Love Bus Book 5: Chapter 7 — The Final Treasure
The letter inside the wooden box was short but clear. It pointed to a place not far from where the relatives lived, an old storage room that had once belonged to Enrico’s mother’s family.
We followed the directions carefully. When we arrived, the small metal key fitted the old lock. The door opened with a low sound, as if it had been waiting a long time to be opened again.
Inside, the air was still. On a wooden shelf, wrapped in faded cloth, was the thick old Bible.
Kuya… ito na ba? Bernadeth whispered.
I carefully unwrapped it. The cover was worn, the edges soft from age. This was the final treasure, the King James Bible that Enrico had kept across the years.
It was a King James Version Bible – 1789 Oxford Standard Edition .
We had expected more objects. More items. Maybe even more flags or books. At first, I felt a quiet confusion. After everything we had followed, the mansion, the two books, the note, the password, the flags, and the long journey to Cebu, was this truly the last piece?
We brought it out into the light. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Bernadeth carefully turned the last pages of the old Bible. Between the final leaves, pressed flat by time, was a thin folded letter. The paper was yellowed, the ink faded but still clear. She looked up at Papa Franz.
Papa… may letter. she said quietly.
I opened it slowly. The handwriting was old and steady. It was addressed to Miguel.
Papa Franz took the letter with both hands. For a long moment he did not speak. Then, in a voice that carried both weight and tenderness, he began to read it aloud.
My dearest Miguel,
If these words ever reach your hands, it means I am no longer there to place them there myself.
I write this while your mother, Cecilia, carries you beneath her heart. I already love you, though I have not yet seen your face. I pray that you will grow under a kinder sky than the one that watches me now.
These treasures I leave for you are not for wealth. They are for memory.
The first is this Bible, a 1789 Oxford Standard Edition of the King James Version. In the years I traveled, only a few could acquire such a book. I carried it across seas and cities because I believed that faith must travel with a man, even when his country is still learning how to stand.
Then came the two books of Jose Rizal. I obtained Noli Me Tángere in Berlin in 1887, and later El Filibusterismo in Ghent in 1891. I kept them close because they were more than stories. They were the first clear voice of a people beginning to wake. I wanted you to know that before there were flags in the streets, there were already words that refused to stay silent.
When I returned to the Philippines, particularly to Cavite, I became a quiet collector of another kind. Through trusted friends of the revolution, I gathered five flags, pieces of cloth that carried the courage, the anger, the hope, and the long road of those who chose to stand. I do not list them here as trophies. I keep them as witnesses.
My son, I do not know what world you will inherit. I only know that I want you to inherit truth. These books, these flags, and this Bible are my way of telling you that a nation is not built in one night. It is built by words, by sacrifice, and by faith that refuses to disappear.
If you are reading this, then the path I prepared has reached you. Guard these things not with pride, but with understanding. And if the day comes when the next generation asks why they were kept, tell them this:
They were kept so that no one would forget how we began.
With all the love a father can place into paper and ink,
Enrico
As the words of Enrico filled the room, words written for a son he had not yet seen, the entire trail of treasures suddenly made sense. The Bible. The two books of Rizal. The five flags. All of them were never only objects. They were a father’s message across time. I watched his face. Near the end of the letter, a single tear fell from his eye and landed on the old paper.
He did not wipe it away immediately. He only kept reading, as if the words were meant to reach him across the years through Miguel’s name.
In that moment, the books, the flags, and the Bible were no longer just objects. They had become a voice, Enrico’s voice, finally arriving where it was supposed to.
When Papa Franz finished reading, the room remained silent. Bernadeth held the Bible close to her chest. I watched my father, the first living descendant to speak Enrico’s words out loud after more than a century, and I understood that the journey had never been only about finding treasures.
It had always been about finally hearing the voice that left them behind. → story concludes in Chapter 8 Live on September 21!
We spent so much time looking for more treasures. In the end, the last one taught us that the most important thing was never the number of items we carried, but the truth written inside the final one, a father’s love reaching across generations. Some letters are not meant to be read on the day they were written. Some are meant to wait until the right hands, and the right heart, are ready to receive them.
— Josh
Updated September 13, 2026 from original written date September 21, 2021.
