Grandpa Ephraim and Micah had always kept the house pretty clean, so Micah didn’t know how Aunt Gertrudis had found so many disgusting chores for him to do that afternoon. Maybe she had her own evil version of magical powers. Within two hours of arriving home, he had scrubbed both toilets, scraped gunk out of the windowsills, and scoured a lot of burned stuff off the oven walls.

The only thing that made it bearable was the fact that Grandpa Ephraim was sleeping like a log. Micah thought his breathing seemed easier, and his face looked less pale. He was still snoring when Aunt Gertrudis told Micah to go to his bedroom.

Maybe Rosebud’s potion is working, he thought while he pulled on his pajamas. Maybe a mite of help will be enough.

When he crawled into bed, his eyelids were already so heavy they felt like they had weights attached. He could barely remember the last time he’d actually slept the whole night. He had just let his head fall onto his pillow, which was a million times more fluffy than it had ever been before, when he heard the shout from his grandfather’s room.

He was out of his bed and down the hall in a single motion, his heart slamming into his ribs. Aunt Gertrudis stood outside Grandpa Ephraim’s door. She held a hand over her chest as she stared into the room.

Micah shoved past her.

Grandpa Ephraim was standing up. He was standing in front of his mirror, wearing his best suit and tying his necktie.

Micah froze, but only for a second.

“Oof!” his grandfather said when Micah grabbed him around the middle and pressed his face into his stomach.

“You’re better,” Micah said. They were the best words he’d ever said. “You’re really better! I missed you so much.”

Grandpa Ephraim laughed, and it was a real laugh instead of a coughing, choking one. He picked Micah right up off the floor and kissed his forehead.

“Isn’t it amazing? I woke up and decided I felt good enough to stand, and once I did, I felt good enough to get dressed, and now,” he said as he set Micah back down and patted himself all over, “I’m right as rain.”

Aunt Gertrudis was still staring and clutching at her chest. “Ephraim!” she gasped. “It’s not possible. You’re dying.”

Grandpa Ephraim winked at her. “I do know it, Gertie, but if I feel well enough to be up and about I’m going to take advantage of it.”

He clapped Micah on the back. “Let’s get out of the house. We have to celebrate the fact that my dying has been postponed.”

This made Aunt Gertrudis come back to herself. “He’s grounded, Ephraim,” she said. “For sneaking out last night.”

Micah didn’t care about being grounded. He didn’t care about how exhausted he’d been a moment ago. He didn’t care about anything but the fact that Grandpa Ephraim was here, and he was healthy. Rosebud had done it. Her potion had worked. Micah’s head couldn’t take it all in, but his heart could. It wanted to climb right out of him and crow.

Grandpa Ephraim looked down at him. “I’m ungrounding you, Micah. It’s very inconvenient for me if you’re grounded right now. Put on some shoes. We’ll go to a movie.”

“A movie! Ephraim, you can’t be serious.”

“Do you want to come, too, Gertie?”

“No,” said Micah.

“No! I don’t want to come. You should get back in bed. You could relapse! I don’t understand what’s going on here, but we need to call the doctor.”

Micah said, “It’s magic.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Aunt Gertrudis spat.

Grandpa Ephraim reached out and hugged her. She stood as stiff as a post. “It really is magic,” he said. “Are you sure you won’t come with us?”

When they left the house, she was on the phone with Dr. Simon, trying to explain that Grandpa Ephraim was both dying and going to the movies against his doctor’s orders.

Micah was too shocked and delighted to speak for most of the drive to the theater, but when Grandpa Ephraim pulled the car into the parking lot and started to unbuckle his seat belt, he found his voice.

“Wait.”

His grandfather looked at him.

“Circus Mirandus. The Lightbender—he said he couldn’t . . .”

His grandfather pressed his fingers gently to Micah’s lips. “Not yet,” he said. “I know a great deal, and you’ll tell me the rest later. I don’t know how long Rosebud’s wonderful potion will last, but I want to enjoy every minute of it with you.”

“But your miracle—”

“It will take care of itself at this point,” Grandpa Ephraim said. “Forget about it please, Micah. For just a little while.”

Micah didn’t quite forget, but he did let his grandfather’s enthusiasm carry him away for most of the evening. He had never been to a late movie before, and he had certainly never been to one wearing his pajamas with his tennis shoes. Grandpa Ephraim told knock-knock jokes while they waited in line. When they reached the box office, they didn’t recognize any of the movies that were playing, so they bought tickets for the one that had the funniest poster. They ate popcorn and malted-milk balls and shared the biggest orange soda the theater sold. It was so big that they couldn’t finish it in one movie.

So they stayed for another.

After the theater closed, they tiptoed crazily back to the car because they were trying to see who could avoid the most cracks in the pavement. When they climbed in, Grandpa Ephraim smiled at Micah. “Sleepy yet?”

“Not even a little.” He would never be sleepy again if it meant that this night could last forever.

They went to a place that had putt-putt golf 24/7. They didn’t keep score. They never did when they played games together. That way, when the game was over, they could agree that they had tied.

On the drive back home, Grandpa Ephraim turned the radio up loud, and they sang along to all the songs they knew. When his grandfather tried to make up the lyrics to the songs they didn’t know, Micah laughed so hard that he started snorting.

