“I’m fine with that.”
They talked about some of the other items and agreed to meet at the house on Saturday to pack and move the items they each wanted. Tom agreed to contact the realtor to have the house put up for sale. It would be strange not going to the house anymore for family gatherings. It had been the centerpiece in everyone’s life for more years than they could remember.
After a while, Sophie and her family left, and Jamie went to bed. All of the talk about splitting Granddad’s things was depressing. And besides, Jamie had to figure out how to honor her grandfather’s request with a lot of other people in the house.
As she crawled in bed, she decided that she’d go over to the house the next day after school and retrieve the box and the letter while the house was empty. If her parents asked what she was doing there, she’d simply tell them she was just missing her granddad. It would be the truth, of course; she didn’t like to lie to her parents. However, it wouldn’t be the whole truth.
The next afternoon, she walked up to her grandfather’s house, unlocked the front door, and stepped inside. She paused after she closed and relocked the front door. The house looked the same, but there was definitely something missing. She realized that she had never been alone in the house before. There had always been someone there. She pushed that thought aside and walked down the hall toward her grandfather’s study.
As she entered the study, she felt the tears welling up in her eyes again. She could almost see her grandfather sitting behind the great desk, reading the paper and sipping from the ever-present glass of scotch. She walked in and stepped around the desk to the wall panel between the two wall lamps. Reaching for the center of the panel, she pushed until she heard the click. The panel slid upwards, revealing a niche.
She reached into the niche and pulled out the box with the letter attached to it. The letter had her name written on it, and the back was sealed with a red wax seal that had the design of an “X” with a crown on each of the four tips. She looked at the box, and it had the same design worked into the wood in such a subtle way that it was hard to tell if it were actually there or not.
Jamie slid the panel down, and it clicked back into place. She turned around and froze.
Ralph Gardner was standing there, looking at her and what was in her hands.
“Uncle Ralph, what are you doing here?” she said, surprised by his sudden appearance.
“I’m helping to keep an eye on the place until your parents can go through everything. What are you doing here, and what’s that in your hand?” he asked his goddaughter.
Jamie looked at the box and the letter in her hand. Looking back at her godfather, she said, “I’m doing something Granddad asked me to do just before he died.”
Holding up the letter for Ralph to see what was written on it, she added, “See? It’s addressed to me.”
Ralph looked at the writing on the letter. “What did he want you to do with it?”
Jamie hesitated. Her grandfather had made her promise to keep this a secret, but Ralph had already seen the letter and the box, so there was no way to hide it from him. “I’ll tell you, but you have to swear not to tell anyone else – not even my parents.”
Ralph looked at the sincerity and the sense of purpose on Jamie’s face, and nodded.
“Granddad says it’s his legacy, but I’m not supposed to try to open it until I’m eighteen, and even then I might not be able to get it open.”
“What’s in it?” Ralph asked.
“I have no idea, and I had to promise not to open it early and not to tell anyone about this.”
Ralph nodded. It was just like James to leave behind something of a mystery. His whole life had been about secrets, and he was leaving one behind for his favorite grandchild to solve. “Well, whatever it is, I hope that you’ll let me in on it when the time comes. I’m your godfather, and I’m supposed to look out for you when your parents can’t. Since they don’t know about this, I guess I’ll be the one who has to look after the secret with you.”
“Thanks, Uncle Ralph!” Jamie said, coming forward to give him a hug.
“No problem.” he said, hugging her back. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride home.”
When Jamie got home, she went to her room to find a place to hide the letter and the box. After looking around her room for a while, she couldn’t think of a good hiding place where the letter and the box would be safe from accidental discovery. The box was the same size as a cigar box, which made it too large to hide easily.
When she sat down on her bed to think about a hiding place, she felt something hard underneath her. Getting up again, she saw one of her textbooks lying on the bed where she had left it. She pushed it aside and sat down again. She looked at the book and then at her bookcase. An idea formed in her mind.
She jumped up and went over to her computer. After it turned on, she went into a graphics package and started working. When she got the images just the way she wanted them, she printed them out on heavy card, rather than paper. She grabbed her scissors and trimmed off the excess card stock. She carefully taped the images to the box and the envelope, covering them completely. She turned the now-covered box and envelope over to inspect it from all sides, smiling with satisfaction. She walked over to her bookcase, created an opening between two large books, and slid the covered box and envelope in between. Stepping back, the box and envelope now looked just like a book, titled “Legacy 18.”
Jamie was proud of the way she had disguised the box and envelope so they could be hidden in plain sight. No one would be able to tell that it wasn’t a real book without pulling it out and inspecting it closely. The secret was now safe.
Jamie hummed to herself as she got out her textbooks and started working on her homework assignments.
3
When Jamie turned sixteen, her parents decided to teach her how to shoot. They enrolled her in the “new shooters” class that the club taught, and they started taking her to the gun club once or twice a week. As expected, Jamie excelled at this.
She started with pistols, and the first time she shot at the target, all of her shots were in the middle three rings. As she shot at targets farther away, her grouping pattern in the target stayed consistent. Tom and Emily were impressed, as was the club owner, who commented that few first time students could shoot so well.
After a while, Jamie’s aim improved, as did her scores. She wasn’t as good as her parents, but she was enjoying herself too much to worry about trying to beat them yet. After all, they’ve been shooting for years and years, and I’ve only been shooting for a few weeks.
Once Jamie had reached a level of proficiency with pistols, Emily started teaching Jamie how to shoot long arms. They started with one of Grandmom’s carbines to get Jamie used to the feel and the kick. Emily taught Jamie how to aim the rifle both with and without a scope.
Tom watched from the bleachers as Jamie shot his mother’s rifle, and he felt that Tracy would have been pleased to know that Jamie was learning to shoot with her favorite one. That carbine had won dozens of club tournaments, and Tracy hadn’t been beaten by anyone, other than Emily, when she used it. Emily had selected the rifle for that reason, and she knew that it made Tom happy to see it used again.
Jamie entered several of the club’s Juniors Tournaments and did well in the beginner and intermediate category. But the real test, Jamie knew, would be when she was allowed to shoot in the annual family tournament, which was still a family tradition and the only time that she was able to see her cousins after they had moved away.
The older Jamie got, the more beautiful she became. Because of her sports activities, she had an athletic body – tall, lean and toned, but still feminine. She turned heads wherever she went, but she never flaunted her looks or tried to use them to