“Actually, I would love it if the boys came to live with us,” he said.
“Did you hear that, boys?” Red said. “You’re now officially part of the Hood-Charming family!”
The Lost Boys cheered, but Peter Pan wanted no part of it.
“Enjoy all your rules, chores, and bedtimes!” he said. “I’m going back to Neverland.”
“But, Peter, how could you choose Neverland over being a Hood-Charming?” Curly asked him.
“Two words,” Peter said. “Tiger Lily. See you later, boys!”
The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up flew through the beam of light and returned to his story with Tinker Bell at his side.
The impromptu adoption reminded Goldilocks of a matter she wanted to discuss with the young queen. “Red, could I have a word?” Goldilocks said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“The answer is lather, rinse, repeat,” Red said. “Didn’t we have this discussion already?”
Goldilocks sighed. “That’s not what I was going to ask,” she said. “Look, I know we don’t always see eye-to-eye. We’ve had our share of disagreements, we often annoy each other to pieces, and we’ve each tried to kill the other at one point or another—but the truth, whether I want to admit it or not, is that you’re my best friend, Red. Would you do me the honor of being Hero’s godmother?”
Red gasped and happy tears filled her eyes. “Yes, of course I will!”
“Terrific,” Goldilocks said. “Because I just asked Porridge and she turned me down.”
Red was so moved by the request, it didn’t even bother her that Goldilocks had asked a horse first. Froggy and Jack shared a laughed as they watched the exchange between their wives.
“So what’s fatherhood like, anyway?” Froggy asked Jack. “Is it as wonderful as it seems?”
“Do you remember sailing through the clouds aboard the Granny?” Jack asked.
“How could I forget?” Froggy said, delighted to recall the fond memories. “The wind blowing across our faces, the birds soaring by our side, the sunrise peeking over the frosty mountains—it was a breathtaking experience.”
“Right,” Jack said. “Well, do you remember the part when we got shot out of the sky? Do you remember that feeling in the pit of your stomach as the ship plummeted toward the earth at hundreds of miles per hour toward a most certain death? That’s what fatherhood is like.”
Froggy gulped. “Lovely.”
While their friends were busy adopting children and having heart-to-hearts about parenthood, Alex and Conner strolled to the far end of the grand balcony for a moment by themselves.
“That was a great toast you gave earlier,” Conner said. “All that talk about happily ever after almost convinced me this was the end of our story.”
“The end of our story?” Alex asked. “That’s funny, because I was afraid this was only the beginning.”
Conner laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said. “I bet right now, as we speak, there’s some big, brooding bad guy somewhere in the cosmos plotting our demise.”
“One could only assume,” Alex said. “I’m guessing the Evil Queen, the Enchantress, the Grande Armée, the Masked Man, the Literary Army, and the witches were just warm-ups compared to what’s coming.”
“Oh, they were kid stuff,” Conner said. “We can’t even fathom the level of difficulty we’ll be up against next. In fact, we’d have nightmares for weeks if we had a glimpse of what’s waiting for us in the future.”
“And we’ll most likely have to travel to galaxies far and wide to assemble what we need to stop them,” Alex said. “Which will no doubt expose us to much more of Jack’s and Goldilocks’s fearlessness, Froggy’s mindfulness, and Red’s misguidedness.”
“Sounds like fun,” Conner said. “You know, whoever our next enemy is, I already feel awfully sorry for them.”
“Me too,” Alex said. “The poor thing doesn’t stand a chance against us.”
As Alex and Conner watched the sunset over the Fairy Kingdom, they each sighed with the greatest relief of their young lives. The twins weren’t at ease because they expected the period of peace to last very long; on the contrary, they expected many new challenges in the days to come. However, for the first time, they didn’t fear what they couldn’t see.
No matter what obstacle came their way, Alex and Conner knew there was nothing they couldn’t face together. And because of that, the Bailey twins and their friends lived happily ever after in the Land of Stories.
EPILOGUE
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?
Charlotte “Charlie” Black sat at the top of the stairs eavesdropping on a conversation happening in the living room. In the months leading up to her parents’ separation, Charlie had learned that the stairwell had superb acoustics. Unbeknownst to her arguing parents, Charlie had heard every detail about their approaching divorce settlement, their fight for full-time custody, and their plans for handling child support. It was a difficult subject to stomach at times, but Charlie had learned a lot about the state’s legal system from her parents’ arguments.
Charlie was an eleven-year-old whom people often described as too smart for her own good. She had short dark hair, big brown eyes, and beautiful olive skin. She always wore a big denim jacket with a short puffy skirt, bright leggings, and big boots. Charlie chewed on her favorite bottle-cap necklace as she listened to the discussion she wasn’t supposed to hear.
However, tonight’s entertainment had nothing to do with her parents or their pending divorce. Charlie was hanging on every word of a conversation between her mother and her uncle Matthew, and from the little she’d heard so far, they were talking about her beloved Grandpa Conner.
“I went to Dad’s house around eight o’clock tonight to check on him,” Matthew said. “When I arrived I found him in his study reading, just like normal, but when I took a closer look I saw he was reading one of his own books. I asked him what he was doing and he said trying to remember.”
“But trying to remember what?” Charlie’s mother asked. “Did he forget about something in his books?”
Matthew sighed. “It’s way worse than that, Elizabeth,” he said. “Remember the question he got asked on his birthday about Aunt Alex? Well, his answer wasn’t a joke—Dad genuinely forgot where she was. But instead of asking one of us, he thought he could find the answer in one of his stories.”
“What? But that doesn’t make sense.”
“He convinced himself that the whereabouts of his eighty-year-old twin sister could be found in one of his children’s books. He’s been rereading the Fairytaletopia series, trying to find it.”