I took the necklace off quickly, and together, my hand on his, we inserted it gently into the indent. I was ecstatic to see that it fit perfectly. It entered with a soft click, and as we gently turned it to the right, a narrow, vertical compartment opened.
Heart pounding, I reached inside and gently extracted a frail scroll, yellowing, brittle. It was tied with an ancient piece of string, all but crumbling.
I handed it to Caleb, and the two of us unrolled the scroll together.
It was a map. Handwritten, hundreds of years old.
At the top of the map, in a handwritten scrawl, it read: Elizabeth’s cottage.
He looked up at me.
“Her cottage,” he said, breathlessly. “It’s a map to where she lived.”
I stared at it, in awe.
“Whoever stored it here wanted you to be the one to find it. Your ne
