Page 31

As odd as today was, I’m grateful for two things. First, I set out to achieve the goal of finding one of the decorated trees, and I found one. And second, I learned that Poppy is alive and well, and he appears to be living with the legendary Forest Santa. I’m sure I didn’t imagine that part of what happened today. It was real.

I’m not going to let the bizarre man in the scary mask stop me from going back to try to find my dog, even though my mind is spinning with questions. Is he the Forest Santa? Why would he try to scare me? Isn’t Santa supposed to be happy? Or was it someone else entirely? I was so stricken with fear when the man jumped out of the tree, I didn’t notice if he was wearing the same clothes as the man with the Santa hat. All I could see was that eerie mask.

The next morning is almost an exact replica of the one before it. The driver takes me to the same place she did yesterday, and I walk up the same dirt road to the path, only this time with the added fear of running into the man with a plastic garbage bag tied around his head.

The scent of burning wood floats through the air, getting stronger with each step I take on the frost-covered trail. This time, I turn left at the fork in the path. Soon, I spy a tiny house with smoke curling out of the chimney. The house is small and well hidden amongst the trees and looks almost exactly like the tiny cottages in my fairy-tale books. The small windows have white shutters and flower boxes, waiting for spring flowers. A vine, gray from the cold, creeps up the house, on a trellis, all the way up to a tiny stained glass window on the second floor. A stone walkway begins not far from where I’m standing, runs to the front door, and branches off to a matching detached garage. Various birdhouses, all painted in bright colors, hang from the trees and sit atop wooden posts. It’s simply the most magical place I’ve ever seen in real life.

My excited breath is a cloud of mist as I approach the house. I’m so busy huffing out more puffs of my own personal clouds that I almost miss the man perched, still as a statue, on a huge rock between the house and the small garage. He doesn’t look in my direction, even though my boots are crunching rather loudly in the dead leaves. Poppy, however, comes running to me like a white tornado as soon as he sees me. His odd bark makes me smile, and I’m relieved to see that he is real and not a figment of my imagination. I kneel down in the dirt and leaves and gather him up into my lap, his little body wiggling with happiness in unison with his tail.

“I missed you so much. So much,” I whisper, kissing his head as tears of happiness fall down my cheeks and onto his fur. “Did you miss me too?” He responds by licking my face and making happy whimpering noises. He must have been bathed because he’s much whiter and softer than I remember him and he smells fresh and clean. Feather would be impressed that even Poppy’s “evil shit” has been washed away.

I lift my head and finally lock eyes with the guy on the rock, and my heart does a leap into my throat. It’s him. I almost didn’t recognize him. Now it all makes sense. Yesterday he was wearing a hat, and his long-sleeved flannel shirt covered his tattoos. But today, his shaggy hair is visible, and the sleeves of his sweatshirt are pushed up. There’s no denying those tattoos are the same ones I’ve seen twice before. I can’t believe he’s had my dog all this time. That he’s been here this whole time. Surely my parents and my doctor knew he lived right here in the same tiny town, knew I could have run into him, but still refused to let me write to him.

He appears normal to me—not mentally deranged, as I was told—other than defiling a holiday song, decorating a tree in the middle of nowhere, and not wearing a jacket in the cold. He continues to stare at me, totally expressionless.

Tyler Grace. In my head, he’s always been the prince. Silly, I know. But that’s who he is to me. I stand, holding Poppy in my arms, and slowly walk toward him, stopping about ten feet away. Not because I’m afraid of him, but because he seems to require a lot of personal space.

“Hi.” I quickly swipe the damp tears from my cheeks with my fingers. He looks away from me, and I frown at the back of his head. This is not the reunion I was expecting. I take one more step closer. “You’re Tyler, right?”