Fulgencio

The key is older than he is, and that's saying something, because Fulgencio lost count of his own years several hats ago. He found it hanging from a branch, with no owner and no door, and has carried it ever since, looking for its lock. He tried it on country gates, on sunken chests, on hollow trunks that seemed to be guarding something. Nothing. Until he understood that his key doesn't open places: it opens what people leave shut over time — a drawer of letters no one rereads, a door that jammed the day someone left. He passes by at night, leans it against the wood, and by morning the locked-up thing loosens without anyone knowing why. Some keys take a whole lifetime to find their own, just like some people.