My father passed away quietly in his sleep. For most of my life, I thought I had him figured out — a man of simple routines, modest earnings, and no real luxuries to his name. I was his only child, so when his lawyer called me to attend the reading of his will, I expected little more than a stack of old furniture, a beaten-up car, and maybe a box of keepsakes. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The lawyer’s office smelled faintly of leather and dust. Papers were neatly stacked, and his voice carried the dry tone of a man who’d done this far too many times. He looked at me over his glasses and began, “As per your father’s wishes, his house…”
I almost laughed. House? My father rented his whole life. The man couldn’t even keep a garden alive, let alone own property. But then the lawyer said it again, slowly, as if he knew the words would sting:
“…his house is to be passed entirely to you.”
I froze. “Wait… the house?!”
The lawyer nodded, sliding a document across the table. It was no joke. My father’s name was printed there, in bold, legally binding ink, attached to the deed of a property I had never heard about. My pulse quickened. My father had left me a house.
But not our house.
This was different.
“This property is located outside of town,” the lawyer explained, clearing his throat. “He instructed me not to disclose it until his passing. He wanted you to discover it for yourself.”
The air in the room grew heavy. My father, a man who could barely keep secrets from himself, had kept this from me?
I drove out to the address the next day. The road narrowed into something half-forgotten, swallowed by trees. Finally, at the end of a dirt path, the house emerged — tall, old, and looming. It wasn’t a cottage or some little shack. This was a grand, weather-beaten structure, its windows dark, its roof sagging under years of neglect.
A chill rippled through me.
Inside, dust covered every surface, yet it was furnished — as if waiting. And in the middle of the living room, I found a sealed envelope on the mantelpiece, my name written across it in my father’s handwriting.
My hands shook as I opened it.
“My child,” the letter began, “if you’re reading this, then the truth is finally yours. This house is not just stone and wood. It is a key. Our family has carried its secret for generations. I could not tell you in life… but now, it’s your turn to decide what comes next.”
Beneath the letter was a single brass key, heavy and old, with strange markings carved into it.
I stood there, staring at the house, the key, and the silence pressing in around me.
My father hadn’t just left me a house.
He’d left me a mystery