“You mean he was real? That that really happened?” Brent asked. He didn’t seem to believe it.
I shrugged and said, “I’m not sure. Let me read more.”
He had some amazing adventures, both on the ship and much later in his life, when he worked as a fur trapper in French territory. John Featherstone grew old and passed the Legacy to Edgar Thomas, a milliner in Boston, who in turn passed it to Rowena Callaway. She, believe it or not, served as a spy during the Revolutionary War. She eventually passed it to Mildred Spenser, who passed it to Emmitt Louder, and so on. The complete list of heirs, along with the dates they held the legacy, is attached to this letter.
I encourage you to read the stories. They are all fascinating, and – more important – they’re true. Each holder of the Legacy was encouraged to pass it on to someone likely to have an interesting story to tell. The chain of lives is secret and wonderful. As far as I know, nothing else like it exists anywhere in the world. I was proud to be a part of it.
Anyone who isn’t Cyril is probably wondering why I would consider letting him have it.
“Yeah!” Brent said. “That’s exactly what I was wondering!”
“Shhh!” Loni said. I read on.
This is a good question. The answer, though, is simple. I’ve begun to wonder if the Legacy should no longer be such a secret. I’ve spent the last twenty years, off and on, “cleaning it up”: photocopying the originals, typing them into a computer after modernizing the English a little, printing out typed copies, and even laminating with a special plastic some of the older papers, those that were in danger of falling apart forever. The whole thing is ready for the world to see, and Cyril, in his greed, would ensure that they saw it.
He would do so because the Kammecott Legacy is exceedingly valuable. The stories on their own, of course, will interest people, but much more important, some of the writings expand and challenge our understanding of the past. Apparently the history books have been wrong about certain things – certain important things. People would pay a fortune to find out about this. Cyril, if you are reading this message, I suggest you show the Legacy to a host of publishers and let them fight about who can pay you the most money for it. We can let the world in on the secret, on this fresh new portal into the past. You, in turn, will add a huge sum to your riches.
Dave, if you are reading this, you have a choice. You, too, can sell it and become rich. You might want to consider something else, though. When I said in my will that the Kumquat Legacy is the most valuable thing I own, I wasn’t talking about how much money you could get for it. I was talking about something else entirely. Here’s something you should know: part of me is not convinced that the Legacy should be published. Read the stories, Dave. Make up your own mind. I guess that’s all I’ll say about it.
Congratulations again! And may you enjoy the Legacy as much as I have!
-- Jeffrey Morton
I set down the paper. I said nothing, and neither did anyone else. I turned around. The three grown-ups standing behind me stared at the papers in my hand. They looked stunned.
Brent was the first to break the long silence. “Wow,” he said. “Stories!”
His tone was respectful, but I corrected him anyway. “Not stories,” I said. “Histories!”
****
We had the darnedest time dealing with the safe. My mom wanted to leave it behind. “Just take all the folders with you in a box!” she said. “That would be the easiest thing to do.” I shook my head and stood my ground. The safe came with the Legacy. Besides, I was secretly thrilled at the idea of having a full-size safe in my room, especially because there were instructions inside on how to change the combination.
The safe wasn’t huge, but it weighed a ton. Fortunately, Mr. Halverson had a strong hand-truck, and we managed to roll the whole thing out to the driveway. The hardest part was getting it into our van. We ended up using several long, strong boards as a ramp and rolling the safe up the ramp with a symphony of grunts. Finally it plopped into the back of the van, which bounced a little before settling into its new position, closer to the ground. My parents looked at the van doubtfully.
“We’ll make it home,” my dad said finally. He thanked Mr. Halverson and shook his hand. We all shook his hand.
“I hope you’ll let me know what you decide about the Legacy, Dave,” he said. He seemed truly interested.
“I will,” I said. “I promise. Right now, though, I have no idea.”
“Of course you don’t. These things take reflection.”
He waved cheerfully as we drove away.
****
All this happened six months ago. I’m in the eighth grade now, and I’m still home-schooled. Brent still stops by in the afternoon to raid our refrigerator and to play video games. He usually wins, but I’m getting better. This weekend we’re going camping in the mountains with our dads. Next week, my aunt and her family are visiting from Iowa, which means that Loni and I will have to clean our rooms. Unfair!
Loni is still as obnoxious as ever. Just this morning I poured some cereal into my bowl and then left the table to get some milk. When I got back, her Gertie doll was in the bowl, covered with flakes. “Don’t move her!” Loni exclaimed. “She’s playing hide-and-seek with William!” Annoyed, I started pouring milk on the flakes and on the doll. “Don’t get her wet!” Loni screamed, knocking the bowl out of the way. We both spent the next five minutes sweeping up flakes, wiping up milk, and being chewed out by my mom.
Believe it or not, we got a Christmas card from Cyril. “Just thought I’d send you the best wishes of the season,” he wrote. “If you need any help understanding the Kumquat Legacy, please let me know. I’d be happy to help.” I grinned. He still doesn’t know what the Legacy is, so he must be incredibly curious about it. Fortunately, he’s also deathly afraid of pestering us. I imagined him looking around nervously as he wrote the card, holding it up all over the room to show his invisible uncle that he was being polite.
As for what I did with the Legacy, well, I haven’t done anything yet. It’s still sitting in my safe, in a corner of my room. Actually, I did do something with it. I read it – the whole thing. There are twenty-five secret personal histories in there, most of them pretty amazing. Twenty-five may seem like too many, since it’s been around for less than four centuries. It turns out that several of the heirs were already old when they received it, and some passed it on to others long before they died.
So, will I ever sell it? Brent and I talked about that a few weeks after we first opened the safe. “You could be rich, Dave!” he was telling me, as he tore the wrapper off a candy bar in my backyard. “Who knows how much you’d get? Maybe so much that you’d never have to work a day in your life!”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Who knows?”
“So? Are you going to sell it?”
“Maybe someday. I don’t know. It’s not that simple,” I told him.
“Why not?”
“Well, if we sell the Legacy to some publisher, the chain will be broken. It will end with us.”
“Right!” he said. “So what?”
He obviously wasn’t convinced. I sighed, knowing that it would be hard to explain. I tried anyway. “One of the guys in the Legacy,” I said, “wrote something that sort of makes sense. Let’s see… How did he put it… He said that it’s easy to think of our own time as being the most important ever. But it’s not. Not when you think about it. People have had adventures and have thought about important stuff for thousands of years, even longer. With any luck, people a thousand years from now will be doing the same thing. People, no matter when they live, are pretty much the same – that’s the whole idea. The different generations are just links in a long, long chain. The Kumquat Legacy – I still like calling it that – is a miniature version of that chain.”
“What is this?” Brent laughed. “Are you some kind of a philosoph
er all of a sudden?”
I grinned back, knowing that he didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand, not until he read the Legacy himself. I convinced him to read it that very day.
We haven’t talked about it much since then. Based on something he said later, though, I’m pretty sure he agrees with me. So does Loni. So, at least for now, the Legacy stays in the safe.
Actually, I have made one other decision. I’ve decided to add the story you just read to the Legacy. It would be my contribution, my link in the chain.
Well, it would be my first contribution. After all, who knows what I’ll be able to write about ten years from now…
– THE END –
Thanks for reading! As I bet you can guess, this work is complete fiction; any resemblance between any character in this book and any actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author thanks his two beautiful daughters (Teri and Cyndi) for inspiring certain aspects of the plot. They know which ones I’m talking about!
The Kumquat Legacy Page 9
