Chapter 1
Chapter One
ELIZABETH
Summer Before First Grade
The Day I Met My Moonlight
D addy’s chest is warm against my back as he helps me position my fingers over the guitar struts.
“Like this.” His large hands engulf mine, and our fingers work in tandem to push down the chords. “Good. Now you try by yourself.”
I wiggle in his lap to get more comfortable, the acoustic guitar cumbersome to hold and heavy on my slim thighs. My tongue sticks out in concentration when I try to form a barred C chord—and fail spectacularly when a loud bang from outside causes me to jump.
“Let’s take a snack break,” Daddy offers, but I shake my head and reposition my fingers.
Daddy started giving me guitar lessons when I was two, after he found me in his music room making disharmonious chaos with every instrument he owned. I have a clear memory of him sitting me in his lap and showing me how to pluck guitar strings. Even as a baby, I was instantly captivated by the different sounds each instrument made. Guitar, piano, drums. I can play them all. Not as good as Daddy, but hopefully one day.
Another bang, followed by loud voices.
“Sounds like a new family is moving in,” Daddy comments.
Excited curiosity has me pushing the guitar off our laps and scurrying to the window. I squish my nose against the glass, little plumes of condensed vapor clouding the windowpane with every breath. Sure enough, there’s a large moving truck in the driveway next door. The family that used to live there moved out a month ago. I hope the new family has kids my age. It would be nice to have new friends to play with.
Bouncing on my tiptoes, I shout an exuberant “Yes!” when I see two boys come out of the house and run across the front lawn, a tall, bearded man jogging after them.
With gleeful anticipation, I dash out of the room.
“Where are you off to, puddin’?”
Bounding up the stairs to find Hailey, I shout, “I’m going to meet the new neighbors!”
I hear Daddy’s fading chuckle as I leap up two steps at a time in my haste to get to my bedroom. Running as fast as my little legs can carry me, I throw open Hailey’s bedroom door, startling her awake from her nap.
“Hailey! Hailey! Come on! We have new neighbors! Get up! Get up!”
I run through our jack-and-jill bathroom to my room and fling open my closet to grab my blue Easter dress. Mommy says I look like a princess whenever I wear it.
Bleary-eyed and grumpy, Hailey shuffles into my room and yawns sleepily.
“I don’t wanna go.”
I wriggle out of my shorts and shirt and slip the blue dress over my head. “Fine. But I’m going.”
Mommy taught me how to braid my hair, so I quickly comb it and then braid it into two pigtails. Seeing the gold plastic princess crown I wore last Halloween sitting on my dresser, I grab it and carefully place it on top of my head. I rush past Hailey into the bathroom, do a quick check in the mirror, decide I look awesome, and run downstairs.
Grabbing a bag of fruit candies, I shove them in my dress pocket, and sprint out the front door, only to skid to a sudden stop once I see my mom talking to another lady on the front porch of the house next door.
My darting gaze searches everywhere for the two boys I saw from the window, but I don’t see them.
“Lizzie-bear, come meet our new neighbor, Freda.”
Climbing the porch steps of the neighbor’s house, I gracefully curtsy in front of the beautiful woman.
“I am Princess Elizabeth, ruler of the magical forests beyond,” I announce regally, gesturing to the copse of trees that jut up against our backyards.
Freda’s face lights up in amusement, but it’s her eyes that transfix me. They are light-colored and metallic looking, like the shiny quarters I get for my birthday.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Princess Elizabeth. You are a very pretty princess in a very pretty dress.”
I beam at her and give another curtsy. “Thank you.”
“Your mom was just telling me all about you and your sister. I have twin boys, Jayson and Julien.” Talking to Mommy, Freda says, “My husband just took them to grab something to eat. I haven’t had time yet to go to the grocery store. They should be back soon. I would love to introduce them to your daughters. Get them out of my hair for a little while, if you know what I mean.”
“I understand completely,” Mommy replies, and I scowl when she pats the top of my head and makes my tiara slip forward.
Taking off, I leap down the steps and head toward my forest fort in the backyard. “Tell my princes to come rescue me when they get home!” I yell.
“Do not go far, young lady. Dinner is in an hour!”
I reach the fort hidden among the trees that Hailey and I started building at the beginning of the summer. Our fort is made from anything we find lying on the ground, along with some plyboard Daddy gave us, with an added hodge-podge of dead tree limbs, pine cones, and rocks to complete the makeshift structure. Mommy bought us a plastic tarp to cover the top of our fort. Daddy chopped some firewood, and we use the bigger pieces for benches to sit on. Hailey and I try to work on the fort every day. We made paths along the ground by taking sticks and scraping aside fallen pine needles. And we constructed ladders up the trees by nailing broken tree limbs into the bark.
