Jill squinted her eyes to take a closer look at the engraving on the wooden chest...
Yes, she asserted, those were definitely the same words...
She was sitting on her haunches, covered in mud, leaves and grime, the chest small enough to be held in her usually soft but now gritty hands...which were red and scratchy from the arduous labour that she had to perform in order to dig up the chest from under the ground.
But it was worth it....for right now she held the treasure that she was looking for, in her own hands.
Though she had no idea what it contained.
Her mind wandered off to recall the stories that her mother used to recite to her each night before she went to sleep...up until last year when she took her last breath, surrendering her life to the cursed consumption.
Her stories had always ended with a happy note...The poor girl in the story was always able to discover the hidden treasure and then her entire family became rich, leading to a happily ever after...
Jill's family...or what was left of it...had never recovered from her mother's death.
Her father tried his best to fill the gap that her death had caused in Jill's life.
But even his loving and caring words couldn't console Jill. She was devastated. There was no one she could talk to. No sibling, no grandparents...no one but her father and she wasn't ready to talk to him...
The last eight months were just a blank in her mind. She did nothing, went nowhere. Clutching her mother's shawl, her last memory, to her heart, she just took her scent in...
It didn't matter to her that that scent was long gone...
Then came the letter...it was written by her mother for her. Her father gave it to her saying that he found it in one of the closets...
That letter changed everything. Her mother asked her to keep believing in herself and achieve her dreams. She reminded her of the stories and emphasised the fact that she should also look for her treasure...no matter where it was hidden...
Since that day, discovering her treasure became the sole purpose of Jill's existence. She searched and searched for it...digging through the soft ground.....all through the fields around the house and then she extended her search to the neighbouring areas.
She didn't tell her father though. She escaped from the house in the morning as soon as he left for the town for work and returned only when the sun began to sink to the horizon...
And her mother was right...for after searching for her treasure for two long months, Jill had finally discovered it!
She almost laughed at the idea of finding it at such a strange place but again...what would she expect?
A treasure was supposed to be well hidden.
She stood up from the uncomfortable position, the muscles of her calves protesting against the sudden movement. She straightened her back and flexed the muscles of her neck which had become sore after the continuous two hour excursion...
She considered herself really lucky to have noticed this one carrot sticking upside down in the field. It was screaming suspicious.
She wondered who could be stupid enough to leave such an easy hint as to where they were hiding the treasure and was more surprised at the fact that no other person had discovered it before her...
She lived on the other side of the hill but still travelled to the farms this side to search for the treasure...What a luck to finally find it in a carrot field!
She decided not to open it there, although every cell in her body was dying to do so. Instead, she wrapped the chest as neatly as she could in the cloth bag that she always carried along to her search and started walking back home...
____
Once there, she hid the chest beneath her small bed and went to the washing area to clean herself of the dirt...she didn't want her father to suspect anything.
She found the task harder than she thought. The mud was too sticky...
Finally after half an hour of an anxious bath, she was seated at the foot of her bed, holding the chest again in her hands, as delicately as if it was china glass.
She had cleaned it using the duster and discovered that it was much shinier than she had expected...and it somehow smelt of sandalwood...
It was very rare to find sandalwood trees in her land and this only fueled her suspicion that she had a very precious and rare treasure in her possession. She was on cloud nine.
Her excitement knew no bounds. She wanted to shout her lungs out but feared that someone might hear her and discover her secret.
So, suppressing her excitement, Jill peered at the chest curiously. It was the most bizarre thing she had ever seen. It reminded her of the jewellery box that Lady Martyl from the town owned...
It also had the same intricate designs on its surface. The main difference being that it was made up of silver whereas the chest in her hand was made up of wood...
Jill decided that the time to open her treasure had arrived when she realised that her father would be home soon.
She didn't want to open it while her father was present in the house as she feared her own reaction.... and she didn't have the patience to wait to open it the next morning after her father went out to work.
She held on to the latch and taking a deep breath in she pulled....but to her utmost surprise, nothing happened. The lock didn't even budge.
Jill stared at the chest with a concentration so intense that it could have melted a rock...but it didn't have any effect on the wooden chest lying in front of her...
After about twenty minutes of trying to open the box, she gave up when she heard the front door unlock, signaling the arrival of her father.
"Jill!" her father's deep voice echoed throughout the small cottage.
Jill quickly hid the chest beneath her small bed and hurried downstairs to greet her father, fleetingly checking her face in the mirror in the landing, making sure that there was no dirt on there....
At dinner that night, Jill sat beside her father, eating the sausages without actually tasting them, for her mind and all her senses kept wandering to the treasure hidden beneath her bed.
Yet she dare not express her excitement for the fear of her father finding out about it and then demanding her to take it back to where it belonged.
"Jill, be ready tomorrow morning. We'll be going to the town to buy you some new dresses."
Her father spoke in his usual nonchalant tone.
Jill looked at him with a sudden alarm. If she were to go out tomorrow, it would mean her treasure would remain unguarded at home...
"But Papa...don't you have to go to work?" she asked almost desperately.
"No, I took the day off. I've realised that I need to spend more time with my daughter..."her father spoke softly, picking up the dishes off the table.
His eyes were filled with love and regret...
Jill noticed the change and nodded her head.
That night, while she lay in her bed, her hands itched to hold the chest but she knew it wasn't safe...
She had vowed not to touch it when her father was at home. However, this didn't stop her from taking a peak beneath her bead every five minutes.
She feared that the chest would disappear somehow if she was not attentive.
The entire night she kept tossing and turning, the anxiety of leaving her treasure unattended while she went to the town with her father, kept her awake and restless....
Author's note-
This is the first part of a five part of a mystery short story by Antiology.
I hope you like it!
