Christmas morning was chaos in the best way. Wrapping paper flying, coffee barely staying in mugs, and my son Milo tearing through his Santa jammies with the kind of sugar-fueled energy only a six-year-old can summon.
He was already knee-deep in action figures when he paused at a box wrapped in blue. No tag. No handwriting. Just… sitting there like it didn’t belong.
“Who’s this one from?” he asked, looking up.
I shrugged. “Santa, maybe?”
He hesitated for a second—unusual for Milo—and then started peeling the paper.
Inside was a red and blue Superhero HQ playset. Big, loud, covered in characters he loved. He gasped and smiled, like he knew it was coming. Like he’d been waiting for it.
But here’s the thing—I hadn’t bought it. My husband, Greg, hadn’t bought it either. We both looked at each other with a mix of confusion and concern.
“I didn’t order this,” Greg said, shaking his head. “Did you?”
“No,” I replied, my heart suddenly racing. “No, I didn’t. Maybe it’s a mistake?”
Milo, on the other hand, was too thrilled to notice the tension in the room. He was already trying to set up the playset, lost in the excitement of the toy’s buttons and lights. But before I could fully digest what was happening, my attention snapped back to the gift.
Milo picked up the little instruction booklet that came with it and turned it around in his hands. Then, with a furrowed brow, he glanced up at us.
“How do you know about… Jax?” he asked, pointing at the name scribbled in the corner of the manual, the same name that wasn’t anywhere near our usual circle of friends or family. “How does Santa know Jax?”
Greg and I froze. The name “Jax” was unfamiliar to both of us. I glanced at Greg, my mind scrambling for some logical explanation. Maybe it was just a coincidence—maybe it was a name from a popular cartoon, or a character Milo had mentioned in passing. But the feeling gnawed at me, something in my gut telling me there was more to this than just a misunderstanding.
We both looked back at Milo, who was busy examining the toy further, oblivious to the strange situation unfolding around him.
“Jax?” I repeated, trying to sound casual. “Who’s Jax, buddy?”
He didn’t look up, too focused on his new playset. “Jax is my friend. We play together at school. He told me this is what I wanted.”
I felt a chill spread through me. “You play with a boy named Jax at school?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
Milo finally looked up at me, his expression innocent. “Yeah, Jax is in my class. He’s my best friend.”
“But… we’ve never heard you talk about Jax before,” I said, glancing at Greg for support.
Milo just shrugged. “He’s new. I like him. He’s fun.”
Greg and I exchanged a glance. My mind was racing. We didn’t have a “Jax” in the family, nor had we heard of any other kids named Jax in Milo’s school. We hadn’t even met any of his new friends from class this year, and it was odd that this boy, this Jax, had never come up before.
I tried to push the worry aside. Maybe it was just a random coincidence, a name in the playset’s manual. But the more I thought about it, the stranger the situation seemed.
As the morning went on and the chaos of Christmas continued—Milo bouncing from one toy to the next, Greg laughing at his over-the-top excitement—I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.
Later that evening, after Milo was tucked in bed, I sat down with Greg on the couch. We both stared at the half-open box that still lay on the floor, the playset still shining in the corner of the living room.
“Something’s going on,” I said quietly.
Greg sighed. “I know. I can’t shake this feeling either.”
We had never heard Milo mention Jax before, and there was something unsettling about the whole situation. I reached for my phone and pulled up the school’s contact list. Maybe I could figure out if any other parents had kids named Jax. It couldn’t hurt to ask, right?
After a few minutes of scrolling, I found the class list. There was no “Jax” in the roster.
“What are the odds of that?” Greg muttered under his breath, rubbing his forehead. “We’ve never heard of him, and now this random gift shows up with the name Jax on it?”
I nodded slowly. “It doesn’t make sense. And what did Milo mean when he said Jax told him what he wanted for Christmas?”
It was a strange thing for a six-year-old to say—how could Jax, a child he’d only just met, know exactly what toy Milo would love?
I turned to Greg. “Do you think this has anything to do with… with the strange letters I’ve been getting lately?”
Greg raised an eyebrow. “Letters?”
I hadn’t mentioned them to him yet, mostly because I hadn’t known what to make of them. Over the past few months, I’d been receiving odd, anonymous letters in the mail—letters with no return address, just a cryptic message written in neat handwriting. The letters were all vague, but each one seemed to know something about our family, something private. It made me uncomfortable.
I had thought about throwing them away. But the last letter had mentioned “gifts arriving unexpectedly” and “a surprise waiting for us.”
Greg stared at me, now fully concerned. “Wait… you think this is connected to those letters?”
“I don’t know, but it feels like it,” I replied. “I can’t explain it, but this doesn’t feel like a coincidence.”
The next day, I called the school. The secretary confirmed that there was no child named Jax in Milo’s class. In fact, no student had that name registered at all. My heart skipped a beat. If Milo was talking about someone who wasn’t even there, who was he talking about?
It wasn’t long after that I received another letter. This one had no return address, but it contained just one simple phrase:
“Jax will guide you.”
My blood ran cold. I stared at the words for a long time, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. Who was sending these letters? And how did they know about Milo’s “friend” Jax?
I decided to reach out to some of the other parents in the neighborhood, asking if they knew of anyone with the name “Jax.” After a few conversations, one of the parents mentioned something that made my heart race.
“There’s a family that moved in a few weeks ago,” she said. “The mom’s a bit… different. She’s into some pretty odd things, but her son, he’s got a unique name—Jax. He’s never really been around, but I’ve seen him walking with Milo a few times.”
I felt my chest tighten. A boy named Jax had been hanging out with Milo?
The next day, I went to the address she’d given me and knocked on the door. A woman with dark hair and a distant expression opened it. Her eyes were heavy, as if she hadn’t slept in days.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice low.
“I’m… I’m Milo’s mom,” I said, unsure of how to start. “I was wondering if your son, Jax, is… friends with my son?”
Her face tightened, and for a moment, there was a flicker of something in her eyes—something I couldn’t quite place. She took a step back, then glanced over her shoulder, almost as if she was checking for something—or someone.
“I don’t have a son named Jax,” she said, her voice cold. “You’ve got the wrong address.”
And then, she shut the door.
I stood there for a moment, stunned. Had I imagined everything? Had Milo made up Jax, or was there something bigger happening? I walked back to my car, my head spinning.
Later that evening, as I tucked Milo into bed, he looked up at me with those bright eyes of his and said, “Jax says you’ll be okay, Mom. Don’t worry. I’m always here.”
I kissed his forehead, the strange connection to Jax still haunting my thoughts.
And that’s when it clicked.
There was no Jax. There was never a Jax.
Jax, it turned out, was an old family friend—a ghost from the past. A karmic twist, if you will. The letters had been written by the spirit of my brother, who had tragically passed away years ago but had always been watching over us. Jax was the manifestation of his love and guidance for Milo, a way for him to reach out and say everything would be okay.
I don’t fully understand it, but sometimes, life’s mysteries are bigger than we can ever grasp. What matters is knowing that we’re never truly alone.
If you’re reading this and feeling lost, remember: love and guidance come in many forms. Keep your heart open.
And if this story resonated with you, please share it. Let’s remind each other that sometimes, we’re guided by forces we don’t fully understand, and that’s okay.
