She felt for the lock in the dark.
It was the kind of dark where you could still barely make out shapes, but the sight of your own dark shadow in the bathroom mirror makes you jump.
The lock was still there, in a small wooden box on the shelf at the top of the stairs. The key was still in it.
She had pored over them long enough to be able to pick this one and only lock with a hair clip and a bobby pin (two tools she always had around). In many ways that one small effort represented her whole life: being willing to scrutinize every facet of whatever the topic until she could master it. "Excellence is your legacy," she would chant to herself. "Excellence. Excellence. Excel. Ex."
In all the years she spent examining, the key has gone inexplicably missing exactly once.
