The boy did not say a word. He simply stared at the younger version of Eric.

  “He doesn’t talk much, but from what I gather, his name is Adar,” Dad said from just behind. “Maybe see if he would like to go to your room and check out your toys. You still have that train set, don’t you? He might like that.”

  Eric rolled his eyes. Of course, he still had his Thomas the Train stuff. Dad wouldn’t let him get rid of it, even though it’d been a few years since Eric had played with it. Dad kept saying he’d spent a fortune on tracks and trains over the years and wasn’t about to let it go.

  “Hey, Adar, do you want to come see my train set? I bet you’ll love it. I did when I was your age. I even got to go see Thomas in real life. Well, he’s not real you know, but there’s a big engine made up that looks like Thomas.” Eric babbled, not sure what else to say to fill the awkward silence that had settled in the kitchen.

  The boy looked at Eric as if he had no idea what was being said. Then the woman spoke in a soft tone to the boy in a language Eric had never heard before. It sounded exotic and strange. The boy’s gaze flickered to his mother, then back to Eric. He nodded once, still clutching his strange plush toy that looked somewhat like a cat. He let go of the woman’s hand.

  “Come, I will show you the trains,” Eric said as he led the boy to his room.

  He heard Dad start to talk to the two adults as he left the room and was shocked to hear Dad speak in the same language as the woman. He hadn’t realized his dad knew any other languages except English and passable Spanish that he used with some migrant workers in their neighborhood.

  Eric glanced back and saw the tension in his father’s shoulders as he spoke with the strange couple. The woman had tears in her eyes, and the man stood rigid, like a soldier, and eyes that seemed to take everything in at once. He saw Eric looking back and gave a pointed look and then a nod as if to say; You have permission to make friends with the boy, but I’m watching you.

  Present day Eric snorted, recognizing Dad’s––Arnold’s––posturing protectiveness that he extended to all those he cared about, but the younger Eric had been very intimated by that look and silent message, and was determined to be as polite as possible to they boy he was leading to his room so not to get on the man’s bad side.

  Younger Eric walked the short distance down the hallway to his room. He went directly to the two large, narrow totes that took up most of the space under his bed and pulled them out. He opened the lid, and the mess of trains, tracks, and plastic buildings he’d spent collecting from birthday and Christmas presents lay out before him.

  Adar stood there looking at the collection as if he didn’t know what to do. So, Eric bent down and started pulling out the toys and quickly putting a track together. After he made sure Adar saw him put several tracks together, he offered a piece to the boy. “Now, you try.”

  The boy blinked at him for a long moment before reaching out tentatively to take the track. He then squatted down and placed the piece at the other end of the track that Eric had yet to finish.

  Eric smiled. “That’s it. Try another.”

  In a short period, the track was finished, and Eric set Thomas on the track along with a few other cars to get a nice-size train going. He flipped the switch on and set it back down and watched as the train started chugging along the track. Adar watched in complete rapture as the train made its journey around the track. After a while, he looked up with the beginnings of a smile that wouldn’t quite fully form. It was like there was something holding him back, refusing to allow the joy that was clearly sparkling in the boy’s eyes.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon playing with that track, and when Adar’s mother eventually called for him, he would not leave without tucking Thomas under one arm along with the strange plushy cat animal. They didn’t go far. The three of them had a quick meal in the kitchen, and then Dad showed them to the spare bedroom. That was the first of many nights that they stayed with Eric and his dad.

  Preset day Eric now could see a whole segment of memories of the strange people that eventually became more than strangers. It was bizarre how the memories fit within his others. The new ones filled a blank in his mind that he hadn’t realized had been there, but it had, and Eric was shocked at how he could have forgotten these people who had made such an impression on his younger self. Most especially Adar.

  That shy, quiet boy Eric had instantly taken a liking to and even made it his personal mission to try to make his new troubled friend smile. It had certainly been a challenge, since he quickly realized that Adar did not understand Eric’s language any more that Eric could understand Adar’s.

  Eventually, Adar did pick up a few English words here and there, and Eric was a good listener so he learned some of the language Adar and his parents spoke too, even though Dad refused to tell him what that language was and how Dad seemed to speak it fluently. Even with the language barrier slowly coming down, Adar did not say much for the most part. In fact, it was very rare that Eric heard more than a few sentences from the boy.

  The man and woman fared much better with the English language. They seemed to learn it at lightning speed, and by the fourth month, even their thick accents were gone, with both talking like they’d been born and raised in the neighborhood.

  Their concern for Adar grew, though. Eric could see the worry in their eyes whenever they attempted to interact with their son. A few times, he overheard tense conversations between Arnold and Cassandra late at night about Adar when they thought everyone was asleep.

  Eric asked what had made the boy so quiet and withdrawn, but it wasn’t something either Arnold or Cassandra liked talking about. In fact, they dodged any questions Eric had about where they had come from. Adar’s parents simply said he’d gone through a trauma, which caused the family to move. When Eric tried to talk to his dad about what was going on, he wasn’t much more helpful, only stating that the family had been through a hard time and they needed somewhere safe to stay until they got back on their feet.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  With so little to go on, Eric decided he’d just do what he could for his new friend. Adar clearly loved the train set and a few other toys that Eric had. So he let the boy play with them to his heart’s content. He even let Adar take the train set when the three of them finally moved out of Dad’s house and into a home that had come available next door several months into their stay. But it didn’t seem like anything, not even Thomas the Train, could completely turn Adar’s mood for more than a few hours.

