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Last night he’d gone to bed and the little door blocked by bricks opened up into a tunnel like a galaxy. There, Wylan Van Eck had met a father who loved him, and had buttons for eyes. The Other Father.
Since Wylan’s father moved him away from his school, away from his friends for a job opportunity, Wylan had been miserable. He was lonely and lived in a creaky old apartment at Pink Palace Apartments.
The only person his age was strange, stranger than him. His upstairs neighbour was running a circus of jumping mice and he’d just been downstairs to visit the elderly ladies to ask about his weird dream.
It couldn’t have been a dream, could it? His hand has healed. Yesterday it was covered in itching skin from the poison oak he accidentally used as a dowsing rod. He’d done it right in front of Jesper Fahey, the boy his age, who’d called him Dylan, the way everybody did.
“Do not go through little door.”
Wylan didn’t know what to think, his upstairs neighbour had heard it from the mice. How did the man know about the door? The mice had led him there in his dream, but could he really understand them? Was that really real?
He scratched at his palm, there was no rash. It must have been real. Unless it healed overnight.
“You are in terrible danger.”
Everything was so strange, everyone was so strange. He trudged up the stairs, his downstairs neighbours had a million dogs, alive and dead.
He’d barely made it to the top of the when he’d heard shuffling behind him, the ground was coated in a heavy, white fog. Wylan adjusted the military hat he wore on his head, something to spice up his outfit.
The yellow raincoat, his rain boots. The ground out here was slick, heavy rain soaked the grass yesterday, so hard he couldn’t do anything but explore the house with his new doll.
Speaking of the doll, Wylan looked out of the corner of his eye and saw the top of what seemed to be a periscope. Jesper. He snatched the mask right off of the boy’s face and he chased after it, frowning as his ears burned with embarrassment.
“The village stalker.” Wylan huffed at the other boy, who was hunched over in his black coat, skeleton gloves adorning his hands.
“I-I wasn’t stalking you! We’re hunting slugs!” Jesper shrunk back into himself and Wylan stared in disbelief. This was an original excuse and he had to hand it to Jesper. It bought him time.
“We?” Wylan frowned, was the fog so obscuring he’d missed a second person? Had he misjudged Jesper and he actually did have a friend?
With a great meow, The Cat pushed his way up Jesper’s coat and poked his head out of it. This was the same cat that pretended to be wild and feral around Wylan.
“What? He hates to get his feet wet.” Jesper grabbed his skeletal welding mask back from Wylan, hooking it over his head and readjusting the scope to get a better view of his slugs.
Wylan watched with his arms crossed, so Jesper Fahey and The Cat really were out in the middle of a foggy day looking for slugs. He guessed it was on brand, Jesper was strange.
“So, the doll…” Wylan followed the two of them from a distance, he’d left the doll inside today, but he’d brought it around all of yesterday after Jesper dropped it off. A little doll with button eyes, the spitting image of Wylan, a tiny him. “Were you the one who made it?”
“What? Nah, I found it that way.” Jesper didn’t turn to look at Wylan, instead keeping his head close to the ground, eagerly clicking the tongs he used specifically to scoop slugs. “It’s older than my grandma, than this house. I guess.”
Wylan rolled his eyes, as if Jesper would just stumble upon a handmade doll that looked just like him. Yet he was so nonchalant and casual it was hard to accuse him of lying. Not to discredit Jesper, but he didn’t seem the most handy with a needle and thread, there’s no way he could have sewn up a whole doll so quickly.
“Oh please, Jes. Red curly hair, my matching rainboots and coat?” Wylan gestured to his head, toes and then his shoulders. The doll even had freckles, the attention to detail, the resemblance, it was all so uncanny.
Jesper was not listening, crouching over himself to get his tongs underneath a large slug and hoist it into the air. Wylan stared at the other boy, showing him the oozing animal, uninterested in Wylan’s questions.
“Woah! Look how sick this guy is. Humongouslug.” Jesper pulled a face and shoved the wriggling slug towards Wylan for dramatic effect. He was generally unmoved, only uncrossing his arms to push the slug away, palm getting slick with slime.
“Great, you’re exactly like him.” Wylan scoffed, turning away from the boy but noting the way he stared at the slug. He rolled his eyes again. No, he did not mean Jesper was like a slug. “My dad. He doesn’t listen to me, same as you.”
“Sure, could you take a photo of us?” Jesper didn’t seem to be listening again, holding out a camera towards Wylan and waiting. Wylan figured he should just get this over with.
