet to each corner of the building. The smell of aged wood, plaster, and dust accrued over the summer mellowed on my nostrils after merely two days into my search. Not one lock on any of the doors or cabinets matched.
Often, I fondled the key as I went about my day, so often that I memorized its shape and weight more than the others on my ring. Its teeth were unusually flat; I have no skills or knowledge in locksmithing but never before had I handled a key with such small teeth.
The enigma of the key faded from my goals as the students arrived at the end of August. Yet, it remained a shadow in the back of my mind and a weight in my coat pocket. It even slipped into my lessons; I’d explain to my students that gathering the truth from literature was like shaping keys for the right locks. Work itself went well enough, with only minor outbursts or issues of incomplete homework from students to address.
On a typical morning, I’d rise at the cusp of dawn, when black and blue shades draped campus; the windows of the buildings were grey with only a few yellow lights from the other early risers filling the old chipped white panes. The dew on the quadrangle slickened my shoes, making them gleam under the buzzing electric lampposts. The trees slowly withered; each morning their branches poked through thinning foliage, black against the pale, pre-dawn sky. The mountains encircling campus looked as though little flames blazed, consuming the trees in a wash of hibernal colors. The wind moaned and whistled, seeping through the little cracks riddling the brick and wood of the buildings.
Much like how the wind intruded the interiors of my bedroom and classroom, making for some cold nights and lectures underscored by chattering teeth, the day-to-day tasks and scenery intruded my dreams. Night after night, my sleeping mind recreated the grounds, hallways, and rooms of the school. In my dreams I found myself shuffling in that wobbly, sluggish walk that dreams force us to do. While in these dreams, I wore my teaching uniform and felt a familiar, small weight in my pocket. Even in sleep, the spare key molded itself into my memory. Once I began to realize this pattern, it made all the more sense; while in the dreamscape of Yarrow, my subconsciousness desired something and a fleeting sense of frustration dominated my mind. Even in dreams I was on the search for the room that the key unlocked.
The imagined campus would swim around me, shaded by murky twilight colors. The halls lay bleak and empty, their floorboards and walls—lined with dour faces immortalized in oil paintings and colorless photographs—twisted and warped. What disturbed me the most, each time I found myself ambling down those dream-halls, was the utter silence consuming the air. It coated my mind like a choking cloud of dust, making me wary and dizzy with fear for one question—where did everyone go? The shadows lengthened and darkened under the sickly yellow lights. They also appeared to have depth to them, like black pools waiting for someone to fall into whatever abysses they concealed. Some of them moved and shifted as if trying to rise from the ground and walls. Ghostly visages swam on their surfaces, half-faces without any familiar features.
At the start of the last week of October, I tasked my students with composing a narrative about an experience they had at Yarrow. The idea was to focus on the details that established the little world of the school. One young man—whom I will call M—was hesitant to read his aloud to the class and asked to show it to me during my office hours. Naturally, I agreed for he was shy and the class period neared its end.
M came to me in the final fifteen minutes of my hours; I had placed my desk by a window facing westward where I could watch the sun smolder orange behind the black mountains, followed by tracks of white and grey clouds. M arrived just as the last line of the sun’s light winked over the dark ridge. He held the lined paper on which he had written his narrative, but it was wrinkled and torn at some of the borders as if he had been nervously plucking at it all day. His eyes too betrayed a sense of unease as he refused to meet my gaze, instead staring out the window or at the floor. I asked him to read out his narrative, which he did after a few moments of staring at the page. He let me keep the original so I’ve placed it in this testimony for safekeeping—
“One day, I was all alone at Yarrow. None of my friends were playing outside or in class, and I could not find any of the teachers. I went inside the schoolhouse. I felt like someone was watching me as I went through the halls—just one person. I could not see who it was or hear anything at all. The halls were so quiet, but I could not hear the groaning or creaks or plumbing like I should have. My head felt heavy like I was tired, but I kept moving without knowing where I was supposed to go. I went up to the second floor. When I was on the stairs, I thought I was either going to fall or they were going to collapse. I went down the Hall of Heads and stopped in front of an old, dark wood door. Next to it, I saw an old man’s face glaring at me. He looked angry like I had done something wrong and he was about to get write me up for it. He was watching me from a mirror bordered in brass. I reached for the cold iron knob on the door and tried to turn it but it would not budge. My hand felt frozen to the knob; I could not let go. It was like something kept my fingers held tight onto it. Then I—”
M did not get to complete his piece before the period ended. We talked well after my office hours ended and made our way to the meal hall for supper. I asked him what he could recall after the events he had written. He said he had struggled against the force gripping his hand for only a few moments more. The phantom grip released him and he had fled down the Hall of Heads—so named for the headmasters of Yarrow Academy immortalized as oil paintings and metal busts. He mentioned that though he wished to run with all the energy he could muster, his body refused to move faster than a sluggish, staggering gallop. I asked him then if he had not been dreaming, recalling my own tottering pace in dreams. He gazed back at the main schoolhouse as we traversed the quadrangle, then confirmed he had woken up in a cold sweat. He told me he chose to write about that moment in his dreams for how real it felt and mayhap to remove it from his thoughts.
