“He always was a big kid,” the man said proudly. “Remember when he drove my pickup? And the chickens landed on him? I thought they were going to nest in his hair.”
The woman smiled. “I remember how he got the birds to pick the blackberries that were way in the back. They filled buckets of them, then young Tanek helped me make jam.”
“I remember the jars,” Tanek said. “They were so pretty. I haven’t been able to remember any of that until now. I—”
“I’m Mekos,” he said loudly.
Tanek put his arm around his son’s shoulders. “This is my son.”
“Aren’t you a beautiful boy,” the woman said. “And who is this?”
“Princess Aradella,” Mekos said.
The woman’s eyes lit up. “A princess? Kaley must love that. Has she told you any of the thousands of stories that she knows?”
“She’s lived a few of them.” Tanek turned to look across the room at his wife. Kaley had her back to them as she was talking to and hugging a younger man who wore the same kind of suit the other one did. “Cars!” he said. “I remember changing tires and carber-something.”
“Carburetors,” the man said. “That’s Jeff, my son. You worked in the garage with him.”
“He’s Kaley’s father.” Tanek looked at Mekos and Aradella. “This is... What do I call you?”
“Frank and Rita,” the man said. “Or Grandpapá, as you used to. You can’t have too many grandparents.” Frank looked at Aradella. “You probably have your own grandparents but—”
“No,” Aradella said. “None at all. I do have an aunt who’s a queen and her mother is a witch.”
Frank and Rita blinked a couple of times, then smiled. “Kaley must trulylovethis place! Let’s go tell her we’re here.”
The five of them walked across the room to where Kaley was talking to her father.
“So we blackmailed him,” Jeff was saying. “If they wanted the Solium that Dad and I’d grown, we were going with them. It was the plan your mother and I made before Jobi took her away. I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you the truth for your whole life, but Graceen made us promise. And—” He broke off when he saw Tanek.
“I can still drive a manual shift,” Tanek said, and they began hugging.
Jeff said, “When I yelled at you for not holding the flashlight right, you...”
“I had the birds grab fireflies and hold them so you could see. I think you said some bad words in shock, but I didn’t know it was strange.”
Smiling at the men laughing together, Kaley looked away, then froze when she saw her grandparents.
Aradella and Mekos stepped back as there was a flurry of hugs and tears, and proclamations of everyone missing everyone else. Tanek pulled the young ones forward and introduced them to Jeff. “And this is Aradella. She’s a princess.”
“Are we allowed to hug a princess?” Rita asked.
“Yes.” To her joy, Aradella was swept up into everyone’s warm embrace.
“So when do we get to eat that cake?” Mekos asked and they all laughed.
Frank said, “You’re just like your father. He could eat his weight in beef and fish.”
“But not chicken,” Rita said. “Remember when I served fried chicken and Tanek threw up?”
“Oh yeah,” Jeff said. “Then he floated out to the coop and wouldn’t come out for hours. Mom had to promise him that there would be no birds of any kind served ever again.”
“He hasn’t changed,” Kaley said. “He still gets sick if a bird is hurt. I guess I was a baby during all this.”
“You weren’t yet born,” Jeff said. “Tanek used to talk to you in some language that we couldn’t understand. He gave you a white feather.”
Kaley gasped. “It’s in one of my books.”