Wylan framed Jesper and the slug in the viewfinder, snapping pictures as Jesper posed with the big slug. He mimed eating it, chomping his teeth noisily. He pretended it was a booger, holding it under his nose.
Picture after picture, Wylan found himself understanding Jesper a little more. They were both just bored and trying to amuse themselves. He laughed when Jesper sacrificed his face, laying the slug atop of his mouth like facial hair.
“That’s gross.” Wylan shook his head, grinning as he handed the camera back. Jesper threw the slug over his shoulder, his camera tucked right into his coat.
“Actually, I’ve never been inside the Pink Palace.” Jesper held his mask under his arm, hunched over and pointedly looking away from the house.
“What? What’d you mean?” Wylan’s brows furrowed, if Jesper’s been here as long as it sounds he has, he was doubtful.
“I’m uh, not allowed,” Jesper admitted under his breath, and Wylan turned to stare at the Pink Palace with careful eyes. “My grandma says it’s not safe.”
“Huh? Like it’s dangerous?” Wylan didn’t break his gaze with the building, like he could understand it by looking harder. This was where he lived, it was his home now, there was no backing down.
“The thing is…she had a sister, a twin.” Jesper slowly began walking up the incline towards the house, and Wylan followed, frowning.
“What’s that have to do with anything?” Wylan looked away from the house, just in time to miss The Cat peering down at them from the roof. It was like he knew something, or maybe he was just being a cat.
“A long time ago, when they were little girls, her sister disappeared.” Jesper kept his head down as they marched through the fog, Wylan looked doubtful, but hadn’t told him to stop talking quite yet. “She thinks she was stolen.”
“Stolen? You mean kidnapped?” Wylan tried to imagine it, they lived in the middle of nowhere with two or three neighbours at a time, being taken by someone wasn’t really on his list of concerns.
The Cat grumbled from his spot on the roof, like the words were leaving a sour taste in his mouth. He whipped his head around to watch the doll, the little Wylan perched up in Wylan’s bedroom, staring out the window back at them.
“Okay, so, what’s your opinion?” Wylan didn’t know Jesper well enough to believe him or not. To him he seemed like grandma’s good grandson, a boy who didn’t question authority.
“Uhm. Dunno.” Jesper laughed nervously, he did a lot of that. He scrambled for an answer as The Cat padded his way down the railing for the stairs to the Pink Palace and up Jesper’s arm. Wylan stared at the feline perching on Jesper’s shoulder, watchful and protective. “She could’ve just ran away. Something like that.”
Wylan took a deep breath. He had so many questions. How could the Pink Palace, his house, be dangerous if his grandma’s sister simply ran away? What did his grandmother know that she wasn’t telling Jesper? Why was Jesper so afraid of disobeying his grandma?
If it were Wylan, he would have gone into the house anyway, checked for himself. His father could warn him all he liked, he didn’t have Wylan’s best interest at heart. For all he knew he was hiding something interesting about the house, something worthwhile.
Like a little door and a little key, and little buttons that were happier to see him than anybody had been for years.
“Jesper!” The yell of the boy’s name was accompanied by a loud ringing of a bell, echoing throughout the foggy air. He was being called by his grandmother with a dinner bell, reminded to come home to her.
“Whoops, that’s my cue, I gotta go.” Jesper grabbed his bike out of the fog from where it had been parked at the foot of the staircase to the Pink Palace.
“Wait, wait, Jes.” Wylan had so much more to ask, he had so much time too. But Jesper hopped on his bike, mask placed on top of his head for safekeeping, and pedalled away from him. “What the hell…?”
Wylan was left alone in front of his new house. Today consisted of warnings on repeat. From people he had just met. Don’t go through the door, he's in terrible danger, he’d get stolen.
It didn’t make sense, and Wylan was just so curious. Maybe he had just moved to a weird area, full of the creative type like mouse circus directors and retired musical theatre stars, but Jesper wasn’t quite like them.
Jesper wouldn’t play him for a fool, would he? Wylan climbed the stairs, took off his hat, and his boots. Jesper was unlike anybody he had ever met, he might be his only chance at making a friend here.
Wylan went to his room, opened the door and stared at the doll of himself sitting with its back to the window. Jesper had given him the doll, so it felt important, special. Yes, he was too old for dolls, and yes, it was weird it looked like him.
But he trusted Jesper, and the little Wylan was from him. At least, it seemed to be, for now.