When Travis moves his family to a quiet town in Maine, he expects a new chapter in their lives. But a discovery deep in the woods—a tombstone with his childhood photo—draws him into a decades-old mystery…
We had only been in Maine for three weeks when it happened .
My wife, Lily, our eight-year-old son, Ryan, and our Doberman, Brandy, were adjusting to the cold more slowly than I was. But after 16 years of living in Texas, I welcomed the tingle of the crisp morning air in my lungs, the gentle silence of the pine needles under my feet, and the quiet of a town that didn’t know our names.
“This place smells like Christmas,” Lily had whispered the first morning, barefoot in the back doorway wearing a borrowed flannel shirt.
I appreciated the sting of the fresh morning air in my lungs.
I remember smiling at him and seeing how peaceful his face looked.
That Saturday we decided to go mushroom hunting behind the cottage. It wasn’t anything fancy or particularly dangerous as far as mushrooms were concerned; just the kind Lily could sauté with butter and garlic while Ryan showed off his mushroom-hunting skills.
Brandy barked at everything that moved. Ryan ran ahead of us with a plastic bucket, pulling up ferns like they were dragon tails.
I remember smiling when I saw how good the peace looked on her face.
It was the kind of day that gets etched in your memory even before it’s over.
Until… it went wrong.
Suddenly, Brandy’s bark changed. It dropped an octave, immediately alerting me, and then he growled, low and warningly…
I looked up and my son had disappeared.
Until… it went wrong.
“Ryan?” I shouted. “Hey, mate, answer me! This isn’t a game, okay?”
Brandy’s barking grew sharper in front of me, echoing somewhere beyond the trees.
“Keep him safe, Bran,” I murmured to myself. “I’m coming.”
I made my way through the undergrowth, careful not to trip over the exposed roots that crisscrossed the path. The trail narrowed without warning, winding between tall pines that blocked most of the afternoon light.
“Hey, friend, answer me!”
My boots sank into the damp moss, and the air suddenly felt colder and too quiet.
“Lily, let’s go!” I shouted to my wife.
“I’m coming, darling,” she said, sounding exhausted and scared at the same time. “I’m coming!”
“Ryan!” I shouted once more.
A flicker of unease rose in my chest.
“Lily, let’s go!”
Then I heard it. Not my son’s voice, no. But his laughter . And Brandy started barking again, but not aggressively.
I quickened my pace.
I stepped out into a clearing I hadn’t seen before and stopped dead in my tracks.
“Hey… guys?” I called over my shoulder, just as Lily caught up to me. She stopped beside me and scanned the space. She frowned.
“What is this place?” he asked, his voice low and cautious. “Travis… those are gravestones, aren’t they?”
And Brandy barked again, but not aggressively.
He walked a little further and then hesitated. My wife was right. There were a few gravestones scattered around the clearing. It was eerie, but peaceful at the same time.
“And those are flowers. Look at this, darling. There are so many dried-up bouquets everywhere.”
He pointed to one of the graves. A dozen brittle stems lay at its base, tied with faded ribbon.
“Someone’s been here,” I said. “Well… they’ve been coming here for a long time.”
There are so many withered branches everywhere…”.
Lily opened her mouth to answer, but Ryan’s voice spoke first.
“Dad! Mom! Come see! I’ve found something … I’ve found a picture of Dad,” she shouted, her excitement palpable.
My son was crouching in front of a small gravestone hidden between two elm trees. He had his finger resting on the front of the gravestone, as if he were tracing something.
“I found a picture of Dad!”
“What do you mean, my picture?” I asked, cautiously approaching through the undergrowth. I felt a tightness in my chest and was starting to feel dizzy.
“It’s you, Dad,” Ryan said, without even turning around. “It’s you as a baby! Don’t we have a picture like that above the fireplace?”
When I stood next to him and looked down, my breath caught in my throat.
I felt a tightness in my chest.
On the gravestone was a ceramic photograph. It was worn with age and chipped in the right corner… but it was still unmistakably clear.
It was me.
I was about four years old, and my dark hair was a little longer than Ryan’s. My eyes were wide and uncertain, and I was wearing a yellow T-shirt that I only vaguely remembered from a torn Polaroid in my house in Texas.
