“The answers to your life are within you.” 

- Eleanor C. Nordyke

“Should we be doing this?” I asked my cousin Willow as we ducked into the small cupboard under the stairs.

“You’re the one who wanted answers, right?” she answered pulling out what looked like a dusty leather box, “Well here they are.”  I stared at the box, now realizing that it’s a briefcase.

“It was sarcasm! You’re the one who wanted to find out whatever ‘mystery’ you think is going on.” I rolled my eyes, but she ignored me, “You think this briefcase is going to solve the mystery? Our grandparents aren’t dumb, they would never keep their biggest secrets in some rotting briefcase.” I told her, opening it anyway.

“Think about what you’d like. Copies of birth certificates?” She gave me a look. 

“What are you doing?” I asked her as she leafed through the papers “Willow, have you lost your mind? What are these papers going to tell us? Our family’s birthdays? We are looking in the wrong place. I think we should actually go out there and look around the town if you want to find something about this so-called mystery, it’s definitely hiding something. What do you say?” I looked at her. “Are you ignoring me now?” She had her head down, and it looked like she was mumbling something, then suddenly she snapped her head up.

“There’s two short,” she looked up at me, “two birth certificates are missing.”

“How many are there supposed to be?” I asked now kind of interested. She might actually be onto something. This would be interesting either way.

“Well, there’s grandma and grandpa, so that’s two, plus my family has five, so far seven? Then your family is the big one, it has how many people?” 

“Twelve,” I told her, “so that’s nineteen birth certificates, right?” 

“Right, but see there’s only seventeen! There’s two missing!” She looked impressed with her discovery. I looked at her for a moment before I burst out laughing.

“Okay, I am officially calling you crazy. You don’t know what you’re talking about! Maybe they just got lost, or are kept away for a reason. We should be looking somewhere else, come on.” I started to turn away, but she grabbed my arm.

“No! Wait let’s just see who’s are missing. Naomi, I know you want to know!” She was right, I was curious. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to poke around a bit. 

“Fine, but that’s all! Then we are going! You don’t think that this is the slightest bit creepy? Do our grandparents just happen to have every record of our families? It’s kinda not normal.” I told her. 

After about 10 minutes of sorting and matching Willow had everything in three neat piles. I hadn’t really helped much. Organization isn’t exactly my strong suit. I had found an old compass and had been trying to figure out how to work it. She turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. She looked almost scared. “What is it?” I asked her. “It can’t be that bad.”

“The two that are missing are kind of random. We already knew that it’s one from my family and one from yours.” She paused to look down at the papers again. “But the two people who’s birth certificates are missing are me and you, Naomi.” At first, I was shocked, but after a moment of recollection, I tried to reason this out. 

“It’s not like they did it on purpose. I mean come on we are the youngest children in both our families. I thought you would be used to being forgotten by now.” I told her trying to figure this out, “We were born only five days apart, so our parents must have forgotten to give grandpa copies of our birth certificates. It makes sense. We aren’t exactly their favorites.”

“That’s true, but what if there is some other reason?”

“There are no secrets that time does not reveal” 

- Jean Racine

Naomi thought it was nothing, but I know better. There’s something up with the fact that only our birth certificates were missing. Sure, it could be what she said about being forgotten because we are the youngest children, but really?  My parents have been as equal to all my siblings as they did to me. I’ve grown up in a family where I was given everything I could ask for. I guess that’s not the same for Naomi. She tries really hard to fit in, but it’s hard for her. At school she’s amazing. Everyone loves her, but at home, she’s often home alone until late at night. Sometimes I hear my parents talking about how her parents are too busy to raise another child. I’ve been in bed for almost an hour now but I can’t fall asleep. I decide to go downstairs to drink water. I’m halfway down the stairs when I hear something fall. I freeze. It comes from the cupboard under the stairs. The same place we found the birth certificates, uh oh. I slowly tiptoe down the stairs and turn the knob of the door. Whatever it is can’t attack me if it doesn’t hear me. I open it as quickly as I can and inside I see, Naomi? “What are you doing here?” She asked me startled.

“Same as you, I suppose,” I tell her sitting on the ground next to her, “Couldn’t sleep?” 

