The Gift From Beyond

My uncle Bentley was a kind and gentle man. Bentley Buxton, apparently my grandfather loved expensive cars. I remember my uncle as a quiet and contented man the few times he came to visit when I was younger. My mother often said that when she was young, he would sit with her and patiently listen to her problems after she had a difficult day and he always made her feel better just for the listening. They had not seen each other in quite some time so when we got news of his death it was an understandable shock. He didn’t have any family of his own and he left everything to my mom. Today was the day that we were to go to his house to organize it’s final sale and go through his things so that mom could keep what she wanted and arrange for the rest of it to be either sold or given away. She asked me to come along to lend a hand and more than likely some emotional support as I am sure she knew it was going to be difficult for her. He was her only sibling and now it was just her. Her parents long gone now, she was what some might consider an orphan. I could tell that this was weighing heavily on her. So we each packed a bag and jumped in the car and started on the three-day journey to the other side of the country where my uncle had lived.

And so it was three days later that we pulled into his driveway. The house was a smallish house but looked quite comfortable. It had an understated look about it, possibly a reflection of its owner. Check that, previous owner. My mother dug into the envelope that she received from his lawyer and pulled out the keys to the house as we ascended the steps up to the small covered porch. Mom opened the door, keys jingling in the lock. Upon our entry the disturbance unearthed the latent dust and it floated up into the sun’s rays. The scattered debris flittered about like the servants of the manor frantically attending to the last minute details before the arrival of their errant master back from his most recent adventure. The master of this house however would not be returning.

We entered the center hallway and took in the blueprint of the house. Living room to the immediate right, stairway upstairs to the left, kitchen and sunroom straight ahead and dining room ensconced behind the living room. We walked the main floor, my mom’s high heels clicking on the polished oak floors of the living room and dining room. The kitchen looked to be recently renovated with updated cabinets and engineered flooring. The sunroom was comfortably cozy with the new kitchen floors extending out to an area rug, which added a blaze of color under the small table where I assume he ate most of his meals. Overall, the main floor’s tightly laid out floorplan was more than adequate for a bachelor.

We went upstairs where the three bedrooms and one bathroom in the house were. My uncle had occupied the master bedroom and then there was a guest room and another bedroom that served as an office. She suggested that I start with his office. I was to be on the lookout for anything that might lend a clue to his financial affairs. As the executor of his estate and sole beneficiary my mother was determined to make sure that no assets went unclaimed, so I was to be on the lookout for anything that had dollars or numbers on it like bank statements and investment and insurance documents. My uncle’s lawyer provided what he knew but having gone through the dissolution of her parents estates mom knew that things could be easily missed. Especially when death is sudden, as was the case with my uncle.

So it was that I took a seat in his old office chair that creaked under my insubstantial weight and I started to root through the personal effects of my mother’s only sibling. The office desk was an old roll top with nooks and crannies a plenty and rare curiosities populating them. Chards of colored glass, little plastic figures of superheroes, smooth polished stones, vintage toy cars, a monocle and a thimble were some of the items I found, along with the usual office affair like elastic bands and paper clips. My uncle seemed to like old well-loved things. I remember him once remarking that he liked to touch them and imagine pulling out the personal history of an object; where it had been, what it had seen. He said that if he could have a superpower that would be it. Not to fly, not super human strength. He wanted to be able to have some kind of empathetic bond with inanimate objects.

I opened the top drawer on the right side of the desk and in there were several small black notebooks. I recognized the brand. They were Moleskines. My uncle always seemed to have them on his person when he came to visit. I would often see him jotting down notes in one or sometimes just doodling. Many of my friends at school have them too. Some of my friends do daily journaling in them while others keep them on their bedside tables and use them as dream journals, writing their dreams down each morning from the night before. Still others used them to keep their lives organized, writing down daily task lists and appointment reminders.

I pulled the top one from the pile and started to leaf through it. It was full of random ideas for stories. Character notes, plot notes, outlines. Seemingly, not in any real order but some ideas did look to be repeating themselves. It looked a lot like he would just write things down as they came to him. His trusty black journal never too far from his reach. I set the first notebook aside and picked up the second. It too had extensive story notes. Two pages had what appeared to be possible titles for a book. The Artifact, The Historian, Time Unchained, Past Revelations and so on.

I pulled the rest of the journals from the drawer and counted sixteen well-loved little black notebooks. All of them with similar notes and story outlines. As I scanned them all I lost myself in the thread of the notes that started to weave a story. A story of a psychic detective who had a power to unearth clues from inanimate objects. He had taken that superpower he talked about and created a character for himself. Mom said he always had his nose in a book when he was young and that he loved history. I guess he found the perfect marriage of the two in his creation.

In the very last journal in its final pages he wrote of finishing something; “Finished, the journey concludes”. He iterated that it had been a life’s journey getting to this final stage and that he looked forward to bringing it all alive. His biggest wish being for the gift of time to continue down the journey’s path. The last entry was an odd mixture of alphanumeric characters.

Curious, I went in search of a laptop to see if I could find more on this story of his. I went into his bedroom and sure enough, there it was on his nightstand. I powered it up and it booted to the login page; password required. I searched his nightstand drawers and found a sticky note with Bentley$$58. It looked like a password, 1958 being the year he was born, so I entered it. It worked. Welcome Bentley popped up on the screen as the computer formed its boot routine. Once up and running I searched his files and found a rather large sized document titled “A Gift In Time”. I clicked to open it up; password required.... I thought back to the journal and that strange code on the last page I read. I ran back to the office, retrieved the journal and entered the mysterious code. The file opened and there within in it was a 500 plus page manuscript telling the story of the psychic detective. I sat and read it for hours before my mom popped her head in and startled me back to reality.

Over the next several days, I read the entire manuscript in between my expected document searches. It was a great tale of adventure and intrigue as the psychic detective unearthed one clue after another with the aid of his fantastical talent. I was slowly getting to know the incredible story-teller who was my uncle and I started to feel sorry that I didn’t get to share in this side of him when he was alive. The night before we left to go back home I emailed the manuscript to a publisher hoping to validate what I thought was an incredibly good story worth publishing.

The next morning we packed the car to head back home. I boxed up all the journals and his laptop as my own treasure and memories of him. My mom was ecstatic to see me take such an interest in her brother’s personal notes and thoughts; I think it helped her keep a piece of him alive with the hope that I would pass those memories and stories down to my own children one day. We headed out and I looked up at the window to his old office as we backed out of the driveway, imagining him imagining as he looked out the window in contemplation of the adventures of the psychic detective. I could actually envision him there, like one of his artifacts, telling the untold story.

When we arrived home five days later, having taken a few side trips to do some site seeing along the way, there was a registered letter waiting for me. From the book publisher. I opened it and within it was an offer to publish my uncle's manuscript along with a check for a retainer fee in the amount of $20,000.