Since we love collecting things we find in the forest, Hailey and I have an assemblage of glass jars along the back wall of our fort. The jars sit atop their own stumps, and I made labels for what is inside each one. One jar is for rocks we find along the creek bank. Another jar is for freshwater shells. We keep a few empty ones to catch fireflies.
Wanting to impress the boys when they arrive, I make sure everything is in place. Deciding to tidy a bit, I sweep the floor with a pine branch to get rid of the dead leaves that have fallen to the ground. Taking out the bag of fruit candies from my pocket, I place it on an empty stump, half-tempted to open it and sneak a few.
When I hear the distinctive noise of twigs snapping on the ground, I straighten my crooked tiara, push the tarp aside—and give a startled shriek when I come face-to-face with two upside-down heads.
Dangling from their knees on a low-hanging branch from the tree in front of the fort’s entrance are two brown-headed twin boys with silver-gray eyes and wearing the same clothes. I know what identical twins are from my kindergarten class. We had a deck of picture cards with words on them of different people, and twins was one of the words. The image for twins was of two identical blonde girls with matching red bows in their hair.
My huge smile shows my two missing front teeth. They smile back, also gap-toothed just like me.
“Hi,” I say, suddenly shy, brushing my right foot back and forth along the dirt on the ground.
One of the boys reaches up and grabs the tree branch, flipping over and landing on his feet in front of me.
“I’m Julien.”
The other boy waves. “I’m Jayson. Our mom said we had to come rescue Princess Elizabeth. You her?”
“Yep,” I say, popping that ‘p’ good.
“Okay. You’re rescued.” Julien grabs my hand and takes off toward the creek.
Jayson swings down from the branch and runs after us, grabbing my other hand. Feeling like I’m a human rubber band tethered between them, I laugh as we stumble across the forest floor, weaving between the trees until we reach the water’s edge.
Jayson lets out a loud whoop and charges for the water, fully clothed with his tennis shoes on, taking Julien and me with him.
The creek isn’t deep, the water only coming up to our ankles, but the bottom of my dress gets soaked.
“Your dress is all wet.”
I look down at myself and shrug. Hailey and I have come home looking much worse.
“Here. Help me lift this rock,” I say.
I bend over and grip the sides of a partially submerged chunk of what Daddy told me is granite. I have a jar full of rounded pieces, some pinkish in color, some with big clear crystals.
Julien and Jayson immediately squat down to help. Together, we’re able to tilt the rock at an angle, and I see what I’m looking for.
“Don’t squash me,” I tell them, sinking a hand under the water to snatch the tiny crawfish trying to hide.
“Is that a lobster?” Jayson asks, his eyes big when I victoriously hold up the wiggly creature.
The rock makes a big splash when they let go and gather in close.
“Crawfish. My daddy calls ’em crawdads. I guess they do look like tiny lobsters.”
I place the little crustacean in his open palm. He uses his thumb and middle finger to gently pick it up and smiles at me when its claws and legs squirm wildly. Once Julien gets a chance to hold it, I put it back into the creek.
“They like to hide under the rocks. You can find all sorts of things in the creek. Turtles, water striders, dragonflies, minnows. See?”
I point to three small minnows darting around a swirling eddy where a large tree limb has fallen into the water.
“Hey, want to build a dam?” Julien asks, finding a large stick on the ground.
Jayson and I begin hunting around the bank and within minutes, we have built a substantial pile of wood. As we work, I ask the twins about where they’re from and why they moved here, what their favorite game is, favorite color, favorite food. I learn they moved here from Knoxville, Tennessee because their dad got a new job, and that we’re the same age. Jayson says his favorite food is pizza, and Julien’s is tacos.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, remembering the bag of candy that I left in the fort.
When I return, I divvy out equal portions between the three of us. Picking through the remains in the bag, I remove the purple ones and shove them in my dress pocket because, yuck, grape is gross.
Watching me do this, Julien takes my grape candies and gives me his orange ones. Jayson swaps his yellow ones for my red ones. Satisfied, we sit cross-legged on the spongy, leaf-littered ground and gaze out over the water.
“Do people mix you up and call you the wrong name?”
“All the time,” they answer in unison, voices so in sync that I can’t help but giggle.