“No,” She says. “I lay in bed for a long time then got a sudden urge to come here again. How about you?”

“Same, except I came down for a glass of water.” I thought for a moment before asking her, “Do you really not believe this could be the lead for something?” She paused for a moment. 

“I know something is going on here, but what if we are looking in the wrong place?” 

“I have a good feeling about this, we are on to something,” I told her, but she already went back to looking at something. 

“I also found these in the briefcase.” She said observing the papers in her hand. “They seem important, but I can’t read them. They’re in another language.” 

“How about we try to scan it on google translate?” I say, finally glad she found a lead. We scanned the documents and a weird message came up. I turned my phone to Naomi and she gave me a look before saying what we were both thinking. 

“Why does it say ‘ACCESS GRANTED’?”

“A reader lives a thousand lives before they die.” 

- George R. R. Martin

The next day, I woke up to knocking on my door. I picked up my phone and saw it was 8:30 AM. Honestly, Willow needs to let me sleep in a little longer, but I get up to open the door anyway. 

“I found something I think you need to see,” Willow told me as she walked past me into my room.

“Good Morning to you too?” I said looking at her, “What’s happening?” I asked her still in a daze. 

“I found what we gained access to. You won’t believe it.” She grabbed my arm and started to drag me out of the room. Reluctantly, I followed her downstairs. She led me to a large bookcase. “Look at the titles of the books. What do you see?” I observed them carefully. 

“I don't see anything notable,”  I told her.

“Third bookshelf, fifth to last book.” She pointed to a newer looking book. I gasped as I read the title. 

“Access granted?” Willow nodded. “So the next clue is probably inside the book right?” I raised my hand to pull the book out when suddenly, the bookshelf started shaking. 

“What did you do?”  Willow asked me, but I was more focused on the bookshelf. It was turning around to reveal what looked like a secret room. I took a step closer before looking inside. 

“Naomi! We can’t just go inside random rooms in our house. What if there is a serial killer inside?” Willow said to me with a concerned look on her face. I picked up one of the metal poles from the fireplace. 

“Then we’ll knock them dead,” I said with a smile.

“This is serious! We could be in danger, this is not a joke!” 

“I know, I know. But you trust me right?” I looked at her with a pleading look. “You started this and now I'm going to finish it. I'm going whether you come or not.” 

“Fine. But only a look around.” She said still looking terrified. I stepped inside the room. There was a big hall with an arched ceiling. It looked like something out of a history book. I gapped at the room. How does it even fit here? How long has it been here? My thoughts are interrupted by Willow. 

“Look! There’s moreover here.” I walked over to where she was pointing and just stopped and stared in awe. Shelves as tall as I could see were towers over me on all sides of the circular room. 

“How many books do you think this could be?” I asked Willow, “Probably at least thousands right?” Before Willow could answer, we heard another voice.

“Oh yes, it is quite a collection.”

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” 

- Stephan King

My first instinct was to run. A creepy man approaching you is not the most comforting thing to see after you are already scared of being in a secret room you found in your grandparent’s house. But for some reason, my legs didn’t want to run, not this time. Not an ideal situation. I tried to find my voice to ask him a hundred questions swarming through my head at the moment, but I started with the simplest one. “Who are you?” I asked him, observing his physical demeanor. Long shaggy beard, and robes. Was he Dumbledore? Wait, no nevermind, he died in the sixth book.

“That’s a good question. You tell me.” I’m confused. He doesn’t know who he is? I tried to stay polite while talking to him. 

“Nice to meet you, um, my name is Wilow, and this is my cousin Na-” He cut me off by saying, 

“Yes, of course, I know who you are. Naomi and Willow the ones whom I was sent to find.” the man told us. First up, he knows our names. Who told him our names? How does he know us? Second, he was sent to find us. Why? Did we do something? I looked over at Naomi who hadn’t said a word up until this point. 

“I know you. I’ve seen you somewhere before.” Naomi said scrunching up her face. I looked back at the man. He does look a little familiar. 

“We have met before. Probably just hidden behind all your fake memories.”  the man crossed the room from the place he was standing to a case of books. 

“Sorry what?” I asked not sure I heard him correctly. 

