Pandora's Key It's half past midnight and she's out of bed the rain has momentarily subsided leaving the trees masked with slick and black like divers coveting the wrong direction Asphalt gives way to overgrown flagstones her bare feet striding quick but quiet keeping close to the hedges of densest evergreen The light from the estate is distant calling at her like a willow wisp but the call of the key is stronger - sirenic She perceives it by scent: The door obscured by ivy leaden handle long off its bolt the odor of rotting, ancient wood What lies beyond that door she does not know it's the wood she came here for wrenching a splinter from the bottom to have a small, silver key drop into her hand Like a foreshadow, though the key falls with an incensed army of angry creepers whose home lays cast aside broken She holds her prize up to study its sleek contour but not for long the silence is split by a foreign crackle Instantly crouched she is still as the lion who discovers she is no longer predator, but prey.