Chapter 4 - The Hinge Pins of the Blue Room
The corridor on the second floor was darker than the rest of the house, the heavy wool carpets ending at the threshold of the south wing where the floorboards were bare oak, unstained and smelling of raw lumber.
Nora stood before the door. The brass plate had indeed been unscrewed, leaving two small, dark holes in the white enamel where the wood was splintered and showing the old grey grain beneath. A heavy piece of brown packing tape had been stuck across the seam between the frame and the door, its surface marked by Jonathan’s handwriting: Do not enter until after the probate clearing.
The six girls were behind her now, clustered together like a small flock of wild turkeys in the brush. June had little Lena by the hand, the three-year-old’s doll now missing both legs where the twins had used them for a small bonfire in the laundry chute.
"Dad has the hammer in his office," Brooke whispered, her fingers twisting the hem of her grease-stained sweater. "But he’s got the screen on. When the screen is on, he won't open the door even if the alarm goes off."
"I don't need his hammer," Nora said. She reached into her green backpack, which she had carried up from the kitchen, and pulled out an old, heavy iron butter knife with a flat handle—the kind they used in the old diners on Highway 8.
She knelt in the dust by the bottom hinge. The pin was dark with old factory grease and lint from the carpet, its round head rusted into the iron collar of the plate.
Nora didn't strike the iron. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a small tub of petroleum jelly she used for her own hands after the dish shifts, and smeared a thick layer across the seam of the plate. She let it sit for two minutes while the girls watched her in absolute, breathless silence.
Then she inserted the flat tip of the butter knife beneath the head of the pin and leaned her full weight against the oak door frame, using her shoulder as a lever.
The iron gave a short, sharp ping—a sound like a wire snapping on an old guitar—and then, with a slow, reluctant groan, the three-inch pin began to slide out of the collar, its surface black with old grease and rust flakes.
"One," Cora whispered, her twin Mae instantly nodding beside her.
The top hinge took longer. The wood had warped from the ocean humidity, jamming the pin against the upper casting of the frame. Nora had to stand on her backpack to reach the plate, her fingers slipping twice against the slick iron before the tip of the knife caught the lip.
When the second pin cleared the collar, the heavy oak door did not swing inward. It fell slightly to the left, its five-hundred-pound weight leaning against Nora’s chest until her boots creaked against the oak floorboards.
"Hazel," Nora said, her breath short, her ribs pressing against the wood. "Take the handle side. Don't let it slide against the marble."
The twelve-year-old didn't hesitate. She lunged forward, her long arms wrapping around the raw edge of the door, her boots digging into the carpet as she helped Nora guide the heavy slab of timber down against the wall of the corridor.
The room with the blue curtains was revealed.
The windows were wide, facing the western curve of the canyon, but the blue velvet drapes had been drawn so tightly that only a single, thin sliver of moonlight cut through the dark, hitting the center of the floor like a white line on a chalkboard.
The air inside was old, smelling of dried lavender, isopropyl alcohol, and the heavy, sweet scent of the expensive French powder Maribel had used before her skin went grey. In the center of the room sat the bed—a low, platform frame of dark walnut, its white sheets stripped off, leaving only the blue striped ticking of the mattress exposed to the light.
In the corner, next to a small white nightstand that held three empty medicine cups and a dried stalk of eucalyptus in a glass jar, sat the plastic water tank for the humidifier.
The water was gone, but at the bottom of the plastic basin lay a small, transparent sandwich bag secured with three heavy red rubber bands. Inside the bag, a long, brass key shone under the moonlight.
"The twins were right," Nora said, stepping into the room. Her shoes left two perfect, clean ovals in the dust that had settled over the floorboards like frost. She didn't touch the bed. She didn't look at the empty medicine bottles. She walked straight to the humidifier, reached down, and lifted the bag from the plastic basin.
The girls stayed at the threshold. None of them would cross the line where the oak met the carpet. Even little Lena had stopped crying, her small head buried in June’s apron, her breath coming in short, regular snorts that sounded like a small animal hiding in a log.
"We thought he threw the key into the ocean," Hazel said from the dark of the corridor. Her voice had lost its cold, rhythmic precision; it sounded thin, cracked, and entirely young. "He spent three days after the funeral carrying her boxes down to the car. He didn't look at us once. He just kept saying we needed to stay out of the light so the papers could clear."
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Nora walked back to the doorway, the brass key heavy in her palm. She looked down at Hazel’s jagged bob—at the raw, uneven edges where the child had tried to cut her mother’s fingers out of her hair.
"Your father isn't trying to clear the papers, Hazel," Nora said softly. "He’s just trying to find a place where the wind doesn't make so much noise. But he’s looking in the wrong box."