“Perhaps I should explain. Have a seat. This could take some time.” the man gestured to a table next to him. I gingerly pulled out the chair dusting it off before sitting on it. Who knows how old this stuff could be. “Books are a powerful force. They hold some of the deepest secrets of our ancestors and tell us so much about our past. Some books make us feel happy and others sad. Now, you see, books all have what we in our world like to call a… presence. They all hold power beyond our comprehension. Each book’s presence is like a personality. Far more power is held in a presence, than in the human soul. There are people out there, people who want to use this power only for themselves. What they do not understand is that knowledge is best when it is shared.” He paused probably to let us soak in the information. 

“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, but what does this have to do with us coming here?” Naomi asked. She was right. This story seemed pretty pointless so far. 

“I was just about to explain that. You are the presences. Six months ago, the people who wanted the power for their selfish reasons came together, formed an alliance. They wanted to be able to absorb the power of the presence. To be able to do that, they must find a way to extract the presence of the books.  They did. They started with two books, the titles were not found, but they turned the presences into human forms. Now instead of what we expected them to do by taking the power from the newly found beings, they put the two beings together in a family. Gave them a fake background, a fake family, and fake memories. It’s taken us two weeks to track you down. We being the people who are in charge of shutting this little experiment down. I couldn’t find a way to get you guys to find me, so I’ve been planting clues for you along the way. Here we are now.” He finished his recap. I just sat there. What am I supposed to say? I was just told anything and everything that hasn’t happened in the last two weeks is a lie. My whole life is a lie.

“So basically we are just being controlled by freaky bad guys who want powers we supposedly have?” Naomi asked the man. 

“You are not controlled. You are a presence. You are free to do as you please. And the intentions of our opposition is unclear, but one thing is certain. We have to find a way to track them down and stop their operations.” 

“This is crazy,” Naomi said out loud. “First Willow gets this feeling, then we find missing birth certificates, and so one for what? To be told our whole lives were a lie? No. I don’t believe you.” She said. 

“I do,” I said in a small whisper. “I believe you.”

“Knowledge is power.” 

- Francis Bacon

This was crazy. There was no way this could be true. Presences? How did Willow believe him? We just met a man and he tells us our entire lives are a lie. Maybe this is all a really weird dream. Maybe if I pinch myself hard enough it will all be over.

“Fine, let’s say we are who you think we are, what are we supposed to do about it now?” I asked the man. 

He smiled, before saying, “I want you to travel back with me to the world beyond. If we are going to stop the Opposition, then we need the strongest thing humankind has, books. And books being presences, like you. We believe there are more of you. More children who have never really fit into their pasts because they are not who they think they are. Far more powerful than they could imagine. We need your help, finding these children and keeping them from making mistakes which could cost them greatly.”

“Just one question,” Willow started to ask, I have so many more than just one, “What is the world beyond?”

“Ahh yea, the world beyond is a magical place. It processes ideas that are too novel for this world. Your presence, for example, I have spent months researching this. I can not tell you much more as we are running out fo time. I am here to offer you an option. You come with me and help the world beyond to fight this threat, or I extract your presence and you are allowed to live here as a normal human among your family. What do you choose?” 

I think about the pros and cons of the situation. Not many pros, a whole list of cons. I grab Willow’s arm and we head over to the side. 

“What are we going to do?” I aske her. 

“Isn’t the answer simple?” She asked me suprised I was confused. “According to our ‘fake’ memories, you haven’t fit in your entire life. Now you have a chance to start over. This is the chance of a lifetime, Naomi. I love my family but just think about the other kids living in this world who could face the same fate. Don’t you want to help them?” Willow asked me. Well when she put it that way, that certainly changes things. Time is a strange thing you know, it can feel like it moves incredibly slow, or so much can happen in one moment. My whole life changed. I have no family, no life, it’s all just a bunch of lies some people put together and called it a life. There are more kids out there just like us. Some may even be younger. 

“I want to help people, but at what cost? I always knew I didn’t have a normal life, but now this? It’s just a lot to soak in.” I said hoping she would understand. And she did. The way she nodded her head told me I made the right decision. I turn back to the man and tell him what we are going to do.

 I take a deep breath and say, “Let’s do this. Now, which way do we go?” 

The man smiled and said to us, “I knew you would make the right decision. Welcome to the world beyond.”