The Return Slot

The return slot at the old library had been bolted shut for eleven years. I knew because I was the one who'd put the bolts in.

On Monday morning, there was a thermos lid in the returns box.

It was wrapped in a tea towel. A little paper band around the rim read WEDNESDAY. I checked the outside wall. Both bolts were still there, rusted into place. The steel flap could not move more than the width of my fingernail.

I put the lid under the counter. On Tuesday, the box held a single child's shoe. It was blue, with a silver star stitched near the heel. The paper band said THURSDAY. I kept it beside the lid.

On Wednesday afternoon, a woman came in looking for a book about preserving fruit. She set her handbag on the desk, reached inside for her card and knocked over the thermos in her other hand. Its loose lid rolled to my feet.

Same make. Same dent beside the handle.

She said she hadn't brought a spare lid. I showed her the one from the returns box. She looked at it for a long time before asking me to put it away.

On Thursday afternoon, a mother came back from the car park saying her boy had lost a shoe. I brought out the one from under the counter. He said it was his. Then his mother looked down. He was wearing both shoes again.

His mother counted them twice. Three blue shoes. Each with the same loose stitch on the star.

She left the extra one behind.

There were more after that. A button from a coat I hadn't yet seen. A chipped mug that a man would break two days later. Everything arrived wrapped. Everything came with a day of the week. By closing time on the named day, something identical had gone missing or been damaged.

I kept the objects in the storeroom. I stopped mentioning them to visitors.

The following Monday, I found a house key in the box. There was no paper band, only a strip of masking tape wound tight around the bow. Written on it in black pen was my street address.

I checked my keys. The house key was where it belonged. I tried the new one in the library's front door, then the storeroom, then the office. It fitted none of them. I took it home in my coat pocket.

My own key opened my front door. I tested the other one. It opened it too.

Inside, the hall light was on. I had turned it off when I left. There was a damp patch on the mat, the shape of a pair of shoes. I live alone.

I walked through the house with my phone in my hand, ready to call the police. No one was there. The windows were locked. The back door was locked. In the kitchen, an empty glass stood beside the sink, a ring of water drying beneath it.

In the morning, my own key would not turn. The new one opened the door easily. I called a locksmith. He held both keys against the lock and said the old one had been cut for a different cylinder.

“You've changed the lock,” he said.

“I haven't.”

He showed me the bright, unweathered screws in the plate. Whoever had done it had done it neatly. He asked if anyone else had a copy. I thought of the glass by the sink and told him no.

At work, I went to the storeroom to get the box of objects. It was empty. The thermos lid, the extra shoe, the mug, the button: gone. On the floor beneath the shelf was a tea towel folded into a small square.

Someone had written RETURNED on a band of paper around it.

I spent the day watching the front entrance. No one unusual came in. At closing, I made a round of the building and stood for a while in front of the bolted slot. There was a strip of light visible below the steel flap. It went dark as I watched.

I didn't stay to find out who was on the other side.

When I got home, my kitchen light was on. A glass stood beside the sink with fresh water in it. The new key was still in my coat pocket. From the hall I heard my front door unlock. I turned, expecting to see it open.

The handle moved once. Then the key came through the slot in the letterbox, still warm from someone's hand. It landed on the mat at my feet.

A paper band was tied around it.

FRIDAY.