Panting the words out, Jeremy said, “I’m done.”

“No,” Rafe said. “No. I can keep going.”

Jeremy shook his head no again.

“Dammit, Jay.” Rafe groaned, rubbing his face. “Don’t give up. This can’t be the end. I won’t let it be the end of us. We just found each other again.”

Resigned, Jeremy lifted his hand and touched Rafe’s face.

“Go back to Shanandoah without me,” Jeremy said. “Promise me.”

“No, no…I won’t go anywhere without you.”

Jeremy gave a tired smile. “Born to be a prince.”

Aurora landed on a branch above their heads, looked down with her bright black eyes. Even she seemed to have given up. Rafe wished he could order Jeremy to live again, to fly, the way he’d ordered the robin. If only the world could obey him, but no, only birds. Yet Aurora was no ordinary crow.

“Aurora,” Rafe said. “We need help. Go find help if there’s anyone who can help us.”

She spread her wings and flew off into the Ghost Town wilds.

“It’s going to be all right,” Rafe said. “Aurora’s getting help.”

“Remember the first time…we were here…” Jeremy said, taking pained, shallow breaths after each few words. “You and Skya had a horse race…I was the prize.”

Rafe laughed through tears. “I remember.”

“Still wonder…what she would’ve…done with me…if she’d won.”

“I asked her. She said she needed you to hang pictures in her room and clean out her closet.”

“Glad…you won.”

Jeremy’s eyes suddenly widened. For one brief moment, Rafe thought he was gone, and in that split second his heart died.

“No, Jay…”

Something moved in the mists.

Rafe turned his head, saw the shadow moving closer, closer…He reached for his bow, his quiver. He would kill anything that came near them. But Jeremy touched his hand, telling him without words to stand down.

Why? Was Jeremy ready to die? If that’s what he wanted, then they would die here together.

The shadow on the path drew closer. The darkness slowly took form.

Aurora landed on the ground next to them.

The mists swirled, then parted, and Rafe heard heavy steel-toed work boots on the path.

Work boots.

Rafe looked up.

“Dad?”

Without a word, his father went down on one knee and reached out for Jeremy.

“Don’t,” Rafe said, moving in front of Jeremy. “Don’t touch him.”

His father looked at him, held up his hands.

Jeremy said, “Let him. Last chance.”

His last chance or his father’s last chance? Both. And Rafe’s last chance too.

Rafe looked up at his father, then nodded. His dad reached out again, gathered Jeremy in his strong arms, and lifted him up. He stood up and started off into the mists, down the path, his pace steady and unflagging.

Behind them, Rafe watched in quiet awe as the father who’d once beaten him bloody for drawing too many pictures of Jeremy now carried his lover through this evil world to safety.

Finally, a light. It was weak, diffuse in the fog. As they got closer, it grew bright, sharper, golden as the sun. They made it to another arched doorway, and outside the door stood a miniature forest.

Gently, his father put Jeremy on his feet. Rafe held him with both arms and guided him through the doorway.

Passing through this time was easier. In a few steps, they were out. Rafe lowered Jeremy to the ground outside the tree on the hill. He looked at his father, who was little more than a shadow in the hollow of the trunk.

“Dad, come on.”

But his father only shook his head.

As if it took the very last of his strength, his father opened his mouth. Rafe knew what he would say, that he would ask if Rafe forgave him. This time he would say yes.

But his father only said, “Don’t be like me.”

Rafe said, “I’m not.”

There were no trumpets sounding or angels singing. In the quiet of the morning, Rafe’s father disappeared before his eyes. He didn’t turn into a cold gray corpse or a puff of smoke. He transformed into a robin.

“Fly away,” Rafe said. “The sky’s waiting.”

The robin spread his small gray wings. Aurora cawed at him, and together the two birds flew toward the sunrise.

No time to mourn again. Frantic, Rafe looked around, saw the pack he and Jeremy had dropped when they passed through the tree. Rafe dug into the pocket.

There it was, the old Nokia phone his mother had given him. And it still had a little charge left.

Rafe called 911, told them where to meet them.

They rested a moment. Rafe held Jeremy to his chest. He watched as the light from inside the hollow of the strange tree flickered like a candle, then died.