“What’s that you’re humming, hon?” Father asked curiously from his chair by the fire, his eyes on his hands as he worked the rope. Mother was across from him, putting Aise between them. She was busily darning a tear in one of father’s shirts.

     “Just a song uncle J taught me today,” Aise said without looking up. This knot really was complicated.

     “Really? Does it have words?” Father inquired vaguely, eyes still glued to his knotwork.

     “Ah-huh, he taught me them too, wanna hear?”

     “‘Taught them to me,’” father corrected her grammar unconsciously.

     Aislin rolled her eyes “Taught them to me, then. Do you wanna hear it or not?”

     “Sure, lets hear it.” Father chuckled.

     Aislin put down her rope so she could concentrate on remembering the song, and began to sing. At first, both father and mother didn’t seem to really be paying attention. Then mother looked up, a strange expression on her face. Aislin kept singing the slow, comforting melody softly, and after another moment father looked up, having just realized that not only was the song in another language, but it was one that he recognized.

     Father looked across at mother, their eyes reflecting baffled realization, then understanding, the way grown ups speak over the heads of children as though they weren’t there at all.

     Aislin didn’t mind, they did that all the time so she was used to such speechless conversations over her head. When she finished the song she beamed up at father, who seemed to be thinking very hard, still staring straight ahead at mother.

     “It couldn’t be...” mother began, then trailed off “Could it?”

     “There’s no other explanation,” father replied, though his voice wasn’t as sure sounding as the words he spoke. “How else could she have learned a siran song in one day?”

     “But... it just couldn’t be...” mother murmured, denying the facts laid before her.

     Father didn’t answer. Instead he looked down at little Aislin, then his eyes widened in surprise. She knew he’d seen the flower crown she’d made on the island. Oops.. she must’ve forgotten to leave it at uncle J’s cabin.

     “Where did you get those flowers,” father asked, and Aise knew he was trying very hard to keep his voice level and only vaguely curious.

     “From the island,” she responded meekly. Why were mother and father behaving so strangely? She wanted to go on, but something told her not to go into too many details. They might make father upset.

     “Did ‘uncle J’ bring them to you?” mother asked, somewhat hopefully.

     Aise shook her head “I got them when we went to the island today.” She was afraid that if she said much more now, she’d get in trouble. Her parents were acting the way they did when she’d done something wrong.

     Father interrupted with a question. “What does ‘uncle J’ look like, honey?”

     Aislin, who would normally have been overjoyed that her parents finally asked her about uncle J, now sat confused. Father looked almost afraid. Why should he be afraid?

     “Well, in his natural form, he looks sort of.. like a really big cat with a long neck and long ears. And wings. And he has stripes and spots, and...” she trailed off, startled at the look on father’s face. What was wrong?

     Once again father and mother met in silent communion above her head, then father spoke again, and though his eyes were still on mother’s face, Aise knew he was talking to her. “I think tomorrow we should go meet ‘uncle J’.”

     The rest of that night was very quiet, and, for Aislin, rather uncomfortable. Both of her parents were subdued the rest of the night, and she was sent to bed early, before the rise of the second moon.

     As she lay in bed, Aise thought about what had happened after dinner, and wondered as she gazed out her window at the stars over the lake.

     For one thing, why did father act so afraid of uncle J? And why did mother keep saying ‘it couldn’t be’? What couldn’t be? She didn’t think mother just didn’t want to believe that uncle J was real. It had to be something else. But what? Did they know uncle J? The though surprised her, but she thought it was possible. And if they did know him, they must’ve known his real name. That made sense. What was it again?

     No matter how hard she tried, Aise couldn’t remember what uncle J had said his name was, all those years ago. She thought it was strange that she could remember every lesson uncle J had taught her on how to sail the skiff and not his name.

     Aislin sighed and rolled over. This wasn’t helping at all. Aise shut her eyes tight and willed herself to fall asleep, but only when she began humming the soothing lullaby to herself did she actually feel sleepy. Just when she was beginning to fall asleep, she heard voices downstairs from her bedroom door. Mother and father were talking.

     She sighed again. It had been a long day today, and something told her it would be a long day tomorrow, too. As she began to fall asleep, she wondered. What would mother and father say when they saw uncle J?