After The Last

CHAPTER ONE: The Echo of the Silent

The days after my grandmother’s death blurred together, a swirl of muted voices and unfamiliar faces offering condolences I barely registered. Everything felt distant, as if the world had shifted, leaving me behind in the silence of my grief.

The village, once filled with warmth and laughter, became a ghost of itself. My grandmother’s absence echoed through every corner of our small home. The house was eerily quiet now—no more humming from the kitchen, no gentle knock on my bedroom door before bed. I sat in her empty room for hours, clutching the last sweater she wore, hoping that somehow she was still with me.

But there were no signs, no comforting whispers to ease my loneliness.

A week after the funeral, a lawyer came by. I didn’t know who he was or why he was there. His face was serious as he handed me an envelope. "This is your grandmother's will," he said softly, almost apologetic. Inside were the papers that made the house mine and a small savings account she’d left behind. The weight of those documents in my hands made everything feel more final.

“I’m truly sorry for your loss, Angeleigh,” he said before leaving. “Your grandmother loved you very much.”

I nodded, but the words didn’t bring me comfort.

---

Weeks passed, and though life in the village moved on, I felt stuck, suspended in time. Every day was a repeat of the last—school, chores, and endless afternoons spent in an empty house. My friends tried to reach out, but they didn’t understand. How could they? Their lives were still whole, while mine had been torn apart.

One afternoon, while cleaning out my grandmother’s room, I found something I hadn’t noticed before. Hidden deep in her closet was a small wooden chest, dusty and covered in cobwebs. The sight of it sent a chill through me. I couldn’t remember ever seeing it before.

With trembling hands, I pulled the chest out and brushed off the dust. The carvings on the lid were intricate, almost like symbols, but I couldn’t recognize them. When I opened it, I found old letters bundled together with a faded red ribbon, and a locket that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years.

The letters were addressed to my grandmother, but the handwriting wasn’t hers. I untied the ribbon and unfolded the first letter carefully, my heart pounding.

“Dearest Helen,

I hope you and the child are safe. I’m sorry for everything, but this is the only way to protect her…”

The rest of the letter was smudged, the words lost to time. The child? Were they talking about me?

I sifted through more letters, each one too faded to read fully, but all hinting at a past I didn’t know existed—a past my grandmother had never shared with me. Who wrote these letters? And why had they been kept a secret?

At the bottom of the chest lay the locket. It was small, delicate, and when I opened it, I nearly dropped it in shock. Inside was a picture of a woman—someone who looked strikingly like me, but it wasn’t my grandmother.

Who was she?

---

That night, I lay awake, my mind racing with questions. Who was the woman in the locket? Who had written those letters? And why had my grandmother kept this part of her life hidden from me?

The next morning, I made up my mind. I couldn’t continue living in the shadow of these secrets. If there was more to my past, more to my identity, I had to find it. My grandmother had been everything to me, but maybe there was more to her story—and to mine—than I ever imagined.