What’s goin’ on?” Aidan asked. No one answered, but he heard the front door open downstairs. Adrenaline surging in his veins, Aidan bounded down the stairs and nearly steamrolled his parents.
“Mom, Dad, guess what I foun—”
“Please—Whoa, Aidan . . son,” Mr. Thomas exclaimed, catching Aidan by the shoulders. “Ever heard of walking down the stairs?”
“Sorry, Dad,” Aidan said, his heart still galloping. “But I just wanted to tell you something. See, I was exploring the basement this afternoon and––”
The shrill chirp of a cell phone cut Aidan off.
“That’s mine,” Mr. Thomas said. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a tiny silver phone. “Oh, hi, Doug. What’s up?”
Aidan felt like he was about to burst.
Mr. Thomas frowned and turned slightly. “Are you serious?” he said into the phone. “Right now?” He glanced at his wife guiltily and at Aidan.
“Of course, I know this account is important,” he continued. “Okay, let me go into my office.” Aidan’s dad put a hand over the phone. “It’s Riddick and Dunn. I have to take a conference call. Sorry, Aidan, we’ll have to talk at dinner.”
“But,” Aidan stammered. His father walked into his home office and closed the French doors. Aidan turned to his mom.
“So, Mom, I was in the basement––” Aidan began, but he was cut off a third time.
“Honey, tell us all about it at dinner,” his mom said. “I’ve got to run a quick errand.”
“But, Mom.”
“You can tell us everything at dinner.”
Dinner?! Wait until dinner?! The greatest discovery of my life and they tell me to wait until dinner?!!
But Aidan waited until dinner.
At dinner, Aidan’s mother, father, and grandfather ate as Aidan told them the story about the basement, the sparkles, and the scrolls. He told them everything that he could remember from the scrolls, especially about the poem and the words that had “magically” appeared on the last page.
“. . . and it said that if I believed, I could enter.”
When Aidan had finished, he looked around the table. His parents wore raised eyebrows and crooked smiles. Mrs. Thomas put her hand on her husband’s hand. They glanced at each other knowingly, then turned to Aidan.
“Isn’t our son cute?” Aidan’s mom gushed.
“What an imagination!” Aidan’s dad agreed.
Grampin was silent.
“Cute! Imagination?!” Aidan exploded, widening eyes all around the kitchen table. “I’m NOT making this up!”
Aidan rushed out of the kitchen, nearly stepping on Marbles, his grandfather’s cat, who had a terrible habit of walking leisurely in front of people. Grabbing the three bundles of scrolls off the bed, he ran back downstairs to show his family the proof.
As he unrolled for them the ancient pages of parchment, Aidan’s mother and father gawked open-mouthed. But Grampin just nodded and smiled.
“Guess it wasn’t jest the young feller’s eemagination, huh?” he said.
“Yeah!” Aidan agreed, liking Grampin a small bit.
Mr. Thomas took a few of the pages and looked at them closely.
“Hmmm,” he said. “Show me where you found these, son.”
Grampin, confined to his wheelchair, remained in the kitchen, but everyone else descended into the basement.
Aidan knew why they wanted to go check the basement. Proof. They wanted proof. That was it.
He wondered why his parents wouldn’t trust him. Sure, he had an admittedly wild imagination—not to mention a voracious appetite for fantastic tales. But the strange nightmares, the thing lurking in the pine tree outside the bedroom window, and the scrolls . . . well, those things all really happened.
Or maybe they didn’t.
Aidan felt doubt creep into his mind like an early fall frost, premature in its coming and dangerous to new growth. As Aidan thumped down the basement steps, he began to wonder.
Aidan bumped into the box with the one-eyed doll and awkwardly shuffled over to the workbench to flick on the light. Aidan and his parents stared at the dark alcove beneath the stairs. Even in the light of the small work lamp, there could be no mistake. There was nothing there.
There wasn’t even a trace of the three broken clay pots that had contained the scrolls. Nothing. A numbing cold skittered over Aidan’s body.
“I can’t believe I let you drag me all the way down here.” Aidan’s dad shrugged. “Clay pots! That’s a good one, Aidan.”
