Rafe stumbled over to his father, stared down at him.

“We can go,” Jeremy said. “You don’t owe him anything. We can leave right now and never look back.”

But Rafe couldn’t do that. He stepped in front of his father and said, “Dad?”

“Yeah, son?”

“It’s true?”

His father raised his head and Rafe saw in his eyes that it was.

Jeremy said, “I should’ve known. When we were lost in the woods, you got dehydrated so fast. Too fast. Like you were sick with something. If the cuts got infected—”

“He could’ve died,” Skya said. She strode like a soldier toward his father, who knelt with his head bowed, like a condemned man waiting for the ax to fall.

Numb, Rafe listened as his queen told the story he’d never wanted to hear.

“Your son woke up the next morning, his back covered in open wounds, and instead of telling anyone and getting you thrown in jail, he put on two shirts and smiled through the pain. He was so ashamed of you, of what you did to him, he couldn’t even tell his own best friend. I made him tell me, though. He told me and said he never wanted to go home again. The universe listens when a child says he doesn’t want to go home. I listened.”

“I’m sorry,” his father said. “I’m so sorry, I am. You have to believe me.”

Emilie came out and stood by her sister, the book in her hand. She held it out to Rafe, and he started to take it.

“Don’t, son. Please?”

“Why try to stop me now?” Rafe asked. “I know what’s in there.”

“You know but you don’t…you don’t remember. I admit it. I went down to your room to talk to you. I just wanted to talk to you about—”

“About you shredding my pictures of Jeremy?”

“Yes, that. And when I saw you’d taped those pictures back together, I…I lost my mind. I lost control of myself. I lost…I just lost it,” he breathed.

“So it was my fault?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. You said you hated me. You said over and over again how much you hated me and how much you wished you lived with Jeremy and his mother, that they weren’t a bunch of stupid rednecks like me and—”

“And you were forty and I was fourteen.”

His father began to weep.

“I only wanted to protect you, son. I was afraid, afraid if people knew about you boys, they would—”

“Hurt me?” Rafe asked. “Dad, you’re the only person I’ve ever been afraid of.”

Jeremy stood by him, said nothing, but he was a shield, a wall, and Rafe felt safer, stronger just having him by his side.

“You used to let me win,” his father said. “I thought maybe you were gonna let me win again.”

“You’re the one who taught me the secret of archery, remember? Put your heart on the target and aim for your own heart. You put Jeremy there. You made it too easy.”

Skya stepped forward. “You are not a king and never have been,” she said to Rafe’s father. “You are a sad old man afraid of your own son. But when the moment of decision came, you gave your knife to my sister instead of one of your vile army. I grant you one final chance to mend what you tore to pieces. If you succeed, your soul will lighten. You may grow wings and fly from this place into the blue sky. Whether you find hawks or Heaven is not up to me. But I can say this: if you fail you will never feel the sun on your face again.”

If he hadn’t believed Skya was a queen before, Rafe believed it now.

To this speech, his father said nothing, only bowed his head again.

Skya turned to Rafe and smiled.

“My prince,” she said.

“My queen,” he said.

She smiled, and her eyes were the brightest lights to be seen in this dark place.

“You don’t even remember me.”

“I want to, though.”

“I know. I’m not bad, right?” She chucked him under the chin. “Come on, gorgeous. I’m hungry, dirty, and my ass is so wrecked from riding I’m asking for a new one for Christmas.”

Rafe laughed, and it felt like the sun was coming out, if only in his soul. They started to walk away, leaving his father on the ground, alone.

“I remember the day I started teaching you how to shoot arrows,” his father said as they headed toward the path. “You were at the kitchen table, trying to teach yourself how to draw wolves. I said why draw wolves when I could teach you how to hunt them. Don’t you want to go hunting? There’s wolves here, son! We can hunt wolves together!”

“You want me to punch him again?” Jeremy asked.

Rafe said, “No.”

“Son? Ralph?” his father called out. Rafe kept walking. “Rafe?”

Rafe didn’t look back.

Storyteller CornerReunion

Leaving the Ghost Town is like waking from a nightmare into your sweetest dream. No matter what horrors you left behind you, your spirit will sing. The joy of returning to the light of Shanandoah was eclipsed only by the happiness of being reunited. Jeremy and Rafe? Goes without saying they were beyond glad to see each other in the sunlight. Emilie and Skya too. But perhaps the sweetest, tenderest reunion was between Skya and Jeremy. Emilie and Skya had only met, had only just begun to know and treasure each other as sisters. And Rafe, of course, didn’t remember Skya. But Jeremy did remember his queen, and she remembered her knight. Once they were safely out of the Ghost Town, Jeremy picked her up and spun her in his arms, which the queen allowed for approximately two seconds.

“Put me down, knave,” she ordered. “This is conduct unbecoming a knight.”

Jeremy set her down on her feet. “My insincerest apologies, my queen.” Then he bowed deeply. When he stood up again, she groaned.

“Oh no. You got tall,” she said. She looked at Rafe. “My prince, I told you not to let him get taller than me. How could you let this happen?”

Rafe only shrugged. “Like he listens to me.”

(At this point, Jeremy may or may not have kissed the top of her head to rub it in, and she may or may not have retaliated by pinching him on the ass. Both parties deny this interaction ever took place, though eye-witnesses confirm it.)