Prologue

My first clear memory as a child was of the fog. It was winter, and it was cold. A thick fog blanketed the earth and transformed everything. The frozen fog had frosted the world. The bare trees were crystal sculptures. Even the weeds that lined the street by our house looked like giant snowflakes, frozen in a moment of time. The fog was so thick that I couldn’t even see to the end of our block. I felt like I had stepped into my very own enchanted wonderland.
“Daddy, what makes fog?” It was the most important question I had ever asked. Was this special miracle really made just for me? My father understood the gravity of the moment, and he began an enchanting explanation all about the science behind a foggy morning like this one. He used magical words like “vapor” and “condensation” and “sublimation” – phrases like “dew point” and “relative humidity.” I was amazed! I was entranced! I didn’t understand a single word.

Suddenly, I remember, Daddy stopped talking (right in the middle of explaining that for moisture to form into fog, there must be some mystical power that he called “condensation nuclei”), and he grinned. My Daddy has always been my special friend when he grins, and so I knew that he had a marvelous secret to share. Daddy knelt down so that he was looking right into my eyes, and he told me, “Alaina, sweetheart, fog is what happens when a cloud decides to come down and touch the earth.”

I knew right then and there that the fog would always be one of my very special friends. I knew that it had left its home in the heavens and come to earth just to embrace me. The fog could understand me. Like me, the fog must dream of being something more than what it was born to be. I loved being able to walk on the clouds, just like the fog loved to walk on the earth for a while. Even though I knew that the stern midday sun would drive my fog right back into the sky with all of the regular, everyday clouds, I knew that for a moment, we could be friends in our own enchanted place.

The fog could hide me. The fog could protect me. The fog could understand my need to be different. I really had found my very own enchanted wonderland, and in that magical place, I was one step closer to heaven. Since then, I have known that someday, somehow, I will find a way to capture that magic and carry it with me always. Someday, I won’t have to wait for the fog, because someday, I will be able to walk in the clouds all on my own.

***

The first time I saw Shane, it was a foggy, frozen Friday morning. I was sitting under my favorite ice-sculpture tree, waiting for Jarod to meet me. We were going to go out for an early breakfast before school, as we always did on Fridays. While I waited, I was trying to capture the magic of the morning in my poetry. The words wouldn’t behave themselves and line up properly, so I had set my pen and notebook aside.

I was staring across the park, marveling at nature’s gift to me, when Shane suddenly stepped through a portal and entered my secret kingdom. He smiled as he approached, and when he said hello, I knew that my White Knight had come to rescue me and to carry me off to a castle in the sky, where we could live happily ever after. I would never need to seek the solitude of my enchanted wonderland again.

I knew instinctively that Shane would break all of the enchantments that held me captive and restore me to my true self. I knew that he would be able to see all of the amazing qualities buried deep within the layers of enchantment. I knew that he was the Prince Charming whose kiss would finally wake Sleeping Beauty from her deep and endless sleep. With him, I knew that I could finally be the beautiful princess that I always suspected was hiding somewhere deep inside of me.

It’s only fitting that Shane entered my life through the fog on that magical morning. I have been walking in the clouds ever since! Can you believe it? I am barely seventeen years old, and I have already found my one true love, my knight in shining armor, my perfect prince. Shane is everything that I have always looked for.

He is smart and sexy and absolutely amazing. He is a true prince, noble and kind, brave and strong. I don’t need to kiss any frogs to know that Shane is the one true love that I have been waiting for! We will be together forever and live happily ever after – as soon as I can figure out how to make him notice me!!