“But, Dad! They were right here! I saw them . . . they just appeared!” Aidan pleaded.
“The only thing that appeared, son, was your imagination.”
“But what about the scrolls? I didn’t make those up!” Aidan argued, his own belief fading. “Would you at least look at the scrolls?”
“Aidan, I don’t know. They’re prob—”
“Please, Dad. Just look . . .”
“Son, look, I don’t have time for this kind of . . .” Mr. Thomas hesitated, shifted uneasily, and then changed course. “Okay, okay! I’ll look through them, a little—after we finish dinner. But listen, no more of this stuff about clay pots. It was cute, but enough is enough.”
Later, Aidan’s mom and dad took the scrolls and went upstairs. Aidan vaulted after them, only to see their bedroom door shut. Deciding that his parents would most likely need a good bit of time to examine the scrolls, Aidan flopped down on his bed to draw.
He had just begun sketching the outline of a haunted house when his parents came out of their bedroom. Aidan’s father sat down on the corner of Aidan’s bed. He held two of the scrolls in his arms. Aidan’s mom stood behind him. She had the other scroll.
“Well, I looked at your scrolls, son, and—”
“But you’ve been gone for just ten minutes!”
“Aidan, please don’t interrupt. The reason that I didn’t keep reading is that I think I’ve read this story before.”
“You . . . you have?!” Aidan gasped.
“When you described it to us at the table, it sounded familiar, but it’s been fifteen, maybe twenty years since I’ve read it.” Mr. Thomas glanced away. A look of irritation flickered on his face for a moment. “It’s called The Story. It was very popular, for a time.”
“But on scrolls?” Aidan blurted out.
“I’ve never seen it written on scrolls before. I’m wondering if these might be some of the original handwritten drafts.”
“Who wrote it?”
“Uh, that I can’t remember. But if these are originals, they could be worth a bundle—even more than your baseball cards! We should check on it. I heard that an original manuscript of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow went for a half-million dollars at an auction!”
“But, Dad, I don’t think this is just a story,” Aidan said. “It seemed so re—”
“What? Real? You’ve got to be kidding me!” Aidan’s father snorted and looked at his wife, who had put her hand over her lips to stifle a laugh.
“It’s not funny, Mom.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. But it just made me giggle.”
Aidan’s father handed the two scrolls to Aidan. His mom gave Aidan the last one. “Be very careful with these,” she said. “If they are collector’s items, you should keep them in a safe place.”
Aidan looked down at the scrolls and shook his head. They didn’t seem very magical anymore. “It could be real,” he offered weakly.
“Son, this is a work of fiction, a fairy tale,” his father explained.
“It’s different,” Aidan said.
“Oh, Aidan, Mom and I both think this is a wonderful story full of beautiful ideas, but it’s just not true.”
“How do you know?” Aidan said, a slight tremor in his voice.
“Awww, now look, son,” he said sympathetically. “I know because . . . I know. That’s all. When you grow up, you learn how to judge things—tell the difference between reality and fantasy. It’s a story just like Snow White or The Sword in the Stone, or even Star Wars.”
“But it said . . . for those who will believe.”
“Aidan,” he said, stiffening, growing irritable. “Believing in something does not make it real. Life just doesn’t work that way!
This, this is nothing more than a fairy tale. Do you believe that Little Red Riding Hood is real? Could a big, bad wolf really knock on our door? Or what about Jack and the Beanstalk? What about geese that lay golden eggs?”
“Dear,” whispered Aidan’s mom.
“No, he’s a teenager now. He needs to leave this imaginary stuff behind. Do you understand me, son?”
Aidan gritted his teeth and nodded.
His parents gone, Aidan sat alone with the scrolls. He felt betrayed both by his parents and by himself. It wouldn’t be the first time my imagination got the better of me. But just once, I wish they’d believe me.
“Stupid!” Aidan yelled at himself as he recklessly knocked the scrolls onto the floor. He threw his face into his pillow and glanced one more time at the scrolls. They had unraveled, a page of the third scroll on top. It was the page with the poem.
Aidan drifted off into an uneasy sleep, with the words “Believe and enter” still dancing in his mind.
