A break in the tree cover let sunlight spill onto the forest floor like a window. And in that window of light, Sunny and Freddy drank water from the Goblin Falls.

“Lads!” Jeremy called out. The horses raised their golden and red heads, then galloped toward them, hooves clopping on the stony path.

Rafe and Jeremy stroked the long necks of their horses, ran their fingers through the thick manes. They were real.

“Missed us, did you, lads?” Jeremy asked. “We missed you too, you mangy beasts.”

“How?” Rafe said, laughing. Sunny whinnied softly as he demanded more scratches on his head. Already Rafe was plotting logistics. Where to board them until he could build the stables, where to get a horse trailer, what to tell his mother…

“Skya did tell us the door’s only locked from the inside,” Jeremy said. “We can’t go back, but they can leave, remember?”

Rafe’s fingers felt something tucked under Sunny’s saddle. A small square of paper. He unfolded it, read it, passed it to Jeremy, who read it aloud.

“Dear Rafe and Jeremy, Your lads missed you too much, so I’m sending them to you. By the way, when I said I would see you again, I meant it. The secret the mermaid told me was this…A day will come when we will eat Golden Apple Christmas Cake together as snow falls on Halfmoon Hill and on that same night, I will—”

Jeremy looked up sharply at him.

“I will dance at your wedding.” He read the rest of the note quickly. “She said I wasn’t allowed to tell you unless I wrote it to you in a letter and sent it far away. I didn’t understand it before but now I do. Until we meet again. Love always, Princess Emilie & the Duke and Duchess of Fritz. P.S. Yes, Fritz finally has a rat friend! I realize this is not particularly important information, especially considering the circumstances, but I wanted to tell you anyway!”

Emilie’s words hung in the air between them. A secret shared from another world. A secret too sweet to keep.

There was a way back. Somehow, somewhere, there was a way. And they would find it together.

Rafe’s heart raced. Jeremy folded the note, then opened it, and read it to himself again.

“It took us fifteen years to go back last time,” Rafe finally said. “So we shouldn’t get—”

“I’m not waiting fifteen years to dance at our wedding.”

They stared at each other, daring each other to deny it. Neither said anything. If they could go back…if the door opened for them one more time…

“Jay, you almost died there.”

“You almost died here.”

It was true. No denying that.

“Don’t you want to eat Golden Apple Christmas Cake?” Jeremy asked.

“Never had it,” Rafe said.

“Me neither. In Shanandoah, it’s only served on Christmas night.”

“It sounds good, though,” Rafe said.

“I’d like to meet Fritz’s girlfriend too.”

They laughed, then fell silent again, mute with joy. Sunny put his chin on Rafe’s shoulder and whinnied softly again as if to say, You know you want to go back…

He did. Rafe did want to eat Golden Apple Christmas Cake. He wanted to eat it with everyone he loved. With Jeremy. With Emilie. With Queen Skya. With his mother, who always loved everyone he loved, which was why she loved Jeremy most of all.

If they could go back…why not take her with them?

“Rafe?”

“You can still find people,” he said. “You still have that gift.”

“Gift. Curse. Why?”

“What if I still have mine?”

“You said it was gone.”

“I didn’t feel anything here, but this door is closed. What if there is another way in?”

He turned a slow circle, as if trying to feel the distant call of magic.

“Anything?”

At first there was nothing, nothing at all but the normal magic of the forest, its beauty and its dangers. But then…when he faced due west, he felt the slightest pull toward something far away. Then it was gone.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Freddy began to stamp his foot in impatience.

“Sorry, lads,” Rafe said. “Okay, let’s focus. You stay with the horses. I’ll run over to Mom’s and borrow a horse trailer from her neighbor.”

Jeremy slipped the note from another world into his wallet next to the torn-apart and taped-up sketch Rafe had made of him so long ago.

“Have you ever driven with a horse trailer?”

“No.”

“Well, I have.”

Rafe glared but only out of habit. “Okay. Just tell Mom…I have no idea. Something.”

“I’ll tell her they were an impulse purchase. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Jeremy kissed him, then patted both horses one more time.

“Back soon,” he promised.

“Don’t get lost,” Rafe said. “That’s an order.”

Jeremy bowed. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Storyteller CornerThe End