I like it... it draws in the interest ("Hmm! Most stories don't begin with a key and an empty hand!") Your descriptors are interesting too.
The one thing that doesn't work for me, and this may well be more about my attention span than your writing, is this part:
I twirl it between thumb and forefinger, just at the juncture of its blade and its cloverleaf bow
It's a good line. I'm just the sort of reader whose eyes glaze with too much detailed description of objects; I'm more an action sort, and I'll often start skimming past the second or third line of artistic description of a place or object, to get to more plot. Now, admittedly, this is an important establishing object in your story, which means that it deserves some more description... but were it me, I'd work the later descriptive lines into subsequent places where we come across that object.
Same with this bit: good line, but my attention span doesn't extend that far.
feeling the wooden tabletop or chair leg meet my knuckles at each motion.
All in all, though, you're off to an intriguing start!
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The one thing that doesn't work for me, and this may well be more about my attention span than your writing, is this part:
I twirl it between thumb and forefinger, just at the juncture of its blade and its cloverleaf bow
It's a good line. I'm just the sort of reader whose eyes glaze with too much detailed description of objects; I'm more an action sort, and I'll often start skimming past the second or third line of artistic description of a place or object, to get to more plot. Now, admittedly, this is an important establishing object in your story, which means that it deserves some more description... but were it me, I'd work the later descriptive lines into subsequent places where we come across that object.
Same with this bit: good line, but my attention span doesn't extend that far.
feeling the wooden tabletop or chair leg meet my knuckles at each motion.
All in all, though, you're off to an intriguing start!