After several more days in the hospital, Hanna was finally cleared to return home, much to her family’s excitement. Her parents had arrived in New Hope the day after the kidnapping and she was a little uncomfortable at how much Mom cried. Dad chatted nervously about everything they’d gone through ten years earlier with her first kidnapping, so much so that it started to annoy her.
Carly was waiting at the house when she came home via police car, courtesy of Owen. He and Gram spoke a lot during her stay in the hospital. Slowly, she began to understand who they were and why Owen had been asked to come and watch over her, especially after Billy Hertz made parole.
With Billy and Bjorn Hertz both dead, Maryanne had a mental breakdown—though Hanna didn’t think she’d been very stable to begin with—and was taken to the Western State Psychiatric Hospital to be evaluated. Owen reassured Hanna that she would never see Maryanne again, since she would be found incompetent to stand trial, but she didn’t care. She never wanted to think of Maryanne Hertz or her brothers again.
She smiled and talked to everyone who was at her house for her homecoming. Family, friends from school, neighbors, and work friends all came to welcome her home, and while she’d doubted their intentions before, she was touched now. She truly felt loved and accepted by a community that had come together to make her childhood as normal as possible. She even got choked up when she first stepped into the house, which was decorated with white and yellow balloons and streamers. It was a wonderful party, but her joy to be alive and home, surrounded by friends and family, was only half of her. The other half had already gone.
She hadn’t heard from William or his father since she’d seen them in the hospital. It was as if they’d just disappeared, and no one seemed interested in talking about it since the police discovered that Maryanne had planned the school’s explosion. The Hertzes were who everyone was talking about these days—the Vanns had simply slipped into obscurity.
“So?” Carly said quietly as they sat on the back porch. The party had died down considerably, and the warmth of the spring sun was beginning to wane. “Are you going to go to prom?”
Carly was smiling her “I’ve-got-something-to-tell-you” smile.
“No, are you?” she played along.
“Yes,” she said proudly. “Troy asked me.”
“Lucky you,” she replied, not about to tell her best friend that her boyfriend had asked her to prom first. “But I don’t think I’m up to it.”
“Are you sure? I think some normal high school activity would be good for you.”
She smiled, grateful to have such a good friend.
“You could probably go stag if you don’t want to go with anyone. Plus, we’re going to the lake afterward for the weekend. It’ll be fun.”
“I’m sure it will be,” she said. The thought of seeing her entire class looking at her while she walked into prom made her a little uneasy. “But I’ll be fine.”
“Well, let me know if you change your mind,” Carly said, standing up. “It starts at eight next Friday night, so you have some time to decide.”
Hanna stood up and hugged Carly.
“Thanks, Carly,” she said. “I’ll definitely come over and see your dress before you go.”
“All right. Bye, girl,” Carly said as she made her way back into the house.
“Bye,” she said, sitting back down.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the sliding door open and close behind her. Owen appeared at her side and she looked up, startled.
“Hey, kid,” he said, taking Carly’s empty seat. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” she answered.
“How is it seeing your parents?” he asked, nodding inside the house.
Hanna turned around and saw her mother chatting with Mrs. Hines while her father spoke with Grandpa. They seemed more relaxed than she ever remembered seeing them.
“They want me to go with them this summer, on an expedition off the coast of South Africa,” she admitted. “Something about the feeding habits of the great white shark.”
“That sounds like it could be interesting,” Owen said. “Are you going to go?”
“I don’t know,” she said absentmindedly.
“You seemed preoccupied,” he said cautiously.
“Have you heard anything from William?” she asked.
Owen looked at his hands.
“They left,” he said quietly. “His father and his lawyers left town a few days ago. The crew is still here, working on the school, but I haven’t heard from William or seen him around. I think he went back to South Carolina.”
She nodded, not sure how to feel. William seemed as determined to avoid her as she was to be with him. Take a hint, she thought sarcastically.
“I guess that makes sense,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry, kid,” he said. “I know you really liked him.”
“I love him,” she said honestly, not really sure why she felt the need to tell Owen. Maybe she thought he would understand better than anyone, especially since William was like them. “Pathetic, right?”
Owen sighed heavily and reached for her hand.
“Maybe a summer off the coast of South Africa would do you some good, kid,” he began. “Clear your head; get out of this place.”
“Yeah, probably,” she said. “It would be nice to get away before college started.”
“Do you know where you’re going yet?”
She didn’t want to tell him that she’d been accepted to a college in Charleston, even though she hadn’t decided yet.
“No, not yet,” she said.
