**THE MISSING WILL**
Dad always said the antique clock was the most valuable thing he owned. “More than the house,” he’d chuckle, polishing it with his worn cloth. Now he’s gone, and the lawyer’s saying the will is…missing. My sister, Sarah, is acting strange, too quiet, avoiding eye contact.
Yesterday, while helping Mom sort through Dad’s study, I noticed something odd about the clock. A faint scratch near the base, like someone had forced it open. It always sat flush against the wall.
I grabbed a screwdriver and, with trembling hands, carefully pried open the back panel. Inside, tucked beneath the weights… ⬇️
Inside, tucked beneath the weights, was a small, velvet-lined box. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I carefully lifted the box. It was heavier than it looked. Inside, nestled on faded crimson velvet, was not a will, but a single, tarnished silver key. A key unlike any I’d ever seen, intricately carved with swirling patterns that seemed almost…organic.
Sarah entered the study then, her usually vibrant eyes dull and shadowed. She gasped, a strangled sound caught in her throat, when she saw the key in my hand. “Where…where did you find that?” she whispered, her voice trembling.
“In the clock,” I replied, my own voice barely above a whisper. “Dad’s will is missing, and the clock was tampered with. What’s going on, Sarah?”
She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she paced, her hands wringing each other. Finally, she blurted out, “It’s the safe deposit box. Dad…Dad never told me about it.”
A cold dread washed over me. Dad had been fiercely private about his finances. A safe deposit box? What was he hiding? We rushed to the bank, our shared anxiety thick enough to cut with a knife. The key fitted perfectly. Inside the box were not documents, but a collection of old photographs, letters tied with faded ribbons, and a single, antique music box.
As I wound the music box, a haunting melody filled the small, sterile room. The tune was familiar, a lullaby Dad used to hum to me as a child. As the music played, a hidden compartment sprung open, revealing… another key. This one was plain, unadorned, but it bore a small, almost invisible inscription: “The Willowbrook Estate.”
Our father, the quiet, unassuming man we knew, had another life, another secret. Willowbrook Estate was a legendary property, a sprawling mansion said to contain a priceless collection of art and historical artifacts, rumored to be shrouded in mystery and guarded by ancient wards.
Sarah, breaking down completely, confessed. She hadn’t stolen the will; she’d been searching for answers after finding a cryptic note from Dad hinting at a hidden inheritance, far grander than anything we could imagine. The note mentioned Willowbrook and a “secret melody.”
The real twist came with the lawyer’s call, interrupting our stunned silence. He’d found the will. Tucked inside the antique music box, in the compartment revealed by the *first* key – the one with the swirling organic patterns. It was a simple will, leaving everything to… us, equally.
The mystery of Willowbrook remained. Did we pursue it? Claim the supposed inheritance, risk uncovering some unknown danger? Or leave the past, the secrets, and the haunting melody locked away, content with our simple, unexpected legacy? The choice, heavy with the weight of our father’s unspoken life, lay before us, the silence of the bank vault echoing the unspoken questions hanging in the air. The ending, for now, remained unwritten.