Spurred by M’s narrative, I returned to the main schoolhouse after supper and went to the Hall of Heads. It was a particularly windy night so the building creaked at each howling blast rolling down the mountainous basin. I ambled down the hallway, turning the spare key over in my pocket as I surveyed each painting and bust. At the center I paused once my eyes met the heavy-browed glower of an old man staring out from a brass-framed painting. His pate was bald on top with his remaining snow white hair tied back in a queue. His hawk-like nose angled downward, half-concealing his thin, frowning lips. A black coat draped his heavy shoulders and a wooden crucifix etched with Celtic knotwork hung from his neck. Though I cannot speak on my student’s exact experience upon seeing this face, I too felt as though the subject of the painting was preparing to accost me—truly the masque of a stoic headmaster.
I pulled my gaze away to examine the wall next to him only to find an empty, pale green space. I placed my hands on the wall, half-expecting to find a secret compartment or hollowed section. Coming away with nothing, I looked back at the painting and read the plaque: “Erasmus John Scanlan, Founder of Yarrow Academy and First Headmaster, 1767 – 1860.”
I shivered and felt the presence of an unwelcome gaze burning into my back. I departed the main schoolhouse, but instead of returning to my apartment I braved the leaf-laden wind to reach the school library. It took the old woman at the welcome desk some convincing to allow me access afterhours, but she relented once I promised to lock up after I finished my research. I felt like a college student again, darting down the aisles of musty books and in the basement archives, my skin warming and sweat pooling beneath my uniform. I withdrew several books on local history penned by New England oral historians and half a dozen primary documents from Yarrow’s own history dating back as early as I could access without the librarian’s aid. I could not uncover any answers from the academy’s earliest years, but some of the primary documents held information in the transitory years leading up to Scanlan’s death—there were some newspaper clippings reporting on Scanlan taking ill but refusing to remove himself from work. One reporter claimed, “Masked in shadow, he could be seen in his office window, toiling away at his desk.” Scanlan passed away on November 1st, 1860 from what the doctors determined to be tuberculosis. Although weary from staying up past my regular hour to turn in, I reread his obituary and memorial service records as I realized something was amiss. Neither of them declared a site of burial. I wondered then if he might have been cremated, but such funerary methods were seldom considered in those days.
I left the library, keeping true to my word about locking up. After retrieving a small flashlight from my apartment, I braved the wind and buffets of corpse-leaves as I passed out of the lamplight of the main lawn and stumbled through the dark, southern edge of campus. A line of thick-trunked trees covered me from some of the gusts, but their branches shook and scratched dryly against each other. Beyond them lay a low stone wall with moss, bright green under my flashlight, which crept from the ground. I vaulted the barrier and waved my beam across the weathered headstones rising from an ankle-deep pile of leaves. Very few members in Yarrow’s history had the honor of being buried in this plot—the founder’s family, previous owners of the neighboring farms, and no doubt Scanlan himself, or so I thought. I examined each of the markers, carefully peeling away moss and lichen obscuring the ancient engravings. Though each of Scanlan’s family members shared a single marker, his name was not on there or any neighboring stone.
Perhaps against my better judgement I cancelled my classes the following day and went to the town courthouse to continue my research. I inquired there about burial records and Scanlan’s personal history which I could not dig up in Yarrow’s archives. The clerks confirmed—or rather the lack of any documentation confirmed—that Erasmus John Scanlan, though having been confirmed deceased in his house on Yarrow’s property, had not been buried in the plot at the southern edge of campus or in any plot nearby. So far as either myself or the clerks could surmise, Scanlan’s body had vanished.
It has to mean something, I thought to myself as I returned to Yarrow in time for supper. M’s dream, Scanlan, the key—something weird was haunting the halls and some of the minds at Yarrow and I felt compelled to know what secret had been locked away with the founder’s passing.
After supper, I sheepishly approached Yarrow’s current headmaster and confessed why I had taken absence that day. However, I phrased it as an historical project for the sake of advertising the school. I asked if he still possessed some of Scanlan’s original books or journals in his office. The latter articles, he unfortunately said likely went to the grave with Scanlan—or wherever in the world his body went—but some first edition copies of various books had been on the antique shelf since he himself had been a student at Yarrow. He led me to the top floor of the main schoolhouse and welcomed me to his office, which I had only been in once since my interview. I went over to the shelf and examined the aged spines. Each had been so carefully preserved I wished then I had gloves to prevent my own hands from ruining them, but the headmaster bade me examine them to my heart’s content. Most of them dealt with the history of America, written by historians during Scanlan’s day. The one volume, however, which I dwelt on—in fact losing myself for a span in its pages—was a treatise titled Practices and Philosophies of the Unkindness. It credited no author, instead bearing a masterful drawing of a raven’s head where the writer’s name would have been. Beneath that were the numerals II of XXV, indicating it was one of a mere twenty five copies in existence. The contents were peculiar to say the least. The author wrote of “primordial truths spoken by the ravens in the dim days of Earth,” “elder titans that dwell in the great tombs beneath our feet,” and “the old pantheon of chief gods such as Niarlados, Krikan-hos, and Gort.” I have made my excerpts here in modern English as the lexicon of Practices and Philosophies are of an older fashion. It read like fantasy but it was written with such conviction there were a few moments, I admit, where I considered the possibility that what the treatise espoused was fact. One particular line stood out to me and I have copied as much as I can remember:
“Although transmigration of the soul—also known as reincarnation—can transfer knowledge and skills into a new life, it may become frustrating or even unreliable to repeat the worldly cycle. A practice the Unkindness uses to maintain and unlock greater skills in the arcane involves the practice of Lying in Death where the body dies but the soul remains in the house of its skull, given license to meditate and hone skills within the darkness of Death without truly passing on and losing what was acquired—”
The headmaster broke my fixation as he gingerly lift the book from my hands as gently as a teacher confiscates something from a student. I did not even flinch as I was, for one moment, engrossed in the words then staring at my hands. The headmaster closed the book shut and replaced it on his shelf, stating that it was time he retire to his house and thus dismissed me. I departed his office, repeating the lines I could remember the whole way to my apartment.
