“I don’t want to hit your bruise.”

“I think it’s better.”

Rafe sat up, then lifted Jeremy’s shirt. The bruise had turned purple.

“It’s not better.” Rafe winced.

“Badge of honor.”

That’s not what Jeremy had called it before. What had he called it? The red storm of Jupiter. Rafe made an orbit of it with his fingertips, as if to quiet the storm.

“No excuses,” Rafe said. “I’m sorry.” Before, when Emilie had made him apologize, he hadn’t meant it. Now he did.

“Forgiven. If it makes you feel any better, that night at Brook Haven, I punched your dad.”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“Right hook.” Jeremy raised his fist in a power salute.

Rafe remembered something. “He did have a black eye around that time. He said he slipped on ice in the parking lot and hit his forehead.”

“He hit my fist.”

“Did he hit you first?”

“No. He was bellowing at me, and I couldn’t help myself. I clocked him. I clocked him and said, ‘That was for slapping Rafe.’ ”

Rafe looked at him. He could’ve kissed him for doing that. He almost did. As a joke, of course.

“You did that for me?”

“I’d say yes to get on your good side, but the truth is, I did it for me.” He grinned wickedly. The smile faded and he said, “I used to ‘look’ for you in my mind all the time. This gift I have? I could sense where you were. I did that more often than I should admit.”

“Thought you could only use it to find lost people.”

“You didn’t remember this world, but deep down you knew you belonged here. I think you were lost without this place. Admit it. Don’t you feel you belong here?”

He did. But was it because he was in Shanandoah or because he was with Jeremy?

Granny rapped on the door. “I hear talking! I need to hear snoring!”

“Yes, Granny!” they called out. He and Jeremy met eyes and laughed as silently as they could. Jeremy put his finger over his lips.

Rafe moved closer, laid down again on Jeremy’s chest.

“Your heart is going really fast. You okay?” he asked in a whisper.

“I’m good,” Jeremy said. “I’m perfect.”

In seconds, they fell asleep. They woke midmorning and Granny was waiting for them with breakfast. Bread and fresh butter, hot tea, eggs, and cheese. Ravenous, they ate without speaking and didn’t hear the door open and close again until a basket of apples landed on the table.

They looked up at Granny, forks suspended in midair.

“You’re going into the Ghost Town, you need apples,” she said.

“We need…apples?” Jeremy said. “Fiber?”

“Eat one,” she said. Rafe picked an apple out of her woven basket and took a bite. “You taste that?”

“It’s good,” he said. “Delicious. They taste like…”

“Light,” she said. “These are Golden Sun apples. They are full of sunlight. So much sunlight they turn the color of the sun. Where you’re going, there’s no sunlight. No good light. You take the light with you.”

Rafe took another bite. The taste was so familiar.

Why could his hands remember this world when he painted or carved something? Why could his body remember how to ride horses and his tongue remember the taste of the golden apples, but his mind couldn’t remember a single moment he’d spent in this world with Jeremy?

“You’re a prince. You’re a knight,” Granny said. “In the Ghost Town, you both are dinner. If you don’t want to be eaten alive, you’ll do what I say.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rafe said. Jeremy silently nodded.

“Take these. You keep the apples until you need them. You stay together, because if you get separated, you may never find each other again. Or worse, you’ll think you’ve found each other, but you won’t like what you’ve found. Stay together. Say that to me.”

They looked at each other, then repeated, “Stay together.”

“That place casts a dark spell. Don’t think you can’t fall for it. Anyone can fall for it. If one of you sees the other begin to fall, do whatever it takes to snap him out of it. Better to lose a hand or an eye than your whole soul to that place. Do whatever it takes. Say it.”

“We’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Good,” she said. “Watch for sleeper spiders. They live there too. And the Bright Boys are at their strongest in that blighted place. Only dunking in water can kill them for good, but there’s no water in that place, so there they are truly immortal. Worse, they can and will trick you. Everything will try to trick you. Don’t be fooled. Don’t believe your eyes. Say it to each other.”

“Don’t believe your eyes,” they repeated.

“The Ghost Town changes form, changes name. I don’t know who or what you’ll find there, but whatever it is, it’ll haunt you if you let it. Don’t let it. The ghosts can’t die, but they can kill you, so they have the high ground. Don’t trust your eyes. Trust your heart. You have hearts, and they don’t, so there, you have the high ground. Now go. The sooner you get in, the sooner you get out. If you get out. Now promise me you’ll get out. Say it.”

“We promise,” they said again.

“Tricked you,” she said. “That’s not a promise you can make.”

With that terrifying statement, she left them alone. Rafe looked at Jeremy across the table.

“Now I’m scared,” Rafe said. “You?”

“Scared shitless and witless.”

Rafe finished his apple with one more bite. If he died in the Ghost Town, at least he’d go out with the taste of Shanandoah sunlight on his tongue.

Chapter Twenty-Six