Apparently, we had invited an alien to our house.

Our parents didn’t know, of course. It had been easy to convince them to be charitable and let a traveler crash in our storage room as soon as I explained that he was “different” like us, and the only one in his family so he couldn’t find a place to belong. On the other hand, we decided not to tell them that he came from a different world, a place in which Earth was considered to be huge, ignorant, and mysterious. According to our guest’s explanations, the “enlightened” people avoided this world for both our good and their own safety, while the “unaware” were still unable to travel between words. Therefore, visits happened just by accident, and usually got someone hurt (the alien, most likely) or had indirect consequences to another world—for better or for worse.

My parents would never believe any of that.

I wasn’t totally sure myself. He could just be crazy, or lying to us about all those things. Having enhanced healing didn’t mean  he was an alien. Our family had telekinesis and we weren’t aliens. Even if my brother was considering that possibility.

He mentioned it two days after we met Fransic, as we sat at the floor of our living room surrounded by school supplies and books, one of which he had read for about five minutes.

“You know, that would explain why we can move and feel things without touching them. Someone in our bloodline was from a planet where that is normal. Forever ago, obviously, because Dad says it has always been in the family. Maybe that’s why we’ve never met anyone like us, because there are none. Not here.”

Decklan’s theory wasn’t so absurd, but it was an absurd moment to mention it, because we were in the middle of studying.

Worse than that: Fransic stopped watching at the TV and was already opening his mouth to answer.

“Could you focus?” I snapped, before this became another long conversation about the universe. “What part of the textbook you’re supposedly reading is about super powers or aliens?”

“All of it is about genetics,” my twin said, rolling his eyes. Then, with renewed enthusiasm, he leaned over the table and turned the book so I could read it. “See here? If we come from a planet where everyone is… No wait, are those worlds? Yes, the planets are bigger, right?”

“Bigger. Interesting way of saying it,” Fransic commented.

It was a perfectly ordinary way of saying it, in my opinion. According to what he had told us about the universe, most planets contained different worlds, each of them existing in one of the different dimensions that people in his world called layers.

“Okay. World,” my brother continued. “So, yes, this person from another world is our ancestor, right? And if they are telekinetic, like, if it’s a dominant trait, then maybe that’s why we have that ability and nothing else from them.”

I did my best to keep my eyes on my notebook and  study cards. “Does that book say that those rules apply to aliens? No? That’s because we are not studying for a test about alien genetics.”

Decklan groaned and went back to reading. Or at least he pretended to read. Now his theories wouldn’t distract me from studying but that  wouldn’t help with his test. I couldn’t be happy with that. What if he failed? At least I knew that he learned fast once he was focused on studying—which not many people knew because he almost never did.

I knew we could do it, but we needed to put more effort. We needed to learn everything we had access to, because it was quite limited. I wanted to remind him of our circumstances, to blackmail him into actually reading the book and using that intelligence he kept misplacing. But the idea of manipulating him to do such things was horrible. I had always known that it was impossible to have him sit and read quietly, and it was me who told the teachers to leave him alone when they were pushing too hard. It was me who convinced our mother that he wouldn’t do any worse in school if he joined the town’s basketball team. If it was me demanding impossible things from him, he wouldn’t have anyone on his side.

So, as soon as he started with his show of reading, I forced myself to go back to work on the cards with bones names. Technically I wasn’t being selfish, he would use them too. Actually, only he would use them. I always learned more when I was doing the material than I did during the study sessions that came later. And he learned better when he didn’t have to deal with a whole block of text.

So this was good for us both. And, if he was bored enough by staring at the page, he would eventually focus on the text just to do something. Once he was reading, it was a matter of time before he found something that picked his interest, so I decided that this was fine.

I was forgetting the alien in the room, who had gone quiet as I lectured my sibling but hadn’t stopped looking at us.

“When you say that you didn’t inherit other things, do you mean other abilities, or the greenish skin and enormous eyes you mentioned the first time I told you that I was from another world?”