Beneath the photograph was a single line engraved on the tombstone.
It was mine.
“January 29, 1984”.
It was my birthday.
Lily grabbed my arm. In my shock, I hadn’t realized how close I’d been. Her voice was calm but firm.
“Travis, please. This is too strange. I don’t know what this is, but I want to go home. Come on, Ryan,” she said, holding out her hand.
“January 29, 1984”.
“No. Wait! Just a moment, please, Lily,” I said, shaking my head once. “I just want to… see.”
I knelt down and touched the edge of the ceramic frame. It was cold. For a second, everything around me went numb. I felt something shift inside me, not exactly panic, but something deeper.
It was like… recognition I wasn’t prepared for.
That night, when Ryan fell asleep, I sat at the kitchen table with the photo on my phone.
“I just want to… see.”
“What the hell is going on here?” I muttered. “I don’t understand. That’s me, no doubt about it. But I’ve never been here before. I’m sure I’d remember.”
My wife sat down opposite me, with an unreadable expression.
“Is there any chance that your adoptive mother ever mentioned Maine?”
“No,” I replied. “I asked him once, when I was much younger. I just wanted to know my story, you know? He said he didn’t know much. Only that he got me from a fireman named Ed, and that I was left outside a burning house when I was four years old. All I had was a note pinned to my shirt.”
“Is there any chance that your adoptive mother ever mentioned Maine?”
“What was he saying, Travis?” Lily asked, her eyes wide.
We had talked about this before, but after Ryan’s little discovery, everything seemed… different and darker somehow.
” ‘Please take care of this boy. His name is Travis.’ That was it. I’m sure my mother has it stuck in a scrapbook or something.”
Lily took my hand and squeezed it gently.
Please take care of this boy. His name is Travis.
“Maybe there’s someone in this town who knows more. Someone who remembers the fire… and maybe even your biological parents, Trav. Maybe fate allowed us to move here for a reason?”
I nodded slowly. I didn’t know what else to say. I’d always felt a little lost in my life. I didn’t remember my biological parents. I didn’t even remember if I’d had siblings or grandparents.
It was as if that period of my life had been written by some force greater than myself.
“Perhaps fate allowed us to move here for a reason?”
The next day, I visited the local library and asked about the property behind our cottage. The receptionist seemed confused.
“A family lived there years ago. But the house burned down when a spark from the chimney fell on a curtain. People don’t talk about it anymore.”
I asked if anyone still living in the village might know more.
“Try Clara M.,” he said. “She’s the elderly woman who sits at the apple stand in the daily market. She’s almost 90 years old. And she’s lived here all her life. She’s your best bet. Here’s her address.”
“People don’t talk about her anymore.”
Clara’s house was small, shaded by thick pine trees, with lace curtains and a chipped mailbox shaped like a bus. When she opened the door, her expression shifted from polite curiosity to startled recognition.
“Are you… Travis ?” he asked, his eyes filled with cataracts.
I nodded slowly.
“So you’re back home? Well, you’d better go inside, wouldn’t you?”
She spoke like a woman straight out of a fairy tale.
“Are you… Travis?”
Her living room smelled of cedar and something gently sweet, like apple tea and old paper. It reminded me of a school library, one of those with dusty windows and a silence that meant something.
I handed her my phone, the photo I’d taken by the gravestone on the screen. Clara held it close, her eyes slightly squinting. Her hands were delicate, her skin weathered by time.
He stared at the photo for longer than he expected.
She had delicate hands,
skin papered by time.
“That picture,” she said slowly, “was taken by your father, Travis. Your real father, I mean. His name was Shawn, and it was the day after you and your brother turned four. I made your birthday cake. Vanilla sponge cake and strawberry jam. And whipped cream.”
I was stunned… Clara had just dropped a bombshell on me, and yet there I was, talking about… cake.
“Did I have a twin? Ma’am, are you sure?”
“Yes, son,” she said, smiling gently. “His name was Caleb. They were inseparable, identical in every way.”
Did I have a twin?
The room swayed slightly. I put my hand to my forehead to steady myself.
“Nobody ever told me,” I said.