“Well, you better get on that,” he said, standing up. “I’ve got to go, though. I’m doing the graveyard shift tonight.”
As he turned to leave, she stood up and hugged him.
“Thank you, Owen,” she said. “For everything.”
“No problem,” he said with a playful smirk as he opened the sliding glass door.
Soon after he left, the rest of the guests departed. It wasn’t long after that before she retreated to her bedroom and got ready for bed. As she turned off the lights and got under the covers, she heard the door to her bedroom open and footsteps. She turned her light back on and saw her grandmother cautiously walking down the stairs, holding something behind her back.
“Hi Gram, what’s up?” she asked, fighting a yawn. It had been a very exhausting day and sleep was steadily taking over.
“Oh, I just wanted to give you something, sweetheart,” she said, pulling a small book from behind her back. She handed it to Hanna, who recognized it as the little journal she’d found in the attic. “I thought you might like to have this.”
“Is that . . . is that how all of it began?” Hanna asked.
“It’s the very first telling of our story, written well over two hundred years ago, by our ancestor, Ingrid.”
She handed it to Hanna.
“So you did take it from the attic that day. Why?”
“I was afraid that it might spark a memory.” Gram sighed and took a seat on Hanna’s bed. “It was so terrifying after the first time you were kidnapped; we were all so worried that you’d never speak again. We didn’t know what was wrong. Then, when you finally came around and couldn’t remember any of it, well, we all just thought it was best to keep you in the dark. I had hoped to teach you all about our family history for years until then. I’m quite proud of it, and I wanted you to be too, but I was too afraid. We all were . . . . But now that it’s finished, I think you ought to have this. It belongs to you.”
“Thanks Gram, but I can’t read it. It’s in another language.”
Hanna watched as Gram grinned, a twinkle in her eye that she rarely saw.
“Oh, I think I’d give it another go if I were you,” she said as she stood up. “It’s not every day you read your own fairy tale.”
“Owen hates that word,” Hanna said.
“Owen doesn’t like to believe it, but there’s a bit of magic in us. Even though I’m sure he’s seen his fair share of it.”
“Magic?”
Gram gave her a wink and headed up the stairs. Hanna looked down at the book and opened it. The words were still foreign, until she noticed them shaking on the fragile page. Within seconds, the little words began to transform and spell out the story.
“Once upon a time. . .” she whispered to herself.
She settled into bed. In the background, she could hear the wooden feet of chairs being scraped against the floor above her as Gram put the kitchen back to its normal state. She eventually drifted to sleep, her new treasure clutched in her arms.
Hanna spent the majority of the next few days with her parents, going shopping and out to eat. It was nice to hang out with them by herself, and for the first time in years, she felt like a normal teenager. They talked about school and work and traveling to South Africa for the summer. It had always been a daydream of hers to be on a boat, living with her parents in some exotic part of the world for months on end.
After eating at J R Barbecue the Friday of prom, they drove back to the house and were barely in the doorway when the phone rang. Gram passed her the phone.
“It’s Carly,” Gram warned, her eyebrows raised. “She’s panicking about her dress.”
“Oh, Jeez,” she said as she took the phone. “Thanks for the warning.” She placed the receiver to her ear. “Hello?”
“Hanna!” Carly yelled into her ear. “I’m freaking out! When are you getting a new cell? I need you here!”
“Okay, okay, I’ll be over in a few,” she said, hanging up.
“Honey,” Mom began. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea for you to go out alone.”
“It’s fine,” she said, giving her a smile. “I want to.”
“But can’t Carly call someone else?” Dad suggested. “Does she really need you?”
“It’s prom, Dad, and she’s my best friend,” she said, reaching for her keys. “It’ll be fine. I’ll go there, help her out, and come right back. Promise.”
They looked less than convinced.
“Of course,” Gram said, stepping forward after a moment of silence. “Go, have fun with Carly.”
“Thanks,” Hanna said.
“We love you,” Mom said as she walked out of the house.
“Love you all too,” she called behind her, glad to be getting out alone.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love and appreciate her family, but it was getting a little suffocating, being surrounded by them every minute of every day. She hadn’t been out of their sight since her parents arrived at the hospital and that was nearly two weeks ago. She wanted to get back to normal as quickly as possible, and helping Carly calm down from overreacting about something was about as normal as she could imagine.
Of course, she hadn’t felt like her old self in months. Ever since William came into her life, she’d only felt half complete unless he was close to her. Now that he was gone, she could only pretend everything was fine, lest someone thought she was depressed. She’d already made it clear that she didn’t want to talk to a psychologist about her ordeal.
