"What?" I ask. Jack looks as confused as I feel, his eyes darting between our parents. Dad puts his spoon down and clenches his fingers into a tight fist. He stares down at his soup. Mom looks at him for a moment, waiting. Then she sighs and looks up at us.
"Your father used to have a brother," she begins.
"What?" me and Jack say at the same time, but she lifts her hand to silence us. We've never heard of an uncle. Only two aunts. We both stare at Mom now.
"It was a long time ago. We were children. You were thirteen, I think?" she looks at Dad. He nods, silent. "His brother was a few of years younger. We were neighbors back then. My family had just moved to the house next to theirs, some way south from here, along the forest's edge.
"All three of us were playing in the yard, when someone noticed a wooden frame a little way into the woods, one that looked like a door. I don't remember which of us it was. It doesn't matter anyway. The frame had never been there, and we were all curious. We crawled as close as we dared, but none of us wanted to go very close, or enter the woods. So we stared at it from the edge in between the yard and the forest.
"Suddenly someone stumbled through the frame. There hadn't been anyone on the other side, no one in sight, and the sides of the frame too thin for anyone to hide behind. One moment there was no one there, and the next there one a man taking a couple of unsteady steps towards us - or rather, away from the frame - and falling to the ground. The frame vanished.
"The moment it was gone I remember thinking I imagined it, that there must have never really been a door frame at the spot we were staring at, because it didn't make sense for there to have been one. But I remembered it, and there was a man trying to stand up from the ground. We stared. The man noticed us. 'Help', he said, and then he stumbled the last of the distance out of the woods and into the yard. Your dad ran inside, to get help. The man wasn't moving anymore. I stared at his face. It was sweaty, and he had some dirt on it, but I remember thinking he was beautiful. A weird kind of beautiful, but very beautiful nonetheless. It looked a little like his skin was glowing, though only little enough I was probably imagining it.
"Your dad's parent came out, and we told them what had happened. They looked him over, and carried him inside, to rest on the couch. His mom told me I should go home, so I did.
"But I came back the next day, to see what had happened to the stranger. It wasn't until late afternoon that he woke. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, your dad's parents asking questions from the stranger. He was not from here, he explained, that he was a foreigner in this land. That we had done him a huge favor in taking him in and letting him sleep in a safe, warm place. He would stay for another night, if they let him, and leave in the morning. He owed them a debt of gratitude. He was assured he was welcome to stay another night.
"Now that he was awake, and he had washed his face, I was more certain than the day before he was glowing. Or at least glowing is the best word I have been able to come up with over the years. He wasn't emitting light. It wasn't that kind of glowing, but I don't know how to better explain it. But there was magic about him, of that I was sure.
"We kids tried to get more out of him that night, but he wasn't in a talky mood. Or maybe he didn't like kids. Eventually I had to go home for the night.
"The next morning I came back, eager to see the foreigner once more before he left. But when I got there I was told that the when they had woken up themselves, the foreigner was already gone. And so was your dad's little brother."
It is quiet for a long time. I don't know what to say. No one gets back to eating. No one even moves.
"His name was Aidan," Dad finally says, quietly. He looks up at me. "If you see any more of those doors, stay away from them."
Everyone finished eating slowly. I don't slurp anymore. It is a very quiet evening after that.
That night I have dreams of the door. Many dreams, in a row. I dream of going through it in the woods. Sometimes there's something scary on the other side. One time it was just weird, with dancing root vegetables and a rabbit. But most of the times there's something nice. Not scary or threatening things at all, but instead wondrous things that makes me feel relaxed, or happy, or like I belong.
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The topic for tomorrow is Star(s).
~matu
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