The boy, shaking with excitement, nervously bangled the key into the tiny obscuration, just as he sank it deep in the purse and twisted it began to give as if to break and he stopped. The wretched key would not turn no matter which way he fumbled it into the opening trying. He, puzzled, sat back on his haunches and squeezing his countenance…carefully, slowly, measured in his way, he slid it in without a waver and sank it into place. A foul wind blowed and forced his cough but with it came the flutes…and just then, as if by magic, a voice so resolute;

“Heaven’s treasure cannot be seen or known except in heart’s desires,”

“And certainly never be known by a farmer-boy or filth-trodden squires!”

“For ancient sealing of box so great withheld Pandora’s fires!”

“…but listen closely for a truth is hidden in conundrum,”

The little boy gleamed with excitement as he dropped on his hands placing his ear to the keyhole whence the fluting and cherubic voice extruded…though nothing came forth? Try as he might, the key again and again, there was nothing more to the magic of the box. Though he was sure that in this box a treasure was to be found, in all his days, the many numbered, never did resound, never did the voice again give instruction to propound, never did it give again to magic thus profound and never did he figure out, the mystery which did confound!

  To wit the newest little boy said;

“But grandpa how does the story end then?”

  Without haste he replied to the child;

“Never want-for, nor ask, nor seek out, all the paths of heaven’s fortunes,”

“Never covet sacred knowledge or doubt the god’s contortions,”

“Forever all will be as well as good as you can be, if you can be a richer man when giving other's portions…”

  With that said the old farmer died. His daughter and the child’s mother, tears streaming down her flustered cheeks, grabbed him up and began to say a prayer for her dead father while unbeknownst to the family; a troupe in their employ had been employed by someone else and that someone was waiting for a signal. At the moment of the man’s passing the horse-hand ran from the sprawling estate to a well at the fork in the dirt road leading to the local town. There sat a traditional well and bucket with a large copper bell at the top and he rang it with a fervent vigor. The black horses in the thickets past the field bellicosely retorted as they were whipped into an action. Then along came the banker’s chariot, filled with three men in black, riding quickly to the manor’s door;

-judge, pastor, banker.

  Storming into the home the pastor ran to comfort them and strutting-forth, so the banker and his judge in stride comportment too. Slight his pause and nary couth the banker announced his judge and from his handbag produced a document, an unwieldy scroll of parchment…

“Alas my dear and sorrowful child be happy for this great farm! Your inheritance is more than most and do not be alarmed! For we have come upon the courts with documented trust, read this here then sign away to keep the farm you must! For all you see and gathered to you, bought upon agreement, that on thick trunk with gleaming content be exchanged to me for deed it seem-med!”

  Shocked, the woman protested;

“Never nay, what’s this you say? The box his greatest treasure…he would not have done, no this cannot be, sold it without inform me and in measure, for he hath had this since a boy of youth collecting wood in winter’s cold displeasure?”

  The judge stepped forth to conclude the matter and gave her some, though curt, respite;

“Now, now dear we feel your loss but see these lines and see these costs? Chickens, horses, sheep, a wagon, seeds and stock and land, a home, -the lumber, nails, the roof of stone? O’er the years buying more and more, whilst only for once to settle this score, upon release here is your deed, give us the box for which you have no need, this is not a matter of one man’s greed for it says in payment here and here, collateral, that box was dear!”

  In came the horse-hand with axe and fury, chopping apart the bedroom floor, -and in such a hurry, the four they cooed and sighed aloud, as a gleaming treasure chest appeared before the crowd, dropping all the four to knee as banker cried his rapacious glee;

“All these long years did I thus wait and now will find the heaven’s gate! Load it men, the treasure ours, the moon and sun, the awesome stars, the untold secrets of millennia past, we are rich as all the ancient Kings at last!”

Before they left he turned to her and proudly presented his palm extended;

“The key there deary…”

She begrudgingly removed the necklace about her neck and handed it over…after the men had left her little boy said;

“Don’t cry mom and don’t worried, boy have I got to tell you a story!”

The End of the Golden Key