Upon arriving at Carly’s, she found two screaming twins running around the living room while a blurry-eyed Carly held a blue-and-black-striped gown to her chest.
“I can’t believe this!” Carly cried. Her eyes lit up in desperate hope as Hanna walked into the living room. “Hanna! Oh my God, can you sew?”
Uh oh.
“Let me see it,” she said, sidestepping one of the twins. Carly handed it to her. “Where’s the problem?”
“Jake cut the left strap off my dress,” she said loudly as her younger brother stopped running around. His bottom lip trembled when Carly shot him a look. “Don’t even think your crying is going to bug me.”
As if on cue, Jake began to sob and Carly’s mother came stomping out of the hallway.
“Carly!” her mother began. “Stop yelling at Jake!”
“It’s not my fault that he’s a crybaby!” Carly shouted over Jake’s wailing. “He just ruined the most significant night of my adolescent life!”
“Stop overreacting,” her mother said.
“Hanna!” Carly yelled, making Hanna feel almost like a parent.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Let’s go to your room and try and fix it.”
Carly relented, and with a thankful look from Carly’s mother, they retreated to her bedroom. Once alone, she saw the complete damage of the strap, and since it looked unsalvageable, they decided to cut the rest of the fabric off and make it a single-strap dress. With much tucking and pinning, the dress looked wonderful and even slightly more expensive with the new finishing touch.
Troy arrived at Carly’s house an hour later in a limo with the rest of the lacrosse team. Feeling a little out of place, Hanna waved with Carly’s mother and father as the limo drove off into the night. She said goodbye and drove home, trying not to feel terribly sorry for herself since she wasn’t going to prom.
As she pulled into the driveway, she noticed the lights of the house were switched off. She guessed that everyone would pretend to be asleep, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if Carly’s mother called her house to confirm that she was safe and on her way home.
She closed the door to her station wagon and turned to walk up her front steps, but a sound sent chills down to her core and she stopped dead. A wolf’s howl, long and low.
“William,” she whispered, as she heard feet crunching through the gravel behind her. She turned around and blinked.
There he was, standing alone, as if he had never left, dressed in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve flannel shirt. He smiled and she felt her stomach flip.
“Hey,” he said softly as he stopped a few feet away from her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I had some unfinished business here,” he said, his face showing deep concentration before he broke eye contact with her. “I shouldn’t have left like I did. I wasn’t ready or willing to accept what you were saying.”
Hanna kept her distance. She had felt too exposed the last time they met, and she didn’t want to jump first if he was just going to shut her down again.
“So?” she offered.
“So,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. “I want you to know that this might be difficult. At least at first.”
“What will be difficult?” she asked, goading him to say it.
He looked at her, a hint of amusement behind his gaze. She folded her arms and stared back at him. She thought he might not answer, until he inhaled and exhaled loudly.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
Hanna raised her brow and waited.
“I want you to know that us being together might be difficult. Again, at first.”
Hanna could have screamed she was so happy, but she didn’t move. She simply smiled, deciding to play with him a little.
“What makes you think I still want to be difficult with you?”
Whether William knew she was teasing or not, he stepped toward her, so only a few inches separated them. He looked down at her, and she could smell the clean scent of soap on him. She inhaled deeply, admiring the way his dark hair looked so perfectly imperfect.
“Well, do you?”
“I’m going to need a better offer than that,” she said, smiling widely now that she saw the contentment in his face.
“Hanna Loch,” he began, shaking his head as his mouth curved into a smile. “Would you like to be difficult with me?”
She bit the inside of her bottom lip and looked away for a moment. As if he had to ask.
“Yes, William Vann,” she said, looking up at him. “Yes, I would.”
She stood on her toes and kissed him, his arms going around her waist as he pulled her up into him. Her heart felt like it would explode with joy. She kissed him like she never had before, and he let her; for the smallest of moments, Hanna truly believed in magic. And she didn’t even care how cliché she was being.
When he pulled away, he was breathing heavily and looked a little amazed.
“Do you want to do something tonight?” he offered. “I know it’s your prom and all. I wouldn’t want you to miss it if it’s important to you.”
She thought for a moment before looking up and smiling.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said, holding out her hand.
“A walk? That’s all you want to do?” he said, curling his fingers with hers.
“That’s all I want to do,” she said.
They walked down her driveway and into the night. She would bring up her acceptance to Charleston later, but for now, all she wanted was to walk quietly into the night with him. And so they did, followed closely by Wyatt . . .
Maybe happily ever after was a real thing after all.