1967 The Warwick Hotel New York City
- It's over fifty years later, and Sig sits in the bar at the Warwick Hotel in NYC.
- Even though it's been a while, he still remembers what happened with crystal clarity; he fills us in on what happened next:
- He, Anna, and Nadya drag Wolff out of the snow—he didn't die right away, but he finally met his maker a couple years later in prison.
- Men from the town came to help with the funeral arrangements for Einar. Everyone was sad, but at least they were able to bury Sig's dad.
- As they cleaned up the mess, Sig repeated his dad's saying, "even the dead tell stories." His eye caught the Bible and he realized that is one book full of stories and dead people.
- Suddenly he saw everything differently—he's thought his dad was trying to burn the Bible, but actually he wanted Sig and Anna to notice it.
- Why? Inside, on the front cover, there was a bulge that he'd never noticed before—it must have been put in there when Einar fixed the Bible that day.
- Sig cut it open and found two pieces of paper inside. No gold.
- On one piece of paper is a note; on the other, a map. The note explained for Anna, Sig, and Nadya to go to the location on the map after a weird man visits them.
- When they finally went there, they found a box full of gold.
- But how? Sig tells us it took them years to figure out. Then, one day, an old gold miner told them that gold dust sticks to wet fingers, and then transfers to hair oil.
- Remember how Sig's dad used hair oil? He must have wiped the gold into his hair and then washed it out into a bowl every night.
- The kids finally convinced Nadya it was okay to spend the gold, and they invested in Per Bergman's iron mine and struck it rich.
- Back in the present (1967), Anna comes downstairs at the hotel and says hi to her brother. She admits it took her a while to figure out why he didn't kill Wolff in the cabin, all those years ago.
- Sig claims it's because he wanted to make his mom and dad proud.
- The brother and sister walk on, and that night, when Sig goes to bed, he hears music.
- Sig realizes two things: (1) Home is wherever the people you love are—he's been waiting and searching for much of his life, but he's at home with his sister—and (2) a story like his is too good to be forgotten.
- So Sig writes down his story so other people can hear it too. And that's the book we've just been reading.