mine!”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Emily replied. “Or else it might have been a very expensive mistake.”
Daniel and Chantelle went into the kitchen to make food. Emily decided to head up to the nursery while they were cooking. She wanted to look through another one of Charlotte’s boxes to see whether there were any toys she could pass on to the baby.
She went inside the nursery and sat on the floor beside one of the many boxes that contained her sister’s old toys and clothes, which had been brought down from where they’d been carefully stored in the attic.
This task was always tinged with melancholy. Though Emily felt that Charlotte’s spirit was with her in this house, smiling down on her and the family she’d built, it always felt a little bit like she disappeared more with each day that passed. Time was supposed to make pain lessen but for Emily she felt that the more days that went by without her sister the more she missed her, because the last time they spoke was that little bit further in the past.
She opened up the cardboard box, a smell of dust wafting out with it. Like most of the boxes, this one was filled with cuddly toys. It surprised Emily to see that Charlotte had owned so many stuffed toys. She hardly had any memories of her sister playing with bears or dolls. They spent most of their time imagining worlds and acting out plays. Other than their twin rag dolls and Charlotte’s favorite bear, Andy Pandy, Emily couldn’t recall them ever playing with such toys at all.
But as she reached in and pulled out a faded pink toy, Emily felt a sudden surge of a memory. She turned the toy over in her hands and saw it was a unicorn, its once shimmery sequined horn now dull.
“Sparkles,” she muttered aloud, the name of the toy appearing on her tongue before her mind had even kicked into gear.
Then suddenly she felt a familiar swirling sensation, one she had not felt for a very long time. She was slipping back into the past, into her old memories.
The flashbacks had begun once she’d first returned to the inn. They’d been terrifying at first, frightening memories such as the night Charlotte had died, and the raging arguments between her parents. But then as time had passed, as she processed those repressed memories, Emily had started to experience some of the more pleasant ones. Times when she and Charlotte had played together; had been carefree. This memory filled Emily with a sense of calmness, and she knew it was going to be a nice one.
She and Charlotte were in the attic, in one of the rooms her father had filled with antique items. On the floor beside them was a bronze globe, and Charlotte was spinning it idly with a finger. Sitting next to Charlotte was Sparkles, the beautiful unicorn toy. Brand new, fluffy pink, with a sequined horn.
“Sparkles is sad,” Charlotte told Emily.
“Why?” Emily asked, curiously, hearing a child’s voice coming from her throat.
“Because she’s the last unicorn,” Charlotte explained. “She doesn’t have any other unicorn friends.”
“That’s sad,” Emily replied. “Maybe you should take her on an adventure to cheer her up?”
Charlotte seemed to perk up at the suggestion. “Where do you want to go, Sparkles?” she asked her toy. Then she spun the golden globe and stopped it with a pointed finger. It was a small island to the east of the continent of America. “Sparkles wants to go to an island,” Charlotte informed Emily.
Emily nodded. “In that case, we’d better get in the boat.”
They pulled out old chairs and coffee tables, disturbing the dust and stirring the smell of mildew, then configured them in such a way that satisfied their imaginations that they’d constructed a boat. Then they used a threadbare curtain as a sail and clambered into their boat with Sparkles.
Emily could almost feel the wind in her hair as they sailed across the ocean to a distant shore. Charlotte used a kaleidoscope as a telescope, scanning the room as if searching.
“Land ahoy!” she suddenly cried.
Emily threw the anchor – which was in fact a wooden coat hanger tied to a curtain cord. Then they leaped from the boat and swam to shore.
Panting from exertion, the two girls began exploring the island, poking through the piles of antiques, pretending it was a volcano.
“Look in here,” Charlotte cried to Emily. “Down in the volcano!”
Emily peered behind the hat stand that Charlotte was pointing at. “I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed, playing along.
Charlotte’s eyes were wide. “It’s the rest of the unicorns,” she said. Then she spoke hurriedly to Sparkles. Her face dropped. “Sparkles wants to go down the volcano to be with them,” she said to Emily.
“Oh,” Emily said, a little sad. “Even though that means leaving us?”
Charlotte looked at her dear unicorn friend and nodded. “She says this is her home island. She misses it a lot, and all her friends. She wants to live here. But we’re allowed to come and visit.”
“That’s okay then,” Emily said.
They tied their cardigan sleeves together to make a sling for Sparkles. Then they lowered the unicorn down the back of the furniture and left her there.
“Are you sad to say goodbye?” Emily asked Charlotte as they climbed back into their makeshift boat.
Charlotte shook her head. “No. Because I know I’ll see her again.”
Emily suddenly snapped back into the present day. She was holding Sparkles tightly against her chest, and the toy’s head was wet with her tears. On one hand she felt desperately sad, because she knew Charlotte had never had the chance to see Sparkles again. But the other part of her felt buoyant with joy. The toy was a sign from Charlotte, Emily was certain. Sparkles had been left on that island, down the back of the furniture, completely forgotten about until this moment, perhaps even specifically for this moment.
She hugged Sparkles tightly, then placed her, poignantly, on the shelf overlooking Baby Charlotte’s crib. She felt the circle of life continuing, and smiled knowing that once Charlotte arrived she would have a guardian angel watching over her as she slept.
Emily snuggled up into bed beside Daniel. It had been a long and tiring day, and she found herself quickly drifting off to sleep.
“I can’t believe we own an island,” she murmured into the darkness as she began to fall asleep. “My future is looking nothing like I thought it would once.”
Daniel let out a sleepy laugh. “How so?”
“Well, I never thought I’d be married and pregnant. I never thought I’d have Chantelle, or this inn.” She stroked Daniel’s chest as it rose and fell slowly.
“I never thought I’d have Chantelle or the inn either,” he replied.
“But you’re happy you do?”
“Of course.”
“Are you happy we’re having another girl?”
He kissed her forehead. “I’m very happy,” he assured her.
“And that our daughter is going back to school tomorrow