It was so perfect, so magical, that Micah almost believed it would last forever. How could something so right ever stop? Then they pulled into the driveway, and Grandpa Ephraim coughed. Just once.

He shut off the radio and sighed. “I think that might be our cue.”

“Everyone coughs once in a while,” Micah said in a small voice.

“Maybe so,” Grandpa Ephraim said. “But I think it’s your turn. You have your own Circus Mirandus story to tell now.”

“It’s not as good as yours.”

His grandfather smiled at him. “Maybe it’s not over yet.”

When Micah finished describing his trip to Circus Mirandus, Grandpa Ephraim had tears in his eyes. At first, Micah thought he was crying because he was disappointed, but then he wiped his face and said, “Oh, Micah, I remember. I’m so glad you’ve seen it. Wasn’t it beautiful?”

He reached over for a hug, and Micah returned it as hard as he could. “But I haven’t convinced the Lightbender to help you yet. You’re going to . . . to leave me.”

Grandpa Ephraim shook his head. “I’m afraid that you were asking too much of the Lightbender, Micah. I already told him what I wanted for my miracle, the second time he sent his parrot to see me. I never expected him to pull me back from death’s door.”

“I don’t understand,” said Micah. “What did you want from him? What did you ask for?”

His grandfather looked at him seriously. “For something very important and very difficult. For something stranger and more magnificent than anything he’d done before.”

“What?”

“That’s not something I can tell you yet. The Lightbender is still trying to make it happen. It’s something that he can’t do all by himself, you see.”

Micah didn’t see at all. What could possibly be more important than making sure that Grandpa Ephraim didn’t die? “We could go to the circus,” he said suddenly. The idea was so simple. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. “We could ask Rosebud for more medicine. For gallons of it!”

But Grandpa Ephraim shook his head again. “I like to think,” he said slowly, “that I could go one more time to Circus Mirandus. I like to think I have kept myself open enough to magic for that. But even if I can, I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

Grandpa Ephraim was staring out the car window as if he could see something more beyond the glass than their ordinary street. He coughed again. “Because when you try too hard to hold on to something, you break it.” He opened the door and motioned for Micah to do the same. “Sometimes, we need to let go so that other people can have their chance at the magic.”

They decided to spend the last few hours of the night in the tree house they had built together.

Grandpa Ephraim laughed when he sat on half of a squashed tuna sandwich. “What’s this?” he asked as he pulled it out from under him.

“Jenny and I must have left it.”

Even in the dark, Micah could tell his grandfather’s eyes were sparkling with interest. “Jenny,” he said. “Your new friend. I wish I could meet her.”

“You can,” Micah said. “She’ll visit if I ask. Tomorrow even. I know she will.”

His grandfather didn’t say anything.

Micah tried to push away the memory of how Grandpa Ephraim had been before Rosebud’s potion, but it wouldn’t let go of him. “You have to meet Jenny,” he said. “We could call her right now.”

“Good gracious, Micah! At this hour?” Grandpa Ephraim’s voice was amused. “I doubt her parents would appreciate that.”

“I . . .” Micah was at a loss. Then, he had a flash of inspiration. “Do you have any string?”

Grandpa Ephraim tipped his head to the side. “You’re still wearing my bootlace.”

Micah looked down at his wrist. “I know how you can meet Jenny,” he said. The lace that Aunt Gertrudis had tried so hard to pry off that morning came away in his hand with a single tug.

He didn’t worry about whether or not it would work. It was for Grandpa Ephraim, so it had to work. The knot began to take shape under his fingers. Here was a curve for how smart Jenny was, and there was a twist for their argument in the craft supply closet. Here a loop for the late night ride to Circus Mirandus, there another for the way Jenny pulled her braids when she was upset. Micah tied and tied, and when he was finished, he saw that he’d made exactly what he wanted.

He held it out to his grandfather. “This is Jenny.”

Grandpa Ephraim cradled the knot in the palm of his hand. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers over it. When he opened them again, he was smiling. “Micah,” he said, “do you know what you’ve done?”

“It’s supposed to be like Jenny.”

Grandpa Ephraim nodded. “It is. Your friend is truly one of a kind. You’d better take good care of her.” He looked back down at the knot. “I have never seen anything like this in all my days. You’ve put memories into a bit of leather. Don’t you see how remarkable that is?”

Micah shrugged. “You can tie knots, too.”

“Not like this.” Grandpa Ephraim reached out to Micah’s wrist and carefully looped the bootlace around it. He turned Jenny’s knot so that it was against Micah’s pulse and tied the lace firmly into place. “This is something very special.”

“I’m not special,” said Micah.

“Don’t you want to be?”

Micah thought about it for a minute. “Doesn’t everybody?”

Grandpa Ephraim chuckled. “I suppose. But some of us aren’t brave enough to find our specialness, and some of us make mistakes along the way.”

He looked up at the stars through the oak’s branches. “I’m glad you asked the Lightbender about Victoria. I never knew her whole story.”

Micah frowned. Something about Victoria’s tale had been bothering him. “I don’t get how you married someone like the Bird Woman. How did you even meet her?”

“There’s one story I never told you,” his grandfather said. “It didn’t have a happy ending, so I thought it was best to keep it to myself.”

“I thought you’d told me everything.”

“I told you everything about my first trip to Circus Mirandus.”

Micah’s eyes widened, and his grandfather nodded.

“When I was a young man, I tried to go back.”