Julien leans in and whispers something in Jayson’s ear, a grin playing on his lips.
“I bet you can’t tell us apart,” Jayson smugly says.
Licking the sticky sugar from my fingertips, I meet his challenge with a smug smirk of my own.
“Bet I can.”
“Close your eyes.”
I roll them instead. “Why?”
“Just close them,” Jayson insists, a playful edge to his voice.
Reluctantly, I oblige and squeeze my eyes shut.
Running footfalls thunder around me in dizzying circles, and laughter bubbles up in my throat as I try to follow their movements.
“Okay, open your eyes.”
When I blink them wide, they’re grinning like they’ve pulled off the greatest of tricks.
“What’s my name?”
“Julien,” I say confidently.
His grin falters and is replaced by a frown. “Lucky guess. Close your eyes.”
With an exaggerated huff, I do as he says. More footfalls, the swish of leaves under their feet, the sensation of a breeze tugging at the loose wisps of my hair.
“What about now?”
I quickly study their faces. “You’re Jayson,” I declare, locking eyes with the twin on the right. “And you’re Julien.”
Their mouths drop at the same time, clearly shocked at my superpowers of deduction. It’s kind of funny to watch.
Jayson narrows his eyes, clearly suspicious. “How can you tell?”
They may look the same, but there are a lot of things different about them. Jayson’s eyelashes are slightly longer, and Julien has a small scar above his right eyebrow. Jayson has seven freckles across his nose, but Julien only has four. I counted.
Standing up, I dust off the dirt and crumpled leaves clinging to my dress. “I just can. Want to play castles and dragons?”
We abandon the half-built dam by the creek and dive into an afternoon of grand, imaginary adventures. Julien becomes the brave knight, Jayson the cunning wizard, and I—naturally—am the princess, leading them into battle against a fearsome dragon.
By the time we defeat the beast, the sun has dipped low, casting long shadows through the forest canopy.
“Lizzie! Boys! Time to come in,” Mommy calls from the backyard.
Hailey’s shouts, “Daddy’s grillin’ burgers!”
We scramble to the creek, frantically washing the mud from our hands, though it’s no use against the sticky residue of candy. Our clothes are a lost cause, smudged with dirt and grass stains. But none of that matters as we link hands and head toward the house together, our laughter floating up into the warm summer air.
Walking hand in hand, my heart swells with the kind of happiness that fills every corner of my chest. I glance at the twins, and something inside me instinctively knows that meeting Jayson and Julien has changed my life forever.
That night, after Mommy and Daddy tuck us in and kiss us good night, Hailey tiptoes into my room. The soft creak of the door makes me smile even before I see her. She climbs onto my bed, the pink covers cool against our bare legs, and wiggles in beside me. The familiar scent of her shampoo, like sweet cherries, fills the air as I snuggle deeper into my pillow.
“What do you think about Jayson and Julien?”
Her nose scrunches. “They’re okay for boys.”
She says boys like the word is infected with cooties.
I flop over onto my back and stare at the twinkling stars cast on my ceiling by the nightlight on my dresser.
“I like them a lot.”
I go on to tell her about the adventure we had in the forest. The silence from Hailey doesn’t bother me—she’s always the quiet one, letting me spill my stories without interruption. After I finish, she slips out of bed and pads back to her room. I hear her rummaging around before she returns with her sparkly pencil and orange-scented paper, the smell wafting over as she settles back beside me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, watching the pencil move swiftly across the page.
“Shh,” Hailey whispers, pressing a finger to her lips.
I lean over to peek, but she turns her shoulder away, guarding her secret.
Giving up, I climb out of bed and go to the window. The moonlight bathes the yard in a soft glow, and across the way, past the oak tree that grows between our two houses, Jayson and Julien’s faces peek out from their second-story window. The moment they see me, they lift the glass. I do the same and immediately feel the fragrant breeze sweep in, carrying the sweet scent of honeysuckle.
“Good night, Princess!” Jayson calls out.
“Sleep tight,” Julien shouts.
I blow them each a kiss. “Good night!”
“I’m done,” Hailey softly announces from the bed.
I wave bye to the twins and crawl back under the covers.
“This is a story about Elizabeth and her two princes…” Hailey begins.
Her voice becomes softer and softer, the words like a lullaby. My eyelids grow heavier as her story lulls me into sweet dreams, and the last thing I remember is the echo of Jayson and Julien’s laughter as we run barefoot through the forest.