"Put the kettle on, won't you Greg?"
Two old men sat in the sparse cottage. The shadows danced around as a single lantern lit the room, giving the space around them an enclosing circle of light.
"Of course Wirt." Greg got out of his chair and grabbed the kettle they had been using since they were children. It was bent, and rusted, and the handle had been replaced twice, but they had insisted on keeping it despite what their wives had said.
Greg and Wirt had seen a lot in their long lives. Marriage, children, loss. Dozens of seasons passing and many unknowns becoming known. Now, as Wirt knew he was getting too far along in years to not spend more time with those he loved, he had invited Greg out to his small widower's cottage for a weeklong visit.
The main room of the cottage was the majority of the house, with only a small bathroom and bedroom adjacent. Wirt had used to live in a very large house until the past year, but he just couldn't see the sense in so much space now that he could hardly walk. Greg was still young enough to move about freely, but felt the same pangs as his brother.
"Would you prefer some Earl Grey or Darjeeling?" Wirt imagined conversations he had had with Greg well into their twenties where he would never have been caught dead saying words like "Darjeeling", but many things change over time.
"Some Earl Grey. The sugar's in the bowl there." Wirt sat thinking over everything that needed to be said. He had meant to have this conversation with Greg many times over the years, but it just never felt like the right time. Now that he wasn't sure when he'd see Greg again, Wirt just had to do it.
"Was it even real, Greg?"
"Whatcha' talkin' about, brother o' mine?" The man had grey hairs all over his head, but the childlike speech still slipped in at times.
"I should have said something decades ago, but I always had some doubt, and didn't want you to laugh."
"We've pretty much gone beyond anything I could laugh at you about by now, don't you think."
"Yes," Wirt cracked a smile. "Yes, that's probably true. Do you remember the Halloween night we went to the hospital?"
"Of course! I wore that teapot right there as an 'elephant' costume. You were, what, a gnome?"
" Do you remember anything about the Unknown?" Greg suddenly got quiet and stopped stirring his tea.
"What makes you bring that up now?"
"So you do remember?"
"I was a 5 year old, Wirt. I can't be sure anything I remember from that time of my life was real, or if it was something mom and dad told us later on."
"Then it wasn't just a coma was it? Something happened to us when we went over that garden wall in the cemetery?"
"I've questioned everything I remember from that day a thousand times since. I had imaginary stories very similar to that a hundred times before and after that Halloween. But the images stuck with me more. But as I got older I thought it wasn't possible. We never left that river, did we? Or what did happen?" Wirt looked at his little brother, who was looking to him for guidance still.
"Do you think about Beatrice still?" Greg's eyes widened.
"It was real! It had to be? How could we both remember Beatrice if it wasn't real"
"I don't know Greg. We haven't anything from the Unknown to prove it. I remember Jason Funderberger, the frog, had a light in his belly like the bell's, but he eventually just turned out to have a light up key chain in there. We didn't have anything else when we left to show for it."
Greg sat back and took a long sip and thought. The ceiling was painted by Wirt's granddaughter with designs of pumpkins, vines, leaves, and bluebirds. The lantern's light gave it a beautiful orange glow that brought the autumn scenes to life.
"Then what are we supposed to do? Just accept that it wasn't real? That we dreamed the same dream? I can't do that Wirt. Not after all this time. I know that trip made you the man you are. You have been the most can-do person alive since that day." Wirt smiled at the compliment.
"Thanks Greg. I always thought that about you though."
"You know what I think?"
"What?"
"It doesn't really matter if it all happened in our heads. So what if we never left that river or it all happened in a split second. You changed from meeting those people, and I couldn't be more proud of my brother. That makes it more real than most things."
"That's a really lovely lie Greg." Wirt set aside his cup. "I'd go so far as to say that may be the loveliest lie of all."