MY DEAD GRANDMOTHER IS LEAVING ME VOICEMAILS.
It started last week. An unknown number calling late at night, always going straight to voicemail.
I ignored the first few, assuming it was a scam. But then I checked them.
A raspy voice, undeniably her, saying the same thing each time: “Find the key, sweetheart. Before they do.”
I hadn’t heard her voice in years. It sent chills down my spine. I knew I had to do something.
Yesterday, I drove to her old house. It was abandoned, overgrown with weeds. Inside, everything was just as she left it.
Dusty furniture, faded photographs, the air thick with the smell of mothballs and regret. And then I saw it: a small, antique music box on her dresser. Could this be it?
As I reached for the box, I heard a car pull up outside. ⬇️
The screech of tires on gravel sent a jolt through me. Panic, cold and sharp, pierced the musty air. I snatched the music box, its tiny brass key already nestled in a hidden compartment. The door burst open, revealing two figures silhouetted against the fading sunlight. A man, broad-shouldered and menacing, his face obscured by shadow, and a woman, her features etched with a chilling familiarity – my Aunt Mildred.
“Well, well,” Mildred hissed, her voice dripping with venomous delight. “Look what the cat dragged in. And you found it, didn’t you?”
My breath hitched. Aunt Mildred? She’d always been distant, even cruel, but I never imagined… this. “What’s going on?” I stammered, clutching the music box to my chest.
The man stepped into the light, his face now visible – a face I recognized from old family photos, a face that haunted my childhood memories. My uncle, Edward, presumed dead in a boating accident twenty years ago. He wore a cruel smirk.
“Your grandmother wasn’t as forgetful as you think,” Edward snarled, his voice gravelly. “She knew we’d come looking for the key.”
“Key to what?” I choked out, fear constricting my throat.
Mildred stepped closer, her eyes gleaming. “The key, my dear, to a fortune. Your grandmother’s secret fortune, hidden somewhere in this dilapidated mess. And it’s ours now.”
She lunged for the music box, but I scrambled back, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The music box felt heavy, weighted not just with brass and wood, but with years of secrets and unspoken resentments.
A sudden realization hit me, harder than any physical blow. The voicemails…they weren’t from my grandmother. They were from someone else, someone mimicking her voice, leading me to this moment. But who? And why?
The answer came in the form of a faint whirring sound. The music box in my hands began to play a tune, a haunting melody that I vaguely recognized, followed by a hidden compartment springing open, revealing not gold, but a worn photograph. It was a picture of my grandmother, but younger, beside a smiling man – not my grandfather. The man in the photograph was…Edward.
The truth crashed down upon me, a wave of bitter revelation. My grandmother hadn’t been hiding a fortune; she’d been hiding a secret family. A secret Edward and Mildred were determined to keep buried, fearing the disruption to their carefully constructed lives and their claim to the family inheritance. My grandmother’s “voicemails” had been a cruel trick, a desperate attempt to expose their deceit before she passed.
I stood there, the photograph clutched in my hand, the music box’s melody fading into silence. Edward and Mildred stared, their expressions shifting from greed to stunned realization. They had underestimated the strength of a granddaughter’s resolve to uncover the truth. Their calculated scheme had backfired spectacularly. The legal battle for the inheritance would be long and arduous, but I was ready. The fight wasn’t just for a fortune; it was for the truth about my family history, and for the memory of a grandmother who, in her own mysterious way, had fought for me until her very last breath. The ending, I knew, was far from peaceful, but it was far from over.