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Prologue
1983
Christmas Eve at the Cherry Inn always ended with Grandpa’s story. As snow swirled outside the bay windows of the old Victorian home, forming drifts along the street and lining branches of maples and oaks, Grandpa Hank gathered all eight of the Summers’ grandchildren around the Christmas tree. They were tired from a long day in the snow, their cheeks ruddy from the cold, their bellies stuffed with Christmas Eve dinner and Grandma Dee’s cinnamon cookies. They were the happiest children in the world— sure of the love around them and the approach of Santa Claus, who was surely on his way across the starry night sky.
Grandpa Hank carried the youngest cousin in his strong arms as the rest of them clambered around him, hugging his legs or scrambling to get the best seat on the rug in front of the roaring fire. Grandma Dee followed after them, yet another platter of cookies balanced on her hand, her hair in chaotic curls. “Who wants to hear the story?” Grandpa Hank cried, to which the cousins called, “We do! We do!” Their voices echoed.
“Hank, they’ll never sleep if you don’t quiet down!” Grandma Dee scolded her husband, her eyes glowing with love.
Charlotte was eight, which put her smack-dab in the middle of her cousins’ ages. Shivering with excitement, she sat cross-legged between the Christmas tree and the fireplace, her cheeks warm from the flickering flames and her stomach full after a big Christmas Eve feast. As her cousins quieted down, their parents, the Summers’ children, walked in quietly, lining themselves up along the wall. They were adults, but they still found beauty in their father’s stories. Their hearts hadn’t yet melted.
“Does anyone remember how the story starts?” Grandpa Hank asked, rubbing his gray beard.
“Once upon a time!” Charlotte called triumphantly. She was pleased to be the first to remember.
“That’s right, Charlotte. Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a young man met a beautiful young princess,” Grandpa Hank went on, his eyes flashing toward Grandma Dee, whose cheeks were flushed. “But the beautiful princess was engaged to a wicked, cruel man who wanted to destroy the Kingdom of Christmas.”
“Why would he do that?” Charlotte’s younger cousin, Bethany, whispered.
“He wanted to make sure there was no more joy,” Grandpa Hank explained. “He wanted to take away presents and candy. He wanted to fire Santa Claus!”
The cousins gasped, just as they did every year. It never got old.
“The young man knew he needed to save the princess from the cruel and wicked man,” Grandpa Hank went on. “So he journeyed through the dark forest, where he was forced to fight whatever monsters the wicked man sent for him.”
The cousins’ eyes glinted with firelight as they watched their grandfather, captivated. Charlotte’s heart thumped hard in her chest, and she leaned forward, chin on her fist, watching as her grandfather grew more and more animated as the story progressed— as this young man fought the dragon, the evil reindeer, the toy maker who hated children, all in pursuit of the wicked man and the princess he’d fallen in love with. Throughout, Grandma Dee shook her head, laughed gently, and gazed at Grandpa adoringly, all the way up till the tail-end of the story, when the hero finally defeated the wicked man and saved Christmas.
“After the hero saved Christmas, he asked the beautiful princess to run away with him and get married,” Grandpa continued. “He couldn’t believe it when she said yes.” Here, his eyes locked with Grandma Dee’s, and they shared a special, quiet moment as their grandchildren sat rapt with attention between them.
“They traveled far and wide together,” Grandpa Hank went on, his voice wavering. “Until they found a gorgeous, abandoned castle in the middle of a small village. Does anyone know what that village was called?”
Charlotte was quick to the draw yet again: “White Plains!” she called.
“That’s right.” Grandpa Hank smiled lovingly. “They decided this was the castle in which they would live for the rest of their days. They restored the castle with paint and wallpaper; they fixed the hardwood floors, and they even built a beautiful library upstairs so that the beautiful princess could read to her heart’s content. After the castle was ready, they began to invite weary travelers to stay the night to rest their weary feet after their journeys through the East. And just two Christmases after that first one, the beautiful princess gave birth to their first child. And they all lived…” He trailed off so the children could cry out: “Happily ever after!”
Charlotte clapped along with her cousins. Grandma Dee cleared the distance between herself and their grandfather and kissed him with her eyes closed. In the chaos of the end of the story, Charlotte hurried back to the cookie platter and selected one shaped like a bell, slathered with frosting. Her cousin, Rudy, who was approximately her age, sidled up beside her and selected a cookie shaped like a reindeer.
“My mom told me that story is based on real life,” he announced proudly.
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “You mean the evil forest is real?”
Rudy nodded earnestly. “It’s the same forest just outside of White Plains!” He lowered his voice even more to add, “And the castle he’s talking about? That’s the Cherry Inn!”
Although this wasn’t entirely a surprise, Charlotte’s heartbeat quickened. All her life, she’d considered her grandparents’ inn to be the most magical place in the world. There was nothing she loved more than roaming its numerous halls, hiding in its rooms, behind thick curtains and under ornate bed frames, or scouring the books in the upstairs library. If the Cherry Inn was really a castle (which she had to assume was true), then that meant she was pretty close to being a princess, didn’t it?
Three days before and after Christmas, Grandpa and Grandma cleared the inn of guests and invited the entire Summers clan to stay there all together. It was the most magical week of Charlotte’s life— a time of dancing, singing, laughing, storytelling, and eating with the people she loved most in the world. Even now, as her aunts and uncles gathered her cousins, preparing them for bed, Charlotte tried to seep up all the memories— to fully remember the soft dough of the cookie and Rudy’s silly stories and her grandfather’s big laugh. At the age of eight, she’d come to understand that adults just didn’t have as much fun as children did, and she’d decided that if she just remembered everything in sharp detail, she would never fall victim to that trap when she got older (if she really ever did become an adult, which seemed unlikely).
Charlotte’s mother appeared in the throng of adults and knelt to speak to Charlotte quietly. “How’s my big girl? Did you like the story?”
Charlotte’s heart swelled with love for her mother. “Rudy says the castle is the Cherry Inn!”
Her mother dropped her chin, and her dark eyes stirred with secrets. “What if I told you the beautiful princess is your grandmother? And the hero is your grandfather?”
Charlotte gazed at her grandma and grandpa, who didn’t exactly resemble the princesses and princes in her favorite films and illustrations. Still, she had no reason to refute what her mother told her. Magic sizzled behind her grandma and grandpa’s eyes.
Upstairs, Charlotte brushed her teeth and got into bed with her mother. Grandpa and Grandma had given them the Green Room, with its soft wallpaper painted with lush greenery and tiny purple flowers, its green comforter, and its thick green curtains. Her mother fluffed both of their pillows for them and kissed Charlotte on the forehead. “Merry Christmas, my darling.”
For a little while, after her mother turned out the light, Charlotte kept her eyes open with excitement. Her ears craned for signs of Santa Claus on the rooftop. Beside her was her mother’s profile on the pillow, her eyes closed. For as long as Charlotte could remember, it had just been her and her mother against the world. Kids at school whispered about Charlotte’s father, about how he’d left them behind when she’d been very small. Charlotte hadn’t yet gotten the nerve to ask her mother about it; she suspected it made her very sad.
