Treasured by the Released Convict

1. Renee

RENEE

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and prepare myself. I have no idea what the hell I am going to find in here, but it’s the last piece of my grandfather I have left, and I’m sure as hell not going to turn my back on it now.

I pull open the large steel door that stands between me and the storage container, plant my hands on my hips, and survey what lies in front of me.

Okay, this is… a lot, to say the least.

Top to bottom, the place is crammed with random stuff from his days running the antique store; books stacked nearly to the ceiling, old dusty lamps that look as though they might explode if I try to put them on, and a wardrobe that towers over me as if it’s waiting to crash right down on top of me at any instant.

“You couldn’t have done a little sorting before you got sick?

” I murmur to him, though, of course, I don’t mean it.

I always knew I would be spending the weeks following his death sifting through all of his stuff, given that I am the last one of his family left alive; my own parents passed when I was a kid, in a car accident that took them both from me, and left my grandfather to more or less raise me.

I can’t count the number of afternoons I spent flicking through some dusty old tomes in his store, while he chatted animatedly with anyone who came in about the goods they had on offer.

And now, he’s gone, too. I used to tease him that he was as much an antique as anything he sold, but I never really thought I would lose him.

On an intellectual level, sure, but literally?

It felt like he would live forever, he was so full of life right up until the end, still reaching out to some of his old buddies in the auction houses to see if he could finish his collection of first-edition CS Lewis.

And now, here I am, looking over what remains of the store. It is still technically in the family, but I know that I can’t keep it open, not without a decent cash injection, which isn’t coming my way anytime soon.

I pick my way in, trying not to trip over anything, and wonder where the hell I should start. I have his old catalogue, which should keep track of everything that he kept here, so I will know what is worthless, what I can keep, and what I should put up for sale to try and make a little money back.

I reach into my messenger bag to pull it out, but, before I can flip it open, a piece of paper flutters out of the pages and slides beneath the wardrobe before me.

I sigh, muttering a curse under my breath, and stoop down to pick it up. I feel around beneath the wardrobe until I find the slip that has made a break for it, and I’m about to withdraw my hand when I feel something under there.

I frown.

It doesn’t feel like the solid old wood that makes up the rest of the piece of furniture. No, it’s cold, jutting out from the bottom, a large bell-shaped tip on the end, almost like a handle.

Curious, I tug on it, half-expecting the whole thing to give in around me.

Instead, I hear a click, followed by a slight thud. And something falls out from inside a compartment at the bottom of the wardrobe.

I pull out my phone and flick on the flashlight, bending my head awkwardly so I can see what I’ve managed to do. I can already hear my grandfather’s voice in my head. Look at that, you’ve only been in here a few seconds, and you’ve already managed to break it.

But I realize, after squinting into the darkness for a second, that I’ve managed to knock loose some kind of book. I tug it out, squatting down to get a better look at it.

At a glance, it doesn’t look like much, a leather-bound moleskine notebook that looks like it’s been in there for decades.

How long has this thing been in here, exactly?

Is it the secret diary of some repressed woman who wanted to hide her true feelings from her husband or something?

But then, I flip open the pages, and am surprised to find that my grandfather’s handwriting is scrawled across the faded paper. I’d recognize it anywhere, that spidery, sprawling writing that I saw him put on every price tag in the store.

I leaf through it, wondering what it was that he was trying to hide, and why he would have kept it in the base of this wardrobe for so long.

At first, it just looks like notes about his various antiques, scribbled names and numbers, along with question marks at the edge of the page regarding the value and potential resale of the pieces he was looking at.

But, towards the middle of the book, I notice one of the pages has been folded down, and I open it to get a better look at what he had written there.

It doesn’t look like writing at all. Not his, anyway. No, the pen is different, and the ink is more faded, as though it has been there for even longer. Just a few random scribbles laid out over the two pages, with no rhyme or reason to them at all.

I twist the book around a couple of times, screwing my face up, narrowing my eyes like that might help everything fall into place.

And then, like a ton of bricks, or a hundred-pound antique wardrobe, it hits me. I am not looking at notes.

I am looking at a map.

Yes, I can see it now. It's in his usual messy style, but that’s exactly what it is. Several hasty triangles scribbled on one side to denote mountains, and a line trailing through the middle of them… a river? A road?

At the left side, next to what looks like a patch of trees, there is a point circled several times, as though he was intent on reminding himself what he was looking for.

I sit back on my heels, leafing through the pages on either side to see if there is anything else that might give context to what the hell this is, but I can’t see a damn thing. It could be nothing.

But something about it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

It reminds me of those illustrations in the classic Carrington Carruthers books my grandfather sold at the store, the ones I would pore over for hours, the treasure maps, leading to some buried fortune.

It might not quite be “X marks the spot” but it’s close.

And it might be the last thing left of my grandfather’s that I have yet to uncover.

I rise to my feet, the rest of the storage unit all of a sudden forgotten. This is what matters more than anything. I have no idea where this map leads or what it might take me to if I can figure out where the hell this is, but it feels like a little mystery he left behind for me to solve.

The last thing that I could do to make sure his collection was complete. When he passed, I know that there was still so much left out there he wanted to do, and the thought that I might be able to make that happen… God, I have to try, right?

I tuck the book into my bag and step out of the storage unit again, the familiar scent of musty antiques clinging to me. Where exactly do I start in figuring out what to do next? I don’t have a clue.

But as long as I have that map, I know that I have something to go on. And that has to mean something.