Elves were real.

Elves. Were. Real. I would have thought I'd gone crazy, but Christabel saw them too. The picture in the book showed elves in the same clothes as those two dudes, right down to the white fur trimming. The explanation of how wishes worked was chillingly similar to what they explained had happened to me.

I was starting to believe that maybe I could learn my lesson in time for Christmas. I had more information now about how reversing wishes worked and I had a general idea of what the lesson I needed to learn was. I was just worried about how Clara Marie was doing. I hoped she wasn't messing up my reputation too much—not that I had that great of a reputation in the first place. I felt bad for her. Imagine time-traveling from 1840 to 2020. I would have been so overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed by the Victorian Era, but at least I knew loads about it before I came here. I wondered how Clara was reacting to cars, phones, TV, computers, and stores with automatic doors. I was so thankful I wasn't in her position. All I had to do was learn to be more confident.

The lessons were actually going pretty well. See! I'm being confident already by believing that I'm learning quickly to be confident (I think? I confused myself with that one). I never used to be confident about learning new skills.

To practice being confident, Christabel and I watched people we thought were confident and took notes on how they acted. We noticed that they spoke very decisively and had good posture. I needed to work on posture. Then we wrote down what we thought we needed to work on. I wrote: not making statements sound like questions, stop doubting myself, stop slouching, and stand up for myself. Christabel had a pretty long list too. We tried to practice not doing those things, but it didn't go so well. We tried to act out a scene where I was Ms. Grundley (the mean head maid at the castle) being horrible to Christabel, and then Christabel would stand up for herself. It went like this:

"Hello, Christabel," I sneered. Christabel straightened.

"Hello, Ms. Grundley."

"I see by the way these clothes are folded, you've done a terrible job as usual. Fold them again."

"I—um—No."

"No?"

"No. Those clothes are folded nicely, and I'm not redoing them."

"How dare you! Disrespecting me like that? You must obey your superiors!" I exclaimed. Christabel slumped forward.

"I'm sorry, I'll fold them right away. I—I—I shouldn't have said that."

"Christabel," I laughed, "It's just me. If you can't even stand up to me pretending to be Ms. Grundley, how will you do it in real life?"

"I know, but what if she gets mad? I could be dismissed."

"Don't worry, I won't let her fire you. They all think I'm Clara Marie, remember?" I heard a gasp from the doorway. Turning around, I saw Louis. His eyebrows were furrowed and he stared at me suspiciously.

"What do you mean they think you are Clara Marie? You are Clara Marie," he said. Oh no.

"Um, about that," I started. "You might want to sit down for this."

After I finished explaining, Louis sat there for a moment.

"You've gone mad, haven't you?" he asked, inching away from me.

"No, I swear it's true. That's why I've been acting so weird."

"I thought that was because you hit your head and lost your memory." Oh. So he did know I had "lost" my memory.

"I didn't lose my memory. I'm just not Clara Marie." Louis looked over at Christabel.

"Is this true?" She nodded.

"I saw the elves myself."

"I believe Christabel," he said. "She's not crazy."

Ouch. At least he believed me now.

"Why were you lurking in the doorway?" I asked.

"I was looking for you," he admitted. Ha! Got him. "Your grandfather sent me to retrieve you. He has something to show you outside." Dang it. He didn't want to see me, my grandpa did.

"Okay," I said, heading out the door.

"Wait! Shouldn't we tell someone?" he asked. I whirled around.

"No! We are not telling anyone. You hear me? Not. A. Soul. You weren't supposed to know. Understand?" I felt bad for being so harsh, but I needed him to understand.

"I—I—understand," he said.

"Good. Now, what does he want to show me?"

After a bunch of turning and twisting through hallways and rooms (I still had no idea how to get anywhere here), Louis opened a small door that led outside. From there, we wound through some gardens and stables to a little courtyard. Grandpa was standing in the middle with a horse. The most beautiful horse I had ever seen in my life. The horse was dappled gray, with a shiny coat and a long black mane. It was small but strong, with small feet and intelligent eyes.

"An early Christmas present," Grandfather explained. I ran over and hugged him.

"Thank you! What's her name?"

"She doesn't have one yet," he smiled. I gently approached the horse and stroked her nose. She held completely still.

"I know you always wanted a horse of your own. Do you remember how to ride?" Shoot. I had forgotten about that. I probably should learn to ride a horse before, well, riding a horse.

"No. But I would love to learn." I smiled and stroked the horse's neck. She sniffed and shook her head. I wondered what I would name her. I tried to think of book characters I liked. Or maybe historical figures?

"There is one condition, however. You must go to the Christmas ball," Grandfather hesitated. "Otherwise, I'll sell her to someone else." I paled. I really, really, really wanted the horse. Hopefully, I'd be gone by Christmas, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the ball.would be the test of my confidence. The timing was just too perfect. Maybe the ball would be my ticket home.