The Final Chapter

The Final Chapter

By Heather Ann Martinez

It was pouring rain. We were stuck inside. The wind howled periodically and made sounds like a flute. We were told to stay in the rooms upstairs. Mother told us not to disturb anything in the bedroom at the bottom of the staircase. She reminded us often that we were there to go through our grandfather’s belongings and not great-aunt Jane’s. All of Aunt Jane’s books and clothes were in the bedroom at the bottom of the staircase. My brother Paul and I wanted so much to go through Aunt Jane’s books and papers that weren’t in a museum or private collection somewhere. Our grandfather was her brother but it’s her name that people remember.

           Years ago, our cousins told us this old house was actually a lot bigger than it looked from the outside. Paul, who was twelve at the time, did not believe them. Our parents told us that our grandparents kept a very modest house. Our cousins told us they heard there were secret doors and passageways to the garden. They swore that Aunt Jane talked about it in one of her novels, but I always insisted that she only wrote novels about unrequited love or love with some heartbreak that works out. The truth was none of us was old enough to read and understand any of her novels. Our mother told us we could read her novels when we were older. Our father said he never heard of any secret doors or hidden passageways but he also said it would not surprise him. Our father told us our great-grandfather was a bit of an adventurer. It was possible that the house could have been built with secret doors so he could go out to the garden without disturbing anyone in the house.

           Here we are. Stuck in the house. Scratch that. Stuck upstairs in old drafty rooms listening to our mother rattle on about when our grandfather wore that coat or sipped his tea from that cup. Granted, some of her recollections were funny. Paul and I, however, were bored. Paul had just turned eighteen and I was exactly eleven minutes younger. I sat curled up under a blanket on a chair across from my grandfather’s enormous king size bed as mother talked about his clothes that she was folding on the bed for charity. Paul was sitting on the floor bouncing a ball at the window periodically whining about how much he hated the fact it rained so much in this part of England. Paul wanted to get back to America as quickly as possible. He was looking forward to going to the university in the fall. Paul and I are both avid readers. Mother wished we did other things. She herself loved painting and gardening. I told her I have a green thumb and couldn’t tell you the first thing about art. Our father had been a professional soccer player. He still traveled a great deal. He wasn’t with us on this trip. I think Paul especially missed him as he hasn’t seen our father for over a month. I saw our father briefly between trips. He came home for a couple of days Paul was away at our cousin’s house.

                After a couple of hours, mother announced that she was going to take a nap in the other bedroom across from our grandfather’s bedroom. She said it was difficult going through so many memories. She said we could watch television in the small sitting room or eat some bread and cheese in the kitchen. She reminded us not to go downstairs. She said it was colder downstairs and didn’t want us getting into anything we shouldn’t. She took a long look at Paul. He accidentally burned down the high school chemistry laboratory two years ago. He rolled his eyes and mouthed It was an accident! He looked at me and said out loud, “Colette.” I shrugged. “What do you expect me to do?” I asked.

           Paul went back to throwing the ball against the window and mother went to sleep in the other room. I stood over Paul. “Come on! Now is our chance. Let’s go downstairs.” I started pulling at Paul’s arm.

           The ball fell to the ground. Paul and I ran down the stairs and opened the door to the bedroom that once belonged to our great aunt Jane. The first thing we noticed was that it was a lot colder than it was upstairs. I had draped the blanket I had over my shoulders and started going through the books on the bookshelf behind Aunt Jane’s bed. Paul started looking through the boxes of papers on the bed. Some of them had page numbers on them. Others looked like scribbles or the start of a paragraph that didn’t make much sense. “Hey, didn’t you say she never finished her last novel? She got too sick, right?” He asked me with papers in his hand. “Yes, that’s right.” I replied with my fingers on the books. I was looking for a book I had not heard of or something out of place. Paul asked, “Do you think she ever did finish her book?”

           I turned around and looked at him.” Why would you ask that? She was too sick. She couldn’t possibly have finished...” Paul showed me all the papers he had now sorted on the bed. There were smudge marks and crossed out words but what was there was the start of a scene. “It’s not all here Paul. She was too sick to finish it.” Paul kept going through the papers until he came across one half sheet that said under the eagle’s talon. Under the Eagle’s Talon was a name of one of the books on the bookshelf. I went to pull the book off the bookshelf but it was stuck. It wouldn’t budge. “Colette!” Paul shouted. I turned around and saw the open door that was hidden in the opposite wall. Paul grabbed the flashlight that was on the nightstand and started shining the light into the cold and damp darkness. There were cobwebs and spiders crawling everywhere. I didn’t want to go down there but realized I wouldn’t have any peace about knowing if Aunt Jane had finished her last book. Was there a completed manuscript? I had to know. Paul went ahead of me through this secret dark passageway. There were books, papers and gardening tools along with vases, pots, pans and pictures. We heard the rain more clearly and realized we were walking in the direction of the garden on the side of the house. Suddenly, Paul stopped. One of the floorboards creaked and Paul stopped to steady the board and realized it was very loose. Together, we pried it open with the gardening tools.

           There was a wooden box in the space underneath the floorboard. Paul opened it and found the remnants of a red ribbon around several papers, all numbered. We went back to the bedroom and moved the book back in place to close the secret passageway door. “Do you remember the name of her last book?” Paul asked. “It started with an “S,” I think?”

“Is that it?” Paul pointed to the first page of the manuscript.

“Yes, it is!” I said. Together, we went through ever page. We read portions to each other out loud. When we got to the last ten pages, we were taken to this scene in Bath, England. We knew Aunt Jane visited Bath with our grandfather. Paul realized that the papers he had found earlier were not the start of the scene but were the end of the final chapter. In spite of crossed out words and smudge marks, Aunt Jane had finished her final chapter. No one knew because it was not all stored in one place. “Paul, do you remember what mother told us about when grandfather moved back here?”

Paul looked at me. His eyes widened.

“He moved back here to take care of Aunt Jane before she died. She never married and their younger sisters weren’t well enough to look after her. He would have known it was here, wouldn’t he?” I asked. I put my hand over my mouth.

“He wasn’t always that great with organizing Colette. How would he know she finished the book? He never read anything she wrote. Remember, she was the sickly unmarried sister. He didn’t see her as an equal. I’m surprised he didn’t throw all of this away.”

“Maybe that’s why it was underneath the floorboard. Maybe that is why she left the note about the secret passageway. She put the final chapter in two places. One part was underneath the floorboard with the rest of the whole manuscript and the other was in this box on the bed marked desk. She must have just finished it before she died and left it in her desk! We have to tell mother. We have to... ”

Paul looked at me and shook his head. “What good will telling mother we came down here do? What do you want to do? Go to the papers? Publish her last book ourselves? Give our cousins the proceeds to whatever royalties will come from selling the book? Think about it! You know this is a ticking bomb. We should put it all away and go upstairs. Maybe mother was right and we should never have come down here.” Paul started putting the manuscript pages in order. He put all of the pages in the box. He muttered that at least it was all in one place and started walking toward the door. Paul went back upstairs. He ate bread and cheese in the kitchen and talked with our mother about our grandfather. I took the manuscript from the box and hid it underneath my blanket. When I returned upstairs, I placed the manuscript in my suitcase.

           Years later, I read the manuscript to my children. No one had ever asked me about the manuscript. Paul suspected that I had it but he knew I would never betray his trust. It was easier to tell my children about that rainy day after Paul passed away. Paul knew there would be interviews and scandals and lawsuits over potential royalties. So I left the next generation to sort it out. I gave them the option to publish Aunt Jane’s final words.