This domestic little tale about Map, Leiwell, Danyel, and Tayel from my Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest series was the result.
“Read me a story, Danyel.” Leiwell lay upon the floor at Map’s feets, not moving any part of his body other than his lips.
“You should eat something to recover your strength,” Map scolded, letting a ball of yarn fall from her lap to unroll across the floor. She continued to work her needles, never pausing. “None of you boys eat enough. It’s not healthy.”
“Nor do we need to use the privy,” Danyel pointed out. He walked over to the book shelf. “I thought you’d be pleased that we make less of a stinky mess to clean up than regular people.”
“Being tidy is well and good, but there’s being neat and there’s being a ghost of a human.” Map clacked her needles in an ominous rattle. “You’ve got to eat what grows in the soil to truly ground yourselves in this world.”
“Otherwise a Door might open and we’ll be sucked in by shadows on the wind.” Leiwell opened one green eye and offered his little brothers a sly grin.
“Or you’ll slip through a crack when you’re not watchful,” Tayel muttered. He sat up a cushion, close to Leiwell, yet keeping a certain amount of space between himself and his eldest brother.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” Map barked, pausing in her knitting to scowl at Tayel.
“Still there is something to be said for being light on your feet, like Ashleigh when she’s opening Doors.” Danyel took Beyond the Door from its prized place on the shelf. “Imagine drifting between worlds, able to visit as many you wish.”
“Ashleigh is able to do it because she opens Doors, not because she gets drawn through them.” Tayel wrinkled his nose. “Choosing to step into a realm of shadow to reach a new world isn’t the same as being swept off your feet.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Leiwell closed both of his eyes. “Being swept off my feet might be romantic if it’s by the right breeze.”
“It’s not romantic!” Map turned her scowl on her eldest. “Letting yourself be swept off your feet is passive and indecisive!”
“It might be romantic for you, Leiwell.” Tayel rested his chin against his knees. “For Danyel and myself, it would be a nightmarish folly.”
“Why’s that?” Danyel demanded, hugging the book to his chest. “Why must it be folly to let the forces beyond the Door dictate your direction for a change?” He dug his fingers into the cover. “Dreamers use Doors to take them to their heart’s desire. Why not go where the Door wants instead?”
“Anywhere a Door takes you is bound to perilous.” Leiwell opened his eye again to fix it upon his younger brother. “If you let yourself be overwhelmed by forces beyond the Door, you could lose yourself.”
“Only we’re speaking of the Door itself, not the forces beyond it,” Danyel argued. “What exactly is a Door other than a portal to the Shadow Forest or another world?”
“A creation of someone’s desire strong enough to breach a hole between realities.” Tayel hunched forward, hiding his face in his knees. “Only that desire has been touched and painted over by others, every wish that ever opened it.”
“A Door becomes an entity in its own right over time.” Leiwell’s gaze shifted inward to places unknown, focusing on something only he could see. “Who knows what such an entity might want or take pride in? Where would it take you if you offered it that much power?”
“Or choice.” Danyel sat down at Tayel’s side and opened the book. “I’d like to ask a Door if I could. It sounds similar to us in some ways.”
“What do you mean?” Map knotted her thick eyebrows together in concern.
“Well, we sort of just appeared, didn’t we? Perhaps we, too, were created by people’s desires, Leiwell, Tayel, and I.” Danyel studied the leaflet of the book. “We’d be kin in Doors…huh?”
Writing he’d never seen before gleamed along the inside of the cover.
“What is it?” Leiwell opened his other eye.
“Script materializing across the surface.” Tayel leaned over the book to frown at it. “Once invisible, now revealed.”
“Old writers like Ashleigh Beyond the Door had lots of tricks like that.” Map let out an uneasy chuckle. “Always hiding secret messages within a book’s pages to be revealed at a specific time. What does she have to say?”
Danyel began to read, hearing his own voice drop to a lower, more melodic timber.
“Take pride in who you are
For only you can choose
What form you’ll ultimately take
And what that being will do
Other may try to color you form
Forcing your shape according to their love or hate
To accept their feelings or not is up to you
Your choice will always be your fate.”
“Trust Ashleigh to have that bad bit of poetical wisdom reveal itself at this exact moment.” Map let out a low laugh, which came out a bit choked.
If it had been Ashleigh. For a moment, Danyel visualized a boy’s heart shaped face with eyes shimmering with different colors.
“Pride,” he said, tasting the word on his lips. “We’re to take pride in who we are, hmm? If only I knew who I was.”
“It’s every person’s quest to find out.” Tayel lifted his head from his knees. “Search and you will find yourself.”
“Right.” Danyel smiled at his twin and turned the page. “Now which story shall I read?”
“The one about the lost children,” Leiwell murmured, barely moving his lips.
“Again?” Map groaned. “How about the one where Ashleigh meets the dragon?”
“Happily it’s the same story.” Leiwell grinned at his mother from the floor.
“All right.” Danyel shook his head and began to read. “‘Once there were children unlike any others…’”
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