Family gatherings are always a little chaotic for us—kids running wild, casseroles burning, someone losing their phone every five minutes. But the second my Uncle Renard walks in, hat slightly crooked and eyes twinkling, the whole room shifts. Suddenly, everyone’s fighting for a seat near him, waiting to hear what he’s got for us this time.
You never know what it’ll be. Last summer, he claimed he met a retired circus juggler on a train and accidentally ended up in a town fair pie-eating contest. The time before that, he told us about the years he spent teaching English in Morocco, describing market smells so vividly you’d swear you were there. Sometimes it’s wild, like chasing goats off his porch, and sometimes it’s simple, like the day he found his old watch at a garage sale—forty years after he lost it.
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He always tells his stories slow, pausing just long enough for us to wonder if he’s pulling our leg, but never breaking character. Even the littlest kids sit quietly, wide-eyed, half-believing every word. Honestly, so do most of the grownups.
It’s not just the stories themselves that draw us in, though. It’s the way Uncle Renard tells them—like he’s painting a picture, each sentence carefully chosen, and every gesture exaggerated just enough to make us lean forward. His laugh is infectious, his voice deep and warm, and even when he’s telling a tale that seems impossible, he has a way of making us believe in it. For a while, you forget that he’s just a man, and for those few moments, he’s the hero of every story.
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I’ve always admired him for that. He’s like the character in a book you can’t put down, the one you’ll keep reading even when you know the ending isn’t going to be what you want. I’ve never met anyone who could make the mundane sound so magical.
But as much as we love hearing his stories, there’s one thing none of us can ever quite figure out: why does Uncle Renard always show up with a new story? Every. Single. Time. At first, we thought it was just his way of entertaining us. But eventually, it started to feel… odd. Like the stories had an agenda of their own.
It was last Thanksgiving that something in his behavior really started to click into place. It was the first time I’d seen him in a few months, and something was different. The usual twinkle in his eye was there, but there was a sense of hesitation in his voice. Like he wasn’t sure if he should be telling us the story he was about to tell. But, true to form, he started anyway.
This time, he said he had met a woman in the park. She was older, gray-haired but with a sharp, vibrant energy. They’d struck up a conversation, and somehow, he ended up in a heated debate about the best way to cook beets. He paused, taking a sip of his drink before continuing with a knowing smile.
“What’s strange,” he said slowly, looking around the room as if measuring our reactions, “is that she knew more about me than she should have. Knew things I didn’t even remember telling her.”
The room fell silent. Uncle Renard never seemed the type to make a story feel uncomfortable, but something in his tone made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“What do you mean, Uncle?” my cousin Ellie asked, leaning forward.
“Well,” he began, his voice dropping a little, “she mentioned things about my life that I hadn’t told anyone. Not even you all.” He glanced at each of us, eyes briefly flicking to my mom, then back to the group. “She knew about the time I spent in that little town in the south, about my old van that broke down on the side of the road one winter… She even knew about a song I used to play on my guitar back when I was in college. It’s not like I’ve talked about it in years.”
I could tell everyone was trying to make sense of it, but we all shared the same thought: Who was this woman? And more importantly, why did it feel like Uncle Renard was keeping something from us?
He continued, almost as if he hadn’t noticed the shift in the room. “I asked her how she knew all this, and she just smiled and said, ‘Some things don’t need to be explained, Renard.’”
His face darkened for a moment. The usual easy confidence he carried seemed to slip, just for a second, and that’s when I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t explain it, but there was an odd finality to the way he said those words. It wasn’t a story anymore. It felt like a confession.
Later that evening, when everyone had started to head home, I stayed back. My mom was in the kitchen cleaning up, and I approached Uncle Renard quietly. He was standing by the door, looking out at the darkened street, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Uncle Renard,” I said softly, “is everything okay? That story… it felt different. Like you weren’t just telling a story this time.”
He sighed, turning to face me, his eyes weary. “I wasn’t sure if I should’ve shared it, but I couldn’t help it. It’s just, there’s something about her that doesn’t sit right with me. I’ve been seeing her more often these past few months—just running into her, like it’s not even a coincidence. And every time we talk, she knows something new about me, something no one else would.”
“Who is she?” I asked. “What does she want with you?”
Renard shook his head. “I don’t know. But I think she’s been following me for a long time. Not physically, not in the way you might think, but… in the way she always seems to know what’s happening before it does. I don’t even know if I’m making sense.”
I was about to ask him more, but then, his phone rang. It was the tone he always used for his best friend’s calls, so I took a step back to let him answer it.
I could hear only fragments of the conversation as I lingered by the door. “She found out… No, I’m not ready… Not yet… Yeah, I’ll meet you tomorrow.”
I didn’t understand. Who was he talking to? Why did this conversation feel so off?
Before I could question it further, Uncle Renard hung up, his face pale. He turned to me. “I’m sorry, kid. But there’s something I need to tell you. This woman—her name is Marla. She’s not just some random person I met. She’s been in my life longer than you know. And if I’m being honest, I think she knows more about me than I know about myself.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” I was starting to feel the weight of the situation, like I was standing on the edge of something too big to ignore.
He looked at me seriously, his eyes filled with an emotion I hadn’t seen in him before: fear. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but… I think Marla’s been a part of some kind of plan. She knows things about me—things I shouldn’t know. Things that feel like… like she’s orchestrating events, pushing me into places I’m not supposed to be. I think it’s all connected to the stories, to the way I’ve always told them. She’s been pulling the strings this whole time.”
I took a deep breath. This was bigger than anything I could have imagined. And then it hit me—the twist, the one I never expected.
The next day, we found out that Marla wasn’t just some stranger. She had been part of a group—a secret group of people with the ability to see the future, or so they claimed. And it turned out that Uncle Renard wasn’t just a storyteller. He was part of something larger than we could’ve ever understood. Every story he’d told us, every little detail, had been a part of a bigger puzzle—a puzzle that was finally coming together.
The karmic twist? It wasn’t just that Marla had been influencing his life. It was that Uncle Renard had chosen to tell his stories to us, to protect us from the darker parts of his past, to give us the freedom we needed to live our own lives without being tied to the truth.
And in the end, that’s what saved us all.
Uncle Renard may have been tangled in a web of secrets, but his choice to make us laugh, to share his whimsical stories, had shielded us from the complexities of his world. The greatest gift he ever gave us was the ability to stay grounded, to find joy in the simple things, and to never lose our sense of wonder.
Sometimes, the stories we hear, no matter how unbelievable, are the ones that help us find our way.
So, remember, the next time someone shares a tale with you, no matter how far-fetched it may seem, listen closely. You never know how it might be protecting you in ways you can’t even imagine.
If you enjoyed this, share it with someone who might need a little magic in their life.
