As I was resting the rusted, iron key in my hutch of "oddities" in the living room, I noticed a small etching on the side of the key I didn't notice before. I slowly turned the key side to side and as I did the light of the hutch revealed a thin ethcing along the smooth cylindrical shaft. There was one word and a number: "Box 005"

I thought to myself this must have been someone's key to some sort of old chest or safe. Curious, I looked all over to find any more etchings or labels, and to my surprise I found some text etched on the key's bow. However, this etching was mostly obfuscated by rust that had spread all over.

I instinctively went for a nearby knife to begin scraping away and then thought better of it, fearing I would scratch too deeply, and blur the ethcing. I placed the key in bowl of vinegar and let it sit overnight.

I awoke the next morning to find that the key had shed off most of the rust. I could now make out the words etched deeply into the bow. It read, "Fontaine Reserve & Co."

With this additional information I was now convinced that this key must've belonged to a secure box owned by a bank. But what bank was this?, I thought to myself. No bank with with his name existed anywhere near where I lived.

I quickly dialed my phone to call up Jess, she's my self-proclaimed Antiquarian friend who's been collecting artificats and oddities for years. I was hoping she could shed any light on the existence of a bank with this name.

Jess called me back a week later to let me know that she went down a rabbit hole and learned that a bank with this name did exist in the spot where there is now a small locally owned dry cleaning business by the name of "Fountain Tailors". She even went the extra mile for me and contacted the antique shop from where I had purchased the key. They said that this key was placed in the "orphaned collection", a set of items whose original owner and place of origin has been catelogued as "anonymous and unknown."

The name of the shop didn't strike me as anything peculiar until I started reading about the original owner. Adam Green began "Fountain Tailors" as a tailoring business 60 years ago. It's since been transitioned into a more contemporary cleaners.

Starting to feel like a real investigator now, I dug further into the family only to discover that "Fontaine" is the French word for "Fountain" and the now deceased founder of the business was the great great grandson of "André Pierre Fontaine, French immigrant and master of the Fontaine Reserve & Co., 1835". It seemed that this property had been in the family's possession all this time, even when the bank had closed they found various means of occupying.

A few days passed when I decided confront the shop owners and inquire about the shop and family history. I brought the key with me as a token of good will. I headed over during my lunch break from work as the shop was only a few miles from my office building, and I was mostly very anxious to meet who I hoped was another descendent of this French immigrant. Nestled in a secluded offshoot from the downtown square sat the small cleaners shop. As I approached I noticed high above the doors, painted in black lettering, the text "...erve & Co."; the ghost sign of an old bank, nearly imperceptible on the sun-worn brick.

My idealistic expectations were shattered shortly after conversing with Reese, the 29 year old from Oregon who recently moved to town. The previous owner had put the business and property up for sale a year ago. Reese and his wife saw it as an opportunity to gain prime real estate in the growing "downtown" square and ultimately scrap the business and turn the place into an upscale coffee shop. Neither Reese nor his wife had any relation to the original Fontaine family.

My Sherlock-esque adventure I had immersed myself in over the past few weeks was slowly dissolving as I realized this adventure was a dud. I fingered the old key I had brought along with me in my pocket. At this point It was completely useless to mention anything about it, for to them it would be just worthless piece of scrap metal.

I said goodbye as Reese walked away into the back office. Before I turned around to walk out the door, I noticed something on the wall to the left behind the counter. There, stuck to the brick wall was a large "Nirvana" poster. My attention was quickly drawn to what I noticed partially hidden behind it. Peaking out from the bottom right edge of the poster was what looked like some sort of electrical panel. However, I then noticed a set of figures I could just barely make out on the metal; it read, "009."

I walk closer, leaning over the counter slightly. The digits stood out in embossed iron, their curves and edges worn smooth by years of handling. A label, I thought. My gears started turning. The “009” was no ornament. Numbers like that are meant for catalogues, for shelves, for things arranged in rows

I glanced over to where Reese had retreated. He was still out of sight. I pulled the key out of my pocket and looked at the label "005" etched into it. I looked up and over at the back of the shop, behind me, then back at the poster. The adventure continues, I thought to myself. Without hesitation I kept over the counter.

I carefully pealed the poster up from the bottom, removing the adhesive and then folded it up, sticking it over itself. There before me were 3 rows of 3 small squares with rusted key holes. Right in front of my eyes sat door "005" in the very center of the grid. I glanced over again towards the back of the shop and the front door. No sign of anyone.

I pulled the key out of my pocket and tried inserting it into key hole "005". It took a few attempts to line it up just right as the key hole had slightly malformed over the years, but eventually it glided right in. I turned the key and the door popped right open.

At first I saw nothing. A dark shaft with nothing but cob webs hanging about. Worried that someone was about to emerge at any moment, I put my hand inside to feel around. At almost elbow deep my hand made contact with a leather pouch. I felt around it for a few moments before pulling it out. It wasn't very heavy and felt as if it contained something metallic or maybe a handful of coins. There was no time to further analyze, I shut the little door, pulled the poster back down, and slowly walked out of the shop, clutching the pouch to my chest.

I walked briskly to my car and while doing so examined the pouch. Sewn into the leather was the monogram "APF". As soon as I got to my car I poured the contents out onto the passenger seat.

Keys.

There were 6 keys to be exact. But unlike the lockbox key I used earlier, these 6 were simple, crude and unlabeled.

I instinctively called Jess. I gave her the low down and I was over at her place in 15 minutes. After an all night deep dive into heritage articles, family trees, and boring bank history, we learned that in 1837 many banks around the country were in trouble. The Fontaine bank in particular had been overextended. André Fontaine had poured the bank’s reserves into cotton speculation, wagering that prices would only rise. When they collapsed in the spring of ’37, he was left holding worthless contracts and a vault light on coin. The official story was that he shuttered the bank in haste, but local accounts painted a darker picture. Within weeks, Fontaine was found dead—stabbed in his own office.

The trail didn’t end there. In the course of our late-night sleuthing Jess and I uncovered mention of a living descendant, Karen Fontaine, whose address turned out to be just a short drive away. The following weekend we knocked on her door without a plan, only curiosity and the six rough keys rattling in my pocket.

Karen, a soft-spoken woman, listened as we explained what we’d pieced together. Her expression hardened into disbelief when I set the keys on her kitchen table. She admitted that her family spoke of six mysterious boxes her ancestor had dispatched in haste during the panic of ’37. Fontaine had split them up among kin but never managed to send the keys. The boxes, since viewed as cursed relics of a murdered banker, had been passed down unopened for decades, until they all converged, dusty and forgotten, in Karen’s attic.

That afternoon we followed her up a narrow staircase to a cedar-scented loft. There, in a worn cardboard box labeled, were six ironbound boxes, each the size of a small book and with its own oddly shaped lock. One by one the keys found their mates. The locks clicked and creaked, and inside each box we discovered a leather bundle, stiff with age. Karen peeled them open and out came pouring handfuls of raw diamonds, their facets dulled by time yet still glittering in the scattered attic light. The diamonds had lain pressed together so tightly that the boxes gave no rattle when moved, giving the illusion they were empty.

The room fell quiet as the weight of it sank in; not the jewels themselves, but the fact that Fontaine’s desperate attempt to scatter his fortune had finally come full circle. Karen, stunned but gracious, insisted on sharing what she saw as a recovered inheritance.

Driving home, Jess stared at the bag in her lap, eyes wide. I kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the pocket where the original rusted key rested again. Fontaine’s story felt complete, yet as the metal pressed against my leg I wondered—was this really the end, or just the first chapter in a longer ledger of secrets?