Everything seemed normal raising our tripletsuntil one of them started saying things no seven-year-old should know.
We raised them the same way, but one day, one of them began speaking about things no child their age could possibly understand.
From the start, people joked wed never tell them apart. So we gave them bow ties: blue, red, and mint green. Three identical boys with matching scuffed knees, their own secret language, and the uncanny habit of finishing each others sentences. It felt like raising one soul split across three bodies.
Then Elithe one in mint greenstarted waking up in tears. Not from nightmares. From what he called memories.
Do you remember the old house with the red door? he asked one morning.
We didnt. Our house had never had a red door.
Why dont we see Mrs. Langley anymore? She always gave me sherbet lemons.
We didnt know anyone by that name.
Then came the night he whispered, I miss Dads green Roverthe one with the dented bumper.
Wed never owned a Rover.
At first, we laughed it off as childish imagination. But Elis tone wasnt playful. He spoke with quiet certainty, as if recalling his own past.
Soon, he started drawing. Page after page of the same place: a house with a red door, tulips in the garden, ivy crawling up the chimney. His brothers thought it was well cool. Eli just looked sad, like hed lost something precious.
One day, while rummaging through boxes in the garage, he asked for his old cricket glove.
You dont play cricket, mate, I told him.
Yes, I did, he said softly. Before the fall. He touched the back of his head.
We took him to a doctor. The paediatrician referred us to a psychologist. Dr. Berger listened carefully and said Elis memories werent ordinary imagination. Some call them past-life recollections, she explained. Controversial, yesbut very real to the child.
I didnt want to believe it. But then Dr. Lynn, a researcher, asked Eli during a video call:
What was your name before?
Danny, he said. Danny Carter… or was it Carter? I lived in York. In the house with the red door.
He described falling off a ladder while taking down a flag. A head injury. Pain. Darkness.
Days later, Dr. Lynn called us. Shed found a case file: Daniel Carter, York. Died in 1987, aged seven. Skull fracture from a ladder fall.
The photo she sent nearly stopped my heart. The boy looked like Eli. Same freckles. Same eyes.
After that, Eli seemed calmer, as if closing a chapter. The drawings stopped. The strange memories faded. He went back to playing with his brothers, laughing like before.
But then a letter arrived. No return address. Inside: a photo of a house with a red door, tulips in the garden, ivy climbing the chimney. A shaky signature at the bottom: Thought youd like to see this. Mrs. Langley
Wed never told anyone about Mrs. Langley. Except Eli. And Dr. Lynnwhod since vanished without a trace.
Years later, when Eli was fifteen, I found a shoebox under his bed. Inside: a single marble, blue with green swirls. At the bottom was a note in childlike handwriting: For Elifrom Danny. You found it.
When I asked where it came from, he just smiled.
Some things dont need explaining, Dad.
I still dont know if I believe in past lives. But I believe in Eli. In the quiet wisdom he carries, the understanding beyond his years, and the way he sometimes looks at the skylike hes remembering something far away.
Children come with their own stories. Sometimes, those stories arent ours to understand. Just to hold.
