The Forgotten Letter

Jacob Price never liked the attic. It smelled of mothballs and old wood, and the single dangling lightbulb always flickered like it was struggling to stay alive. But after his grandfather’s funeral, it fell on Jacob to clean out the old farmhouse.

He was pushing aside boxes of faded photographs when he noticed a warped dresser tucked against the far wall. Its top drawer groaned as he forced it open, revealing nothing but a crumpled sweater. Beneath it lay a yellowed envelope sealed with wax. The seal bore a crude engraving of a hawk clutching an arrow.

Curiosity gnawed at him. Jacob tore the envelope open.

To the One Who Finds This,

There is a key beneath the floorboards by the dresser. Guard it well. Trust no one who asks about the Price name. The truth is dangerous, but hiding it is worse.

Jacob frowned. His grandfather was a quiet man who spent most of his days fixing tractors and sipping coffee at the diner. A secret message? A warning? It didn’t fit. Still, his hands moved before his mind caught up. He pried up the loose board and pulled out a small brass key wrapped in cloth.

It was heavy, heavier than it looked. Etched along its shaft were letters in Cyrillic, though Jacob couldn’t read them.

He scanned the attic until his eyes fell on a small lockbox shoved beneath the bedframe. Dust caked its lid, but the key slipped into the lock as if it had been waiting for decades. With a hesitant twist, the box creaked open.

Inside lay stacks of brittle papers, passports with names he didn’t recognize, and a black-and-white photo of his grandfather standing beside men in trench coats—men whose faces Jacob had only ever seen in history books about the Cold War. At the bottom of the pile rested a file stamped with bold red letters: CLASSIFIED.

Jacob’s chest tightened. His grandfather hadn’t been a farmer all his life. He had been a spy.

A floorboard creaked behind him. Jacob froze, clutching the lockbox. Slowly, he turned.

A tall man stood in the shadows of the attic, his coat collar pulled high and a fedora tilted low. His voice was low, deliberate. “Mr. Price,” the man said. “You’ve found something that doesn’t belong to you.”

Jacob’s heart hammered. He glanced at the open window, but the man blocked the only staircase down.

“I don’t know what this is,” Jacob stammered, edging backward.

The man stepped closer, his shoes thudding on the wood. “Then it’s best you hand it over.”

Jacob’s mind raced. If the letter was true, he couldn’t trust anyone who asked about the Price name. His grandfather had risked everything to hide this, and Jacob now understood why.

He tightened his grip on the box. For the first time in his life, Jacob Price realized that his family’s past was far more dangerous—and far more alive—than he ever imagined.