The Red Door

Part Two: 1937-1939, Chapter 1

Chapter One

By the time I was fourteen I had spent most of my days sitting under the lonely tree. When the dreams began it became a haven for me; a place to be alone, escape the hell I called home, and better hide my secret.

August 29, 1937 was no exception. I squeezed my old leather backpack out from the hollow trunk and sat down at the base of the lonely tree, like I had done nearly every day over the past eight years. My backpack was like the heart of the lonely tree, and it kept growing. I now had forty six diaries. But the first one held a special place in my heart, and like the hollow trunk of the lonely tree, the more I dreamt, the more my heart filled. I remembered the first dream perfectly. I remember them all perfectly, but the first one was particularly meaningful. It was the first entry in the diary I traded for a silver button, and the basis for every entry after that. It was where I met the people who would eventually play a large and important role in my life. Something that no one else could see, but me.

Once I began high school the teasing subsided, but it didn't quite stop. No matter what, I was teased for something. If it wasn't an old story about my "imaginary friends", then they teased me for being the loner they forced me to be. Since I had very few friends, I spent most of my time at school alone, reading, so it didn't take long for me to realize that I could read a book one time and practically have it memorized word for word. It was stored in my memory like a picture show that I could play back at any moment, just like my dreams, just like everything. This gift made school much easier for me, but then, of course, I was teased for being smart.

Throughout my schooling in my hometown of Buckhannon, West Virginia, there was only one classmate who never teased me: Howard Flynn. That August morning I waited for him at the lonely tree like I did nearly every morning. I found a particular comfort at the lonely tree, a comfort that took me back to the summer before Howard and I began second grade, the summer we found the treasures, and the summer my dreams began. Coming to the tree felt like a different world while I was there, under the cloak of its leaves, as if it turned me invisible for just a short while while my thoughts and memories took me away.

I dug to the bottom of my backpack, and a smile spread across my face when my hand touched the small silver box. It never failed to amaze me no matter how many times I looked at it. I set the photographs out in front of me.

"It's been, what, ten years, and you're still looking at those photographs?" Howard said, startling me. He was walking up to the lonely tree holding that same old metal lunch pail. Except he was now much taller, and the lunch pail looked miniature next to his large hands.

"You said I'd be here forever, I guess you were right," I teased, as he handed me the metal lunch pail. I took it and opened it out of habit.

"You know you don't have to bring me breakfast anymore, I'm capable of cooking now that I'm old enough," I joked.

He paused, and I thought for a moment that I may have offended him.

But he smiled my favorite smile, the kind that reaches your eyes and means more than words ever could.

"I know," he finally said, "but I want to. It's kind of habit, you know, I'd feel strange if I left the house without it."

I kept my face towards the photographs while I blushed, hoping he wouldn't see. There were very few days that Howard didn't bring me breakfast, and even through the teasing and ridicule, it was nice to know that he did it because he wanted to, not because he felt bad.

So I ate his mother's famous biscuits and gravy, which somehow managed to get better each day. He sat down cross-legged next to me and picked up the photographs one by one while he waited, and looked at them closely.