“You’re the postmistress?”
“I’m Mabel, all right,” she says.
“I’m looking for a man,” I tell her.
“Aren’t we all, honey?” She laughs.
“A specific man,” I clarify. “He comes into the post office at least once a year.”
“You’re going to have to give me a little more than that,” Mabel motions around the room. “Lots of men here, honey.”
In response, I pull out my phone and hold it up. There’s a picture of Donald on the screen, and recognition instantly flashes in Mabel’s eyes, followed by concern.
“I know him,” she admits. “Haven’t seen him in a long time, though. Don’t see him often at all.”
“About once a year?”
“About that. He always mails one letter.”
“To his parents,” I say. “I know.”
“Is his mother all right?” Mabel looks worried. “He said she wasn’t in the best of health. He’d been thinking of going to see her.”
“It’s not his mother who’s in trouble,” I tell her. “It’s my father. Please,” I don’t want to beg, but I will. “Can you help me?”
“Trust me, child, I’d help you if I could, but I honestly don’t know what to tell you. He’s a quiet one, this man. Cautious. He’s got a look about him as if he’s running from something, as if he’s been hurt before.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” she says quietly, still looking at his picture. “And he’s handsome, as I’m sure you can see, but there’s something quite sad about him.”
I know all of this, but I’m trying not to lose my patience with the woman. It’s not her fault. None of this is her fault. It’s not her fault my dad is sick or her fault she doesn’t know where Donald’s hideaway is. I still feel let down, though. I guess I thought maybe she’d be able to tell me where he lives. Like maybe he has a place in town above someone’s garage or something. Maybe…
I don’t know.
“Do you know where I can find him?” I ask, but she shakes her head.
“He always comes from the mountains,” she shrugs. “Ted’s seen him coming up the path.”
“Has Ted seen where he goes?”
“No,” she shakes her head. “He’s my grandson, you see.” That explains why Ted is so protective of the woman. “I’ve asked him to follow him,” she whispers. “I’m not proud of it, but we don’t get many strangers, you see, and I wondered where a man like that was coming from.”
“And did Ted ever see where he goes?”
“No,” Mabel shakes her head. “Ted says the man just seems to disappear, as if he was never here at all.”
My heart sinks, and I swallow hard.
He’s not here, and I don’t know where to go next.
Chapter Three
Peggy
I’m doing what feels like the hundredth load of laundry when I stumble across a pair of jeans. It’s the jeans I was wearing when I first tried to find my way to Fablestone: the jeans I was wearing when it all happened. When I left for Fablestone to bring Cameron’s niece back to her home, I was wearing those blue jeans.
I wiggle into the jeans. Good. Three weeks of living among the dragons and eating everything in sight hasn’t been enough to make them not fit. These are magical jeans, I think to myself, and I quietly chuckle.