  Then almost five months after they had arrived, Dad sat Eric down and told him that Adar’s name had been changed and that from then on they would all call him Michael. He also mentioned that the boy Eric once knew might act a little differently, and that this was okay and expected. Eric didn’t know what to think about that and asked for the reason for the change.

  “You just have to trust me on this, son. Arnold and Cassandra are doing what they think is best for Adar. They believe a new name and some personality adjustments will help him move past the trauma he suffered before coming here.”

  That, of course, opened up a lot more questions, but Dad refused to answer. So Adar, or actually, Michael, showed up the next day, and Eric was flabbergasted. It wasn’t just some minor adjustments. It was like the boy he knew was completely gone. Sure, it was the same face and bright blue eyes, but it was a like another person was staring back at Eric.

  This boy didn’t seem to have a care in the world. He laughed. He played. He talked a mile a minute. Eric was glad to see that Adar or Michael was much more like all the other kids Eric knew. This boy wanted to play. He wanted to go outside and run around and climb trees, which Adar simply would not do. This boy didn’t mope around or refuse to leave his room like Adar had. But still… it was unsettling.

  And the most unsettling part was that Michael didn’t seem to remember anything from before his name change. He didn’t remember how much he loved the train set or how he’d adored Thomas, and had even returned the train and tracks to Eric shortly after the change. Michael didn’t even remember the cat-like plush toy he’d brought with him. In fact, the toy seemed to have disappeared altogether. Michael no longer carried it around, and when Eric decided to see if he could find it in Michael’s room, the toy was nowhere to be found.

  The weirdness didn’t stop there. While Michael knew Eric and his dad, and played with Eric like they’d been best friends forever, Michael could recall nothing specific about their time together before the name change. It was like he had forgotten all about everything he had done before he had become Michael.

  In the present day, Eric understood what had happened. He realized that this had been when Arnold had manipulated Adar’s memories and turned him into Michael. But the younger Eric did not understand. And in the present day, Eric felt the turmoil of his younger self. He remembered the confusion and questions as if they had happened yesterday.

  He also remembered his dad trying to explain, but young Eric had become more and more upset, not understanding what had happened to his friend or being at all satisfied with the vague answers from his dad.

  And then one day after school, Eric came home to find his dad waiting for him with a grave expression. Eric was immediately alarmed, and thought that something had happened to the strangers who had become almost like family over the half year. Eric sat down across from his dad at the kitchen table and waited for the man to break whatever the bad news was to him.

  “Eric, I know you’ve had a lot of questions about Michael and the drastic change in him. Unfortunately, I can’t answer those questions right now. And after a lot of time to think about things, I’m going to have to take this one step further. I know you won’t understand this right now, but one day you will. I have been reassured repeatedly by Arnold that your memories can be accessed again. That you will remember all of this again when the time is right.

  “Know I did not make this decision lightly, but there are things you simply cannot understand at this time. It won’t always be that way, and then all your questions will be answered. Just know that I am sorry and that I am doing this to protect you and to protect our new friends. They came here looking for a place they could be safe, a place that Michael could be safe. And for the time being, it is best if you forget certain things.”

  Eric remembered that look in his dad’s eyes, a look of regret and resolve that Eric had rarely seen. And actually, as the present-day Eric remembered the hidden memory, he could safely say it was the only time he’d seen such a look from his father. Present-day Eric’s eyes locked on the slow turn of the fan above him as he processed the new set of memories. That was the last new memory of his dad.

  The next one was of Eric lying down on his bed and Arnold coming into his room. The man told him to relax, that he was going to help Eric, and when Arnold was done, he wouldn’t be confused about the changes in his new friend any longer. And that was the last hidden memory left to be remembered.

  The next one was of an old memory. It was of Eric getting out of bed after what he thought had been a short nap after school. He felt surprisingly well-rested and ready to play with his friend. Michael was coming over after dinner as usual to play for a bit. Eric needed to get his homework done!

  He sat down at his desk to get started and noticed the familiar engine on the corner of his desk. It was Thomas the Train. Eric picked it up and studied the train with confusion. It had been the better part of two years since he’d pulled his track set out to play with it. There was no reason for Thomas to be out on his desk. So how had it gotten there?

  Present-day Eric grunted. He had always been puzzled by that mystery, and it was odd enough to stick out in his mind. That was why he had remembered the incident even to this day. Now finally the puzzle was solved. The younger Eric had put it there after Michael had returned the set, sure that his friend had been mistaken and would want it back. Younger Eric had put the tracks back under his bed, but left the Thomas engine out on his desk for all to see just in case his friend noticed it and changed his mind.

  The cool breeze from the rotating fan caressed Eric’s hot skin as emotion tightened in his chest. Part of him felt relieved to be whole again, to know all the things he had forgotten, and to understand all the context he simply did not understand as a child. But another part felt upset that such a critical part of him and been hidden away. That both of his fathers––past and present––had conspired to keep the truth from Eric. Was it really about protection as Dad had claimed, or had they just been worried that Eric would accidentally blurt out the truth to someone not in the know about Arnold, Cassandra, and Adar’s true origins?

  Eric rolled onto his side, fist balled against the mattress. He wanted to scream at both of the men, but neither of them was available to him. The one long dead and the other unconscious in a hospital bed. It didn’t seem fair. None of it seemed fair. Why couldn’t they have just told him the truth from the beginning? He could have handled it. He wouldn’t have told anyone.

  The memory-shadows faded, leaving Eric blinking into the dim bedroom. Fair or not, the truth was here now, coiled like a spring in his chest, ready to snap when his adoptive dad finally did wake up. He would have a word or two with him about what he thought of Roger and Arnold’s solution to handle the younger version of Eric. And it would not be a gentle conversation.

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