“I’m sorry,” Aidan mumbled.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” Dad said. Mom stayed quiet.
“Look,” Officer Ross said, “this doesn’t have to be a long conversation. We have a few questions, and then we can pack up and leave. In truth, it all comes down to one central question, which is: Where were you the past six days, before Lucas found you in the attic? Can you tell us that, Aidan? You can start at the beginning or wherever else you’d like.”
“Nobody kidnapped me,” Aidan said up front. “Nobody took me away. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“That’s good,” Officer Pinkus said carefully. “Are you saying you ran away?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Aidan replied.
“You got lost?” Officer Pinkus asked.
“Yes. That’s definitely true.”
“But where were you?” Mom broke in. “Why couldn’t we find you?”
Aidan looked to the police officers instead of Mom when he asked, “Is that important? Do I really have to tell you? Isn’t it enough for me to say I ran away and lost track of time where I was, but found my way back here?”
Officer Pinkus answered, “We’re just trying to make sure you’re okay. If you had a rough time and don’t want to talk about it now, that’s fine. If you’d rather talk to a counselor about it, that’s fine too. But when a twelve-year-old disappears for almost a week, Aidan, we do need to know what happened, to help you make some sense of it. We’re not here to judge you, if that’s what you’re afraid of. At this point, we only want to help you. I know there are a lot of people out there who are aware of your disappearance, and you don’t owe any of them an explanation. This isn’t about them, or me, or even your parents. This is about you.”
For a moment, it was like the old Aidan was back, and wasn’t in some kind of shock. I could see him get that satisfied smirk on his face, like he usually got when he found a loophole that would get him out of doing something he didn’t want to do. He wasn’t sarcastic with the officer—that would’ve been dumb. But he definitely seemed a little proud of himself when he replied, “Well, if it’s about me, I’d rather not talk about it.”
Officer Ross didn’t look too happy about this. “Son, we turned over this whole town looking for you. A lot of people lost a lot of sleep, and your family here was scared to death. It would certainly help us to know where you were, in no small part so you’ll be discouraged from running there again. Believe me when I say we do not want a repeat performance.”
The spark of Aidan’s last answer died down, and he seemed to withdraw into a more serious version of himself again. “I can’t tell you,” he said.
“Can’t or won’t?” Ross shot back.
Aidan didn’t answer that. So Mom stepped into the silence and asked, “What—or who—is Aveinieu?”
I was facing Aidan, so I saw the effect the word had on him. It was like all the power had surged in the room, illuminating us in a brightness that was momentarily horrific, then merely blinding.
Mom went on. “Lucas told us that when he asked you yesterday where you’d been, you said Aveinieu.”
Aidan looked to me then, confused. And I realized: He didn’t remember telling me. He didn’t remember it at all.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed how astonished he seemed.
“Tell us, son,” Officer Ross said, not unkindly. “Tell us what Aveinieu means.”
And here Aidan said it again:
“You’re not going to believe me.”
8
They asked him if it was somewhere nearby. They asked him if it was a nickname. They asked him if it was a person’s house. They asked him if it was a person’s name. They asked him why it was a secret. Dad looked it up on his phone, but couldn’t find anything. They asked Aidan again where it was, what it meant.
He tried not to tell us. He shook his head. He said it wasn’t important. He swore he couldn’t remember saying it to me. But I knew he was lying when he told us he didn’t know what it meant, and if I knew he was lying, our parents also knew he was lying. The police officers didn’t seem to understand why he was being so evasive either.
“We are not leaving this room until you tell us,” Mom said.
“I can’t,” Aidan said. Then, “I won’t.”
And Mom said, “You better.”
Officer Pinkus was the only one who said we didn’t have to rush. “There’s no reason to force the issue,” she told my parents, told Aidan.
But Mom was relentless. “We thought you could be dead, Aidan. Do you understand that? Can you imagine how that felt? So please, just tell us where you were, so we can move on.”
“I can’t,” Aidan said.
And I, either my brother’s greatest ally or his worst betrayer, stepped over to the table and gently asked him the one question that nobody else had thought to ask.
“How did you get there, Aidan? How did you get to Aveinieu?”
It was then, only then, that Aidan gave in, revealing the one truth he knew none of us would be able to handle.
9
“The dresser,” Aidan said. “I got to Aveinieu through the old dresser.”
10
Officer Ross laughed.
Officer Pinkus looked concerned.
Mom said, “What?”
Dad asked, “What are you saying?”
Officer Ross said, “Very funny.”
Officer Pinkus said, “I don’t think he means it as a joke.”
Mom asked, “What are you talking about?”
Dad said, “You’re kidding, right?”
And Aidan, looking like he’d lost control of his story and was about to lose even more, said, “It’s another world. They call it Aveinieu.”
11
“Are you sure it’s not called Narnia?” Officer Ross chuckled.
“Michael, stop,” Officer Pinkus chided.
“It wasn’t Narnia,” Aidan said. “But it was…somewhere else.”
“Stop, Aidan,” Mom said.
“Enough,” Dad warned.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” Aidan told him. “You said you’d believe me, no matter what.”