It started raining just as I stepped inside. Drops tapped against the roof and slid down the windows. The moon was full but hid behind the thick clouds, turning them a dark blue. Black tree branches waved in the wind, their leaves trailing off them in great trails.
Even after I put the excerpts to paper and laid down to sleep, they haunted my vision and imprinted on my mind, taking on a voice of their own which whispered within my skull.
They followed me into the deep black period of my sleep between waking and dreaming.
In my dreams I found myself again on campus, holding the spare key in my pocket. Things were different; everything was much clearer. I did not feel dizzy or sluggish as I followed an inexorable draw towards the main schoolhouse. It rained in my dream as well, but each drop landed without a sound and I remained bone dry the whole way across the lawn. Inside the schoolhouse, I walked upstairs to the Hall of Heads with my face frozen forward and my eyes fixed open. Erasmus John Scanlan’s grim gaze greeted me, following my every move as I approached his painting. For a moment, it seemed his scowl turned to a grin as I halted before him. A dark shape rippled into existence on the wall beside his portrait—a door with a black iron knob. My heart hastened as I inched my hand into my pocket. Now, for some reason, the slowness of the dream world seemed to return. My mind screamed out in anticipation and frustration as I slowly drew the key, running my thumb along its flat little teeth. I reached forward, my gaze fixed upon the lock. Then, just as the brass key touched the hole formed from iron I awoke.
It is well past midnight as I write this, mayhap it is my confessional—or my resignation notice, rather—as I am going to deface school property. I have had enough of waiting and wondering; I will reveal the secret of the spare key tonight. I do this in as sober and as sound a mind as any. I do this before it drives me mad.
I have acquired a sledge from the groundskeeper’s shed, he left it unlocked—lock, key—thankfully. No one is out on the campus and Yarrow has no security so I will have until dawn to finish this deed.
I am in the Hall of Heads. Scanlan is staring at me. It is almost as if he is challenging me from whatever limbo his soul is in, wondering if I am bold enough to unlock—key, lock, lock—his secrets. Yes, for he must still be present on this plane in some way, lingering in his hidden corpse. The main schoolhouse always did have a peculiar smell beneath the old paint and wood, like one of rot.
I have broken the wall. Should my supervisors read this journal, forgive me for breaking it; all chances of my career here—or indeed elsewhere—are locked—the key, the key, the key—away forever now. Will they remember me as a madman? Most likely. I’ve broken the wall, a piece of history in this school, to unlock something older, far older than the school, mayhap even the Earth we tread upon. Yes! I can hear the whispers in the wind! I can hear them beneath the groaning of the old bones of this schoolhouse—the answering of the ravens and other ancient dwellers of this world, heralds of elder and powerful forces.
I’ve reached it—the door. Right behind the wall beside Scanlan. It’s just as my student described it: dark oak with an iron knob. And the keyhole! At last! The key! The key! The key!
I’ve opened it, and he’s there! Scanlan. He never died. His soul didn’t, at least. It’s staring out at me from the moldering yellow sockets. What secrets am I to find should I meet and have colloquy with this corpse? Am I even worthy? Am I even permitted? I must know!
***
A clipping from The Beckett Shire Crier—
“October 26th, 1960
“Ward Robertson, aged 28, English lecturer at Yarrow Academy, was found dead on the Academy’s campus the morning of October 25th. Police have not released a statement on the cause of death, but have revealed that Robertson had caused significant damage to the main schoolhouse, exposing the brick wall behind the sheet rock. The motive behind this vandalism is unknown.
“A memorial service for Robertson will be held on Yarrow Academy on October 31st at 5 o’clock P.M. All members of the Yarrow and Beckett Shire communities are welcome.”
“The Spare Key” © Ethan Sabatella 2023 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.
Very American gothic and definitely a weird one, you lived the description of this one up beautifully! Great work as usual, thanks for the pre-Halloween treat 👍🏻
This is a wonderfully macabre story which creates a mood very similar to a story by Hawrhorne, full of New England's spookier scenes. I was entranced by the baleful atmosphere of Yarrow Academy and the enigmatic key. You have created an excellent Halloween chiller!