Running In Glass Slippers (Storybook Keepers #1)-First Draft

The sunlight was fading on the horizon, but the lights, tangled and strung, up in the old oak tree and the roof of the rickety tree house were on. That's how Luna knew that Galley was still there waiting for her.

She exhaled a breath that she didn't know she had been holding in and it collected in the air in front of her for a moment, before dispersing into the night. The fall, night air was crisp and chilly. Luna slid her arms into the jacket she grabbed on her way out of the house and wrapped it tightly around her.

The tree house was between Luna's yard and Galley's so that it fit evenly on both properties. Their mothers had called it fate when they decided to build the structure for the two of them. The oak tree provided exactly the right foundation to station the tree house needed to settle right in the middle of all the thick, sturdy branches. So now, even though the house was old and the wood was becoming weathered, the oak tree stood tall and firm as a protector around the structure that, anywhere else, probably would have already collapsed.

The lights had been Luna's father's idea.

"It will look like a place where fairies live!" he had told her excitedly. In turn, this made Luna excited, and she hadn't been able to see it as anything but a magical fairy house ever since.

She climbed the rope ladder and pushed up on the hinged section of wood that should have opened and let her into the tree house.

Except it didn't budge.

She pushed harder. Sometimes, being outside, the hinges would become rusted and stick, but it still didn't move. So she started pounding out the secret knock that she and Galley created when they were younger, so they knew that it was the other and not one of Galley's siblings.

Luna tried a couple more times to get in before using her voice.

"Galley! I know you're in there, and I know I'm late. Let me in!"

There is a shuffling sound of someone moving across the floorboards and before Luna can push on the door again, it opens. Galley is lying on his stomach, head on his hands as he looks down at her.

"I don't know if I should let you in," he says in a playful tone, "This is like the third time you've been late to our meetings this month. You know in baseball, it's three strikes and you're... hey!"

Luna climbs the rest of the ladder and uses Galley's shoulder, where there normally would be floor, to pull herself into the tree house before he can finish lecturing her.

"I have a good reason for being late! But I have to be in to tell you about it."

"Well, why didn't you just say so?"

Luna rolls her eyes.

"Peter came by at dinner."

Galley blinks in confusion. "Peter, as in, Peter Calloway? Your dad's old assistant?"

"Yes, that Peter." She explains the odd events of dinner.

"So...he wanted something that belonged to your father. That makes sense Lu. He was his only assistant."

Luna shook her head. "He wanted my book Galley. He wouldn't take another book. If he just wanted something of my dad's, why wouldn't he take a different book like my mom offered?"

"It sounds like that book was special to Peter, just like it is to you. He wanted to carry on a legacy. I don't think there's much more to it than that"

It could be that Peter only wanted something of her father's that was sentimental to him, but there was something about his fascination with that specific storybook that made her suspicious. Her father had several books that he would take to work with him on occasion, especially when Peter was assigned to him as an assistant. Peter hadn't asked about any of those other books.

It was clear, to Luna at least, that there was something strange going on. The more she thought about it, the more questions she had. Peter hadn't visited her family since her father went missing. Why had he shown up tonight? Why did he need her father's book?

"He's getting his own Storybook House," she said under her breath.

"Yeah, you said that before Lu."

"No, Galley, he's getting his own Storybook House!" Luna suddenly got excited as she started to see connections and possible answers to her questions, "I wondered, why tonight? We haven't seen or heard from Peter in years, so why would he suddenly show up? He's getting his own Storybook House, and he wants to go into Dad's book!"

"Luna..." Galley looked at her, almost with concern, "Luna, I know you want to believe that your Dad is lost somewhere, and I want to support the idea that he will come back. You know I really liked your Dad, but... Lu, not everything is connected. Not everything that everyone does in our world is to drive one plot to an end. We don't live in a storybook."

He tries to put a hand on her shoulder, but she pulls away. Her jacket suddenly isn't keeping her as warm in the cold, night air. The sun is gone, and the night around them seems too quiet and too still.

"Luna?" Galley's eyes are wide.

Again with the concern. Luna could handle it from strangers she met in the days after her father went missing. Old friends of her father who would look at her in pity as they told her how sorry they were that her father was gone. It was as if they thought that he was never coming back. It wasn't as it he had died. That's how Galley was beginning to sound. He spoke as if Luna were holding onto something that was forever gone. She could take that from the strangers, but hearing those similar words, that pitying look from her best friend caused something inside of her to break.

The comment itself makes sense. Luna knows this. She can't react to the reality of the statement because she is too focused on who said the words. Galley has never not believed and supported the thought that her father is coming back. At least, he had never said it aloud to her before.

Until now.

Luna doesn't know when the tears started running down her face, but they are warm on her cold skin. It concerns her a bit that she hadn't felt them, almost as if she wasn't in control of them, but she let that go as she tried to decide whether she was sad or angry.

It didn't really matter. It hurt either way.

She could hear Galley trying to say something, an apology or an excuse, she didn't know. She didn't care. She just needed to be alone.

The trap door seemed to weigh nothing as she lifted it and climbed down the ladder. She was sure that Galley was still protesting as her feet landed on the damp grass, but everything sounded muddled. The only thing that sounds clear is her heartbeat in her ears.

The house is dark when she enters through the back door. As always, her mother has already gone to bed. Luna quietly climbs the stairs, and in the quiet and personal space of her bedroom, she falls onto her bed. It's like a cue has been given, and all the tears that she had been able to hold back, once realizing they were there, come like a flood. Even after only a few minutes, there are so many tears she can feel her eyes swelling. They are probably as red as Red Riding Hood's cloak, but Luna can't bring herself to look in the vanity mirror.

She tries to curl up in her bed. Clothes and shoes still on. Crying has caused her eyes to become tired and Luna decides that what she really needs is a good night's sleep. Peter's visit had just caught her so off guard. It raised questions that she hadn't thought of in a while, as well as new questions. She couldn't help that her mind just ran wild with things sometimes.

As she shifts to climb under her covers, she hears a small thud beside her bed. When she looks over, she sees her father's storybook has fallen onto the floor. The book was still open. It had landed on a page that showed a young boy trying to call for help. A wolf came to eat the sheep in the village and the boy couldn't fight it off himself. But the villagers did not come because the boy had called out about a wolf as a trick so many times before.

Luna was beginning to feel like the girl who cried Dad.

She knew she was right. There's something she is missing, and, thanks to Peter, she now believes it has something to do with this book. Luna may have theorized for years about what happened to her father, but now, in her hurt, she feels a sense of motivation to do something about it.

As her heavy eyelids begin to drift closed, Luna makes a promise to herself.

She's going to find her father. And she's going to start tomorrow.