Despite his strange habit of following us around and the depressing sight he was when he stared at nothing with a frown, Fransic was easy to forget because he was very quiet. But then he would suddenly talk and it was always the right thing to say. Not now. Right now, nothing was the right thing to say, because Decklan was too easy to distract.

Of course he closed the book and let himself be dragged away from studying. “Uh… well, you said no one out there really has green skin. But yes, things that look odd.”

“Nothing looks odd in Laku because there are a lot of different things and people. Maybe we don’t have… what do you call those traits that everyone in a race has?”

“Dominant traits? It isn't that everyone has them though.”

“How is it, then?” Fransic asked.

“Well…” Decklan started to answer but then decided to change the approach. “Wait. Let me try to start from the beginning.”

He did. And when he was done explaining about genes and alleles and a whole spy movie plot about how recessive alleles hid until they had backup to take over, he went on until he had explained what we had learned about genetics at school, and then described the books I had narrated to him. When he said something that was totally wrong, I didn’t point it out because he did that pause he always did when he knew he had said something absurd.

“That can’t be right.” Decklan shook his head. “Wait. I’m sure it said something like that, but not that.”

And with that, he went back to reading. No. Now he was hunting for answers.

Apparently, there was a right thing to say when my brother couldn’t bring himself to study.

It was great that he had found a relation between the book and the new dangerous ideas in his mind. As long as he didn’t decide that he should go explore the universe to search for alien relatives. 

He devoured that book in a day. Then he read it again.

Right after, he wanted others… on the same topic. Since I couldn't find a way to convince him to keep preparing for medical school instead of taking a speciality in genetics, I resorted to a desperate tactic to distract him from his current obsession.

I asked him where our cat was.

I really didn’t know. Sunset would go from sleepy to curious and back in a second, just like every other cat—and my twin—and he could also spend hours napping or stalking a prey. Decklan could spend the same time just watching him do so.

Our  parents would use that trick to get themselves a break when my brother was being too much and I wasn’t around, but this was the first time I had to resort to that tactic. It felt like failure but I was just buying time.

If I was lucky, he would forget about genetics. But I had the feeling that it wouldn’t be so easy this time. I needed to give him a reason to be interested in the rest of the things we needed to learn. I’d come up with something while he observed our cat, and he would be open to listen to something new now that he wasn’t so focused on genetics.

With the sense of touch that worked side by side with telekinesis, I noticed how Sunset tensed. It was funny, how he could look like he was resting, if you didn’t know a thing about cats. He was ready to pounce at some innocent bird in our yard.

Suddenly it hit me. That night, I had witnessed Fransic doing exactly that: being both relaxed and tense, like a cat waiting for the right moment to attack. No wonder Decklan had been spooked then. I had been puzzled by it, but he had recognized the signals.

I felt the need to wave that information in front of my mom’s eyes. Not the part about Fransic, but how Decklan had read his behavior. There were also a few teachers that would have a hard time believing the level of attention my brother could have, but they didn’t deserve to know, no matter how brilliant they were when they taught me. As for my dad… he wouldn’t believe it either, but he didn’t judge my brother so harshly, maybe because he wasn’t home most of the time so he saw the fun side of things that mom usually worried about.

Now that I had finally understood the signs that the alien had shown that day, I was thinking about his fear too. I could only imagine how much he had gone through before ending up where we had found him. Had he thought that we were allies of whoever had done that to him? Or was something else making him unable to trust in anyone?

I could only wonder.

Because I understood the concept of privacy.

“Why were you scared of us, Fransic?” my brother asked, from the place of the floor where he was lying while he watched Sunset hunting crickets.

He had been remembering that day too.

“It’s a long story. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, but why?”

“He doesn’t wanna tell us, Decko,” I warned.

My brother sighed in disappointment, and our guest gave me a thankful look that made me forget that I had been curious about it too.