"Hello?" Mark pushed open the dusty looking glass door with one hand while the other held tightly onto mine. The other guys decided to head home after Peniel nearly fell on top of the person he was sitting next to on the subway since he fell asleep the second he sat down. The kid was a pretty heavy sleeper too so Jackson had to piggy back him all the way back to their apartment.

I wanted at least some answers today, to clear the confusion just a little bit. I just needed something to put my mind kinda at rest so I could actually sleep tonight and not be up all night thinking about my mom's crazy letter.

"You sure this is it?" He stepped through, pulling me along behind him. I looked around at the never-ending rows of shelves stacked with old antiques collecting dust and nodded.
"This is definitely it."
"Your mom gets her necklace cleaned here? Seriously?"

I shrugged, looking around the store for anything that remotely resembles a checkout counter, "She didn't know how to clean silver so she brought it here cause the owner is apparently someone she knew from a long time ago."
"Is that why she decided to move to New York? You know...after the whole incident?"
"I'm not sure. I always thought it was to get as far away as possible from him, but I'd never thought he would actually find us here...:

How did he find us here anyways?
After my mom and I moved, we cut off all contact with my dad. We didn't even tell him that we were moving.
So how the heck did he track us down to New York City out of all places?
It didn't make sense...

"What doesn't make sense?" Mark's voice broke into my thoughts, pulling me out of my daze. I stared at him with confusion plastered all over my face until the old man behind the counter explained, "You were looking off into space and mumbling about how something didn't make any sense, young miss. I think your boyfriend was worried."

"Uhhhhhh.....nothing. Don't worry about it."

I shifted my attention to the familiar face of the man who was sitting in front of me and bowed slightly in his direction, "How are you?"
He gave me a warm smile, "I'm fine, but I know you're not."
"How can you tell?"
"One: I was at your mother's funeral. And two: you've never come in here by yourself before. You must be looking for something am I right?"

Whoa...
I swear, old people knew everything.
But even though I kinda saw that coming, words still wouldn't come out of my mouth so I just nodded.
He stared back at me with soft, kind eyes. Without saying a word, or even asking me what I was looking for in the first place, he reached under the countertop and pulled out a round silver box, decorated with delicate carvings of flowers, vines, and leaves. He carefully placed it on top of the counter, motioning at me to come closer.

"She brought this to me a week ago. I thought she was leaving it here for a routinely cleaning but after I learned about her death, I realized that she was actually dropping it off for you to find."
"Why couldn't she just give it to me directly then? I don't get why she's playing these games with me?"
"Because," his voice dropped into a whisper as he leaned in closer, "she didn't want the wrong people knowing."
"Knowing what?"

His eyes looked down at the box then looked back at me, "Open it and find out."
I reached out my hands and shivered slightly from the contact of the cool metal on my fingers. Or maybe I was shivering from the anticipation and the mystery of the whole situation. I don't know...

All I knew was that this was giving me chills as I took the cover off. Nestled in a cushion of velvet material was my mom's heart shaped, silver necklace. I pulled it out of the box by its chain, letting the heart at the end spin a little from the tension. Even under the dim lighting, it shone brightly, almost as if it was glowing.

"Why is it so heavy?" I asked, putting the heart into the palm of my other hand.
Mark came up from behind me, resting his arms against the counter, "Maybe cause a heart's a heavy burden?"
I rolled my eyes, "You totally just stole that from Howl's Moving Castle."
"Maybe," he leaned in closer, plucking the necklace from my hand and turning the heart around under the desk lamp on the counter, "or maybe because it has something inside of it."

I'm pretty sure the look I gave him embodied my confusion, "What the heck are you talking about?"
He turned the heart pendant on its side and tapped on it lightly, "There's a really faint crease on the side. I thought it was just the lighting playing tricks with me but then you said it felt heavy."
"I mean...it could feel heavy because it's made out of silver."
"Well," he motioned at the necklace, "you might as well try to open it. You don't have anything to lose anyways."

I slowly picked the necklace back up, holding the heart in my hand as if it might blow up on me at any second. My fingers traced over the delicate details on the pendant until they stopped on the sides.

There was a crease there. And it didn't feel like the other details on the pendant.
"Oh my gosh. There's actually something here," I looked up at the old man sitting in front of me, my eyes begging him for answers. But he didn't say anything. He just kept looking at the necklace in my hand. I took that as a green light and wedged what little finger nails I had into the crease and pulled.

The necklace cracked in half and opened at a hinge hidden on the inside of the heart, revealing a tiny key wedged perfectly among the folds of the padding lining the interior.
"So when you meant open it and find out," my eyes made contact with the man's, which looked like it was lighting up at the sight of me with the key, "you meant the necklace....not the box?"
"I meant both, young miss."
"So what do I do with this now?"
"I cannot tell you that. The rest is for you to figure out," he pushed the box a little closer to me before getting off his stool and looking at me straight in the eye. "But I can tell you this, young miss. If that key falls into the wrong hands, many many people may suffer the same fate as your mother."

Author's Note
chapter title: Key of Heart-BoA [x]