“Tell me the story, Daddy,” Claire insisted. “It’s not my bedtime yet.” She pointed at the clock on her bedside table.

“Hmm? Didn’t your mother say tonight’s an early night, Claire-bear? Something about punishment for racing the horses without parental supervision?”

Snuggled under her quilt, Claire suppressed a grin. She and her brother had been so bored. They’d taken Peony and Walter and ridden from one end of the dusty paddock to the other. The timber post-and-rail fence around their white-washed farm with its rickety verandah, crooked chimney and corrugated iron sheds had drawn nearer and nearer, until they’d veered away at the last second.

“I only fell off twice. I didn’t cry and they’re small bruises, promise.” She pushed her quilt back and sat up. “The story! The story!”

“You’ll wake your brother,” her father teased.

Claire glanced to the opposite side of the room, where Marcus hid with his dark blue covers pulled over his head. “Don’t be silly. We were talking right before you came in. Check if you like.”

Marcus threw his quilt back, black headphones over his ears and an iPad balanced on his stomach. “Why’d you have to give me away, Sis? I’d just started watching the latest Marvel.” He reluctantly pulled his headphones off and placed them and his iPad onto his bedside table. Claire and Marcus weren’t meant to watch anything after lights out.

“Come on. It was obvious you weren’t asleep because you weren’t lying down properly.” Claire stuck out her tongue as one of the cows sounded a sleepy moo from the paddock like it agreed with her. She turned back to her father. “Are you going to tell us the story or not?”

“What story?” her father teased, but he sat on the edge of her bed like he did every evening.

“You know the one,” she said, just like she did every evening. She waited for him to get comfortable, a hand resting on each leg and a smile on his lips.

“You’re in trouble, remember? You’re meant to go to bed early. Still, I suppose I can give you the brief version. Happy with that?”

“I suppose,” Claire grumbled.

He laughed. “Once upon a time, there was a princess with red hair exactly like yours, Claire.”

“Yeah,” Claire said, touching a strand of her own wavy locks and forgetting about her disappointment as she began to pre-empt her father’s tale.

Marcus groaned. “This is such a lame story.”

Before Claire could reply, her father smiled. “You don’t have to listen, mate.” He cleared his throat. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes, the princess … She lived in a land far, far away, not at all like ours, in a world called Kelnarium. She had everything she needed; riches and beauty, fun and friends and family, but she lacked one thing.”

“Love!” Claire said.

Her father hesitated. “Yes. So, she looked for a face in the flame, for she could make visions that way, with a little help, and at last she saw the handsome man she would wed. One day, she and her friends wove their magic together and summoned her prince from our world.”

“And they lived happily ever after?”

“And they lived happily ever after,” her father echoed.

“I don’t buy it,” Marcus said crossly. “They didn’t know each other!”

Marcus was forever picking holes in her father’s stories. Claire found it best to ignore him. “What did the prince look like?” she asked. “I bet he was handsome. What about where the prince and princess lived? Was it an enormous palace?” Claire knew the answers, but she liked the way her dad told the story, almost like he’d been to Kelnarium himself.

Her father glanced sideways at the bedside clock and then at Claire. “Distracting me with questions won’t work. I promised your mother you’d be in bed early.” He shot Claire and Marcus stern glances. “Next time ask before you race the horses.”

Claire sighed, but let herself slide further under the warm covers, lids heavy. “Do you think I can be a magical princess when I grow up?” She pictured herself in Kelnarium, an idyllic land of verdant green, dressed in rich robes and a gold crown perched atop her head, and smiled sleepily.

Her father kissed her forehead. “Definitely.”