“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.)
Then Jeremy and Skya dropped the act and held each other for a long time. Not long enough to make up for fifteen years but close enough.
Chapter Thirty-Four
They arrived back at the palace late in the afternoon. Emilie gazed in awe at the towers, the turrets, the horses in the fields and paddocks, the endless beauty.
“Like it?” Skya asked.
“That’s your house?”
“Palace. The Moonstone Palace. And it’s not mine, it’s ours.”
Emilie liked the sound of that. Not the palace, though it was spectacular. Ours. She liked the sound of ours because ours sounded like she had a family again.
“Just please tell me it has hot running water. One of the Bright Boys coughed on me. It was like Satan’s gravy.”
“We have hot running water,” Skya promised. “And very, very soft towels.”
Emilie was taken to a large room, all marble and tile, with a pool that filled itself continually from a central fountain. The hot spring water soothed her sore muscles, and by the time she got out, she felt reborn. And the towels were, in fact, very, very soft, so soft that Fritz fell asleep in them.
After her bath, Winter gave her clothes to wear—a white linen tunic, a warm vest, soft brown leggings, and boots. They fit perfectly, like they were made for her. On the way up to her room, Winter pointed out the kitchens, the armory, the aviary, and the way to Rafe’s and Jeremy’s rooms.
“Where are they anyway?” Emilie asked Winter.
“The queen is punishing them for defying her orders and going to the Ghost Town after she told them to stay in the palace.”
“What’s the punishment?”
“She let them choose between beheading or being sent to their rooms without dinner.”
“Oh,” Emilie said. “Which one did they pick?”
Emilie’s bedroom was in the south turret. She knew it was hers because on the arched oak door someone had put up a sign that read The Princess Suite.
“You all just put this together for me?” Emilie asked.
“You’ve had a room here forever, Princess,” Winter said. “The day after our prince and our knight left us, she began making up this room for you. She wanted it perfect by the time you arrived.”
Emilie touched the sign, the white letters painted so carefully on the black wood.
“She missed me that much?”
“That much and more.”
Slowly, Emilie opened the door. The room was round because she was in the turret. She turned a circle to take it all in…the large canopy bed, a herd of leaping racing chasing unicorns carved into the wooden headboard…with pale blue and silver curtains surrounding it…a wide balcony that looked out on the faraway mountains…
“We have this for your friend, Princess.”
Winter whipped away a velvet cloth, revealing a gilded cage, five feet high and round as the castle tower. A spiral staircase led through tunnels. Ropes and toys and a silver food and water dish, rat-size.
“A rat palace,” Emilie said. “Look, Fritz. This is for you.” She took Fritz out of his fuzzy bath towel and let him loose in his new home. He immediately ran up and down the staircase, ate some berries, drank some water, used his litter, and collapsed into his nest to sleep.
“Good idea, buddy,” she said. “Let’s all eat, crap, and sleep. In that order.”
“All your clothes are in here,” Winter said, opening a wardrobe door. “Everything should fit you.”
“How?” Emilie asked. “I just got here. And Skya’s taller than me.”
“That’s how it works. It’s in our story.”
