Page 53 of Finders Keepers

Ibring the box to my lap and stare down at its contents. “It’s…it looks like it’s just a piece of paper,” I say.

“Maybe there’s something beneath it?”

Gently, I tuck my fingertip into where the edge of the paper meets the box’s edge and lift it out. “Nope,” I say. “Just…this.”

“Maybe it’s a folded-up US bond worth like a million dollars?” Quentin says. “I might’ve been lying about Charlie’s Law, but ‘finders keepers’ is actually sort of legit in certain circumstances…”

The fold is complicated—over this way, over that way—almost like an accordion. “It appears to be…a letter. At least this first page is. There are a couple sheets here.”

He lets out a long sigh and rubs his hands through his hair. “If this is another riddle, I swear to god.”

“No…” I say, my eyes dancing over it quickly, making out the words separately before putting them together.

My dearest Lou,

I’m certain you’re the one who will find this first. Probably within the first week of searching. I tried to make it a challenge, something to keep you occupied for a while, but you’re whip-smart and always did know me too well.

With that in mind, I’m aware I may be telling you things that are not news to you. Still, please humor an old dead man and continue reading this letter.

Lou. Louisa. I used to say that I couldn’t do it without you. And I couldn’t have. But it hit me much too late that what I meant by that shifted dramatically over time. It started as a way to acknowledge your invaluable help with the business. Then…

Then.

You remember those early days after Isolde arrived. How I walked around in a fog of grief without the first clue how to care for that sensitive, beautiful child.

And so you created the magical world of Edlo. A place for Isolde to grow up. A place for us to grow together.

Somewhere along the way you stopped being my secretary and became my partner.

We built a family, ruled a great kingdom.

We lived happily in the fantasy of it for a long time.

But it wasn’t enough to keep you content forever—nor should it have been!

So you left the Castle, decided to exist on the periphery of the story you’d written for us instead of remaining at its center.

It was a story that I’d grown too comfortable inside, forgetting it wasn’t reality. That it wasn’t something I could keep.

I learned much too late that the problem with living inside the stories we tell ourselves is that sometimes it obscures what’s real and in front of us all along.

I’m both sorry and not, Lou, that I never told you how much I loved you when I was alive.

It will come as no surprise, I’m sure, that I did not recognize the emotion in myself until it was too late to confess it.

I loved my parents and my brother and Isolde, of course, but this particular variety was foreign to me.

Something I didn’t understand, thought was beyond my capacity.

Yet it snuck up on me over time, soft and purring like a kitten, disguising itself as gratitude and friendly affection until one day a stranger came by and tore the cover off it.

Made me see exactly what it was. By that time, you were preparing to leave, though.

To have adventures in service of yourself instead of us.

You were on your way to real happiness, and I knew I couldn’t offer you anything more than a continuous game of pretend.

The King of Edlo could not leave his heart here, as he will not be returning this time. The truth is that the Queen and the Princess made up the entirety of it anyway.

I lived a life that was more wonderful than I ever could have dreamed. Some of it was luck, yes. Some of it was intelligence and business savvy.

But most of it, Louisa, was you.

I remain yours, in death as I was in life,

J. J.

Quentin and I sit there, contemplating the letter for a solid minute.

“So, Fountain’s treasure is the love he found along the way?” he asks, breaking the silence.

“That certainly does seem to be the implication, yes.”

“That’s…beautiful,” Quentin says. Then snorts—a laugh filed under When he inadvertently skipped Question 4 on a standardized test and saw that his grade was a 33 percent because all of his answers were one place off. “And worth less than nothing on the free market.”

“Probably.” I can’t quite tell how I feel.

There’s the pride of accomplishing what we set out to do, the disappointment that it was relatively anticlimactic, the finality of it all.

And there’s also the joy that Fountain, Louisa Worman, and Isolde had each other, even if Fountain only truly appreciated the role Louisa played in his life toward the end of it.

Followed by intense sadness that it seems like Louisa never found this.

Maybe never even looked for it, considering how dismissive she was in the newspaper article about the treasure.

“Do you think she knew that he loved her?” Quentin asks, as if reading my mind. He holds out his hand, wordlessly requesting a look at the letter.

“I don’t know,” I say, handing him the two pieces of paper.

I’m not sure how she would have felt about it anyway.

Her long-term employer declaring his love for her?

At least he did it after his death, so she wouldn’t have needed to respond if she didn’t return the sentiment.

Then again, based on everything I know about Fountain and Louisa Worman, they were very close.

They practically raised a child together.

There had to be some warm feeling there, even if it was only the kind born of shared experience.

“Nina,” Quentin says. “Look. There’s more on the back of the second page.

” He’s turned it over, and there’s more handwriting there that I missed, thinking the shadows of the words were simply the first page beneath it showing through.

I reach for it, since I’m still the better cursive-reader between us.

J. J.,

This is ludicrous, writing to you now, when you live well beyond the delivery capabilities of the US Mail. Yet I do it, for the same reason I have done every ludicrous thing in my adult life: because of my deep and abiding respect and affection for you.

I knew we weren’t meant to be together in the traditional way. I never had any illusions that we might become husband and wife, so you need not feel as if you disappointed me. You see, we were something that brought me even more joy: Isolde’s safe harbor and the very closest of friends.

Believe it or not, before I was in your employ, I did not take notes sitting atop tables, or conclude my days tangoing about the library, or write stories about kings and queens and princesses in magical lands.

My time with you made me someone else entirely, someone my younger self would barely recognize.

It made me a dreamer, a believer. A mother.

A partner. You made me those things, J. J.

Through you, I became much more than what I’d imagined for myself. And I am forever grateful.

We had our differences, especially at the end. It wasn’t always easy. But much of the time, it was perfect.

I have decided to leave this here, not out of any belief that you might come back for your heart someday (for I know where that will be, as I carry it with me, always, in my own, and know Issy does as well), but that someone else might find this and know love for the invaluable treasure that it is.

With all of mine,

Lou