Attic room key

The Attic room key is a small but decisive instrument in the struggle over confinement at the Winchester home: it first enables Millie to turn the lock on Andrew, who has trapped her in the attic, and later an attic-door key enables Nina to open the room and reach Millie. Its significance lies in that reversal of access, from a means of keeping someone inside to a means of getting someone out.

Possession and Purpose

Nina gives Millie a copy of the room’s key as part of a plan whose real purpose Millie does not know. Nina explains that she did not hire Millie, give her the key, or leave pepper spray in the closet’s blue bucket merely to make Andrew fall for another woman and secure her own release. She hired Millie to kill him, without telling her that this was the intended outcome. The key therefore enters the story as part of Nina’s concealed design, though it can also be used for a purpose Nina has not disclosed to Millie.

Millie Turns the Lock

When Millie acts against Andrew, the key becomes essential to the reversal of their positions. After spraying him in the face, she takes his fallen phone and escapes the room while he is still unable to see clearly. She closes the door, fits Nina’s key into the lock, turns it, and pockets it. The careful sequence makes the key more than a sign of escape: it performs the practical change that leaves Andrew on the confined side of the door and Millie on the outside. Her use of it follows more than six hours of planning while three books rested on her belly, underscoring how deliberately she prepared for the moment.

Opening the Attic Door

The attic-door key appears again when Nina returns to help Millie. Acknowledging that she should not have left Millie there, Nina takes a key from her purse, fits it into the attic lock, and lets the door swing open. The scene gives the key a counter-function: the lock that separated Millie from help can be opened. The evidence identifies the key Nina uses but does not establish whether it is the same physical copy Millie used to lock Andrew inside; what recurs is the key’s role in controlling access. Across the two moments, possession of the key marks a shift in who can act on the room’s boundary, and whether that boundary enforces captivity or permits rescue.