20

  The days that followed Finn’s sixteenth birthday passed quietly—at least on the surface.

  The dreams of the great kingdoms, the forests of towering trees, the children in green and gold clothing, and the castle decaying into dust became less frequent. The vision of Alice, standing by a window watching him, slowly faded, as though the memory itself was dissolving like morning mist. After he had told his family everything, the dreams lost their sharpness—almost as if sharing them had loosened their hold.

  Yet Finn occasionally still thought of her—the old woman with the broom, the kindness in her eyes, and the ring she had entrusted to him. But his father had taken the ring that night and stored it away somewhere Finn did not know. He said nothing more about it. Whenever Finn tried to bring her up, he would simply say, “Some things come and go in life. Let the seasons take their path.”

  And so, life seemed to return to normal.

  Finn and Maxi woke early again, attended school, shared laughs with JP, Marlon, Lester, Ellie, and Carla. Katherine still appeared sometimes in the hallways, and though their exchanges were still shy and brief, they carried a quiet warmth.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  But something had changed—not in Finn, not in Maxi—but in their father.

  He had once been a constant figure behind the food stall—cooking with quick hands and a warm laugh, chatting with regular customers, scolding Maxi for eating the pork skewers before they were sold. Now, however, he was absent more often than not. He would leave early in the morning or return late after close, offering vague excuses:

  “Just checking something at the docks.”

  “Meeting an old colleague.”

  “It’s nothing, don’t worry.”

  He tried to sound casual, but there was a tension around him now—a guardedness, like someone carrying a burden too heavy to speak of.

  The stall was kept running by Aunt Nins, cheerful but sharper than she looked, and her patient husband, Uncle Osi, whose calm voice seemed to hold the place steady. Finn and Maxi helped whenever they weren’t in school—taking orders, serving customers, delivering food on the scooter just like before.

  From the outside, everything looked the same.

  But sometimes, when Finn paused while chopping vegetables or handing over bowls to customers, he would feel a strange emptiness, like a page of his life had been torn out and no one else remembered it existed.

  And somewhere far away, in a world of stone castles and fading kingdoms—

  Something had begun to move.