“Maybe… they just didn’t know,” Clara said, folding her hands in her lap. “There was a fire… your family lived in a small cabin beyond the ridge. Your parents were young, Travis, and they didn’t have much. But they loved you both.”
He paused, as if weighing up how much to say.
“Perhaps… they simply didn’t know.”
“It was a ridiculously cold winter… and we all had our fireplaces lit. The fire started sometime during the night. By the time anyone noticed, the cabin was almost completely burned to the ground. They found three bodies.”
“My parents and my brother?” I asked.
“Yes,” Clara agreed, nodding. “That’s what they thought.”
“But wasn’t I in the cabin?”
“No, darling. You weren’t there.”
“They found three bodies.”
“So how did I end up in Texas?” I asked, with a soft ringing in my ears.
“That’s the part no one ever knew,” Clara said, managing a sad smile. “I always thought maybe you’d been in the house too… but perhaps… they just missed your little body. I don’t know, son. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
The old woman picked up a photo album. Inside was a newspaper clipping from 1988.
“I don’t know, son.”
“A fire destroys a family cabin: three dead and one missing.”
Below was a photo of two boys standing in a field. They were identical in every way except for the tilt of one of their smiles.
I lightly touched the page.
“After the fire, your father’s younger brother, Tom, returned to the property. He stayed in the village for a few months, trying to rebuild what he could. He placed a few memorial stones, including the one with your picture on it,” Clara continued.
I looked at her, confused.
“A fire destroys a family cabin: three dead and one missing.”
“Why would he do that if I wasn’t dead?”
“Because no one knew for sure,” he said. “There were no dental records. And back then, there were no reliable filing systems. The clinic where you and your brother were born had a burst pipe the following year. By then, all the medical records that might have helped identify you were gone. Tom always believed one of you might have survived. But the town had already moved on to the next tragedy.”
“Where is he now?”
“He still lives on the outskirts of town. But he’s very reserved. He’s not the same.”
“There were no dental records.”
The next morning, Lily came with me. She didn’t talk much during the ride, but her hand rested on my thigh the whole time. Tom’s front yard was wild and overgrown, but it wasn’t neglected. A row of fresh bird feeders hung from the porch rafters, and a cracked wind chime swung above the door.
When he answered, he looked at me for a few long seconds and then blinked as if he had seen a ghost.
“I’m Travis,” I told him. “I think… I’m your nephew.”
Her face changed, softening in a way that made my throat tighten.
He blinked as if he had seen a ghost.
He nodded and stepped aside to let us in.
Inside, the house was warm. There were books in the corners and a pot was simmering silently in the kitchen.
“You look like your father,” Tom finally said.
I didn’t know what to answer.
“I came back after the fire. Everyone else said the boys had left, but I couldn’t accept it. I kept thinking: maybe Mara got one of you out. She would have tried. Your mother would have done anything for you.”
“You’re just like your father.”
My eyes were burning. I looked at the man who had kept the memory alive.
“When I placed the headstone,” said Tom, “I didn’t know it would bring you back… but I had hope. And I prayed that wherever you landed, you would be all right.”
I nodded and gripped my wife’s hand tightly.
“Caleb was always calmer,” he said after a moment. “You were the wild one, Travis.”
“And I prayed that wherever
you will land
“I wish you were okay.”
We spent the afternoon going through smoke-stained boxes. There were a few drawings on brittle, half-burned paper. There was a birthday card addressed to “Our boys ,” with faded, smudged ink.
At the bottom of the box was a small yellow shirt, singed on one sleeve.
I took it home.
A week later, we returned to the clearing. Tom and Lily were with us, but they were talking to each other.
There was a birthday card addressed to “Our boys” .
The gravestone was waiting. I knelt down and placed the card on its base.
“Dad? Are we going to visit your brother?” Ryan asked.
“Yes,” I said. “His name was Caleb.”
“I wish I could have met him,” Ryan said, leaning on me. Brandy sniffed the card.
The gravestone was waiting.
“Me too, son. Me too.”
The breeze whispered through the trees.
I looked at Tom and wondered, just for a moment , if he was the one who had written the note.
Perhaps surrendering was his way of keeping me alive…
Perhaps giving me away was his way of keeping me alive… or of giving me a chance to live without tragedies.
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