The Lost Story: A Novel

The Lost Story (2024) is a fantasy novel by Meg Shaffer, inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series. The story follows longtime friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell, who vanished into a hidden kingdom in the forests of West Virginia during their youth. Now adults, Jeremy and Rafe are pulled back into the mysteries of their past by Emilie Wendel, a woman whose quest to find her missing sister uncovers long-buried secrets and forces the men to confront the magical world they once escaped. 

This guide refers to the Arcadia Books 2024 Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss kidnapping, child abuse, death by suicide, death of a parent, and anti-LGBTQ+ bias.

Plot Summary

Best friends Ralph “Rafe” Howell and Jeremy Cox get lost inside West Virginia’s dense Red Crow Forest after Rafe has a bitter fight with his father, only to return six months later. When they return, the 14-year-old boys are miraculously healthier and taller. Rafe has no memory of what happened to them in the woods, though he has long scars all over his back, while Jeremy claims that they survived in the woods on their own. 

In the aftermath of their return, Jeremy and Rafe grow apart, with Rafe convinced that Jeremy has abandoned him. The truth about the lost boys begins to unravel only 15 years later, when 23-year-old Emilie Wendell approaches Jeremy to get him to help find her lost older half-sister, Shannon. Shannon was kidnapped by a sex offender many years ago and never located. She is presumed to be dead. Jeremy, an expert at finding lost things and people, shocks Emilie by telling her that not only is Shannon alive, but he also met her in Red Crow. Jeremy can take Emilie to her, but for that, they need Rafe.

Rafe is now a reclusive artist who lives in his father Bill’s cabin in the wilderness, creating murals and wood sculptures of fantastical animals and princesses. When Emilie shows him a picture of Shannon, Rafe realizes that Shannon is the spitting image of a figure he has sculpted. Rafe thought that he’d been capturing his dreams, but it turns out that he has been recreating his suppressed memories from his lost time in the forest. Rafe agrees to help Emilie as long as Bobbi, his mother, agrees. 

As Jeremy, Emilie, and Rafe travel to get Bobbi’s approval, Emilie realizes that Jeremy is madly in love with Rafe. Though Rafe does not acknowledge it, he, too, has feelings for Jeremy. It also becomes clear that Rafe’s father, Bill, was abusive during Rafe’s childhood, shaming him for his love of art as well as his sexuality. The night before Jeremy and Rafe got lost in the woods, Bill slapped Rafe and tore his sketchbooks. After Rafe returned, the relationship between Bill and Rafe improved; therefore, Rafe doesn’t want Jeremy to remind him of his father’s abuse. The friends bid goodbye to Bobbi, with Rafe promising his mother that he will return soon.

Inside Red Crow, Rafe instinctively leads the group to a grove on top of a hill. Guided by a literal red crow, the friends enter a tree’s hollow and emerge in a magical forested kingdom. Jeremy finally tells Rafe the truth: 15 years ago, they wandered into the same alternate, magical world. The name of the kingdom is Shanandoah, after Emilie’s sister, who rules it as Queen Skya. 

Escaping from the trunk of the kidnapper’s car, Skya ran into the forest with a backpack containing the fantasy story she’d been writing, featuring a nobody who becomes a queen. The kidnapper had nearly caught Skya again when a red crow pecked out his eyes. The kidnapper fell down the hill and died, while the crow led Skya into the magical land that was summoned into being by the very story that Skya had been writing. Emilie is famous in Shanandoah as the “lost princess” since Skya waits for the day when she can be reunited with her sister.

In Shanandoah, Rafe became a prince, and Jeremy became a knight. They lived happily with Skya, going on adventures and quests. When Rafe and Jeremy pined for their mothers, Skya arranged a spell for their return to the real world. The time for them to come back to Shanandoah would arrive when Jeremy—whom Skya gave the gift of finding things and people—located the lost princess. Emilie could only be found when she herself came to Jeremy, a development that could take decades. Moreover, the condition of the spell of return was that Jeremy would remember his time in the magical kingdom but not the way back. Rafe, on the other hand, would know the way back but would have to lock up all his memories in a sketchbook. Jeremy could not disclose anything about the kingdom to Rafe until their return.

Rafe feels his anger against Jeremy dissipate. However, before they can reunite with Skya, there is a battle to fight. A mysterious and deadly enemy has stolen Rafe’s book of memories and styled himself the king of Ghost Town, a rotten wasteland between the real world and Shanandoah. Enabled by the enemy, the Bright Boys, murderous creatures who feed on fear, have grown more deadly. Usually, Skya and her army kill the Bright Boys and they vanish in smoke, resurrecting after some time, but now the Bright Boys have become more tenacious. Fearing for Emilie’s safety, Skya whisks her away to a ship in the middle of a sea and directs Rafe and Jeremy to remain at her palace. Meanwhile, Skya will fight the enemy and retrieve Rafe’s book. Emilie refuses to remain on the ship and swims back to Skya, while Rafe and Jeremy go to Ghost Town to take on its king.

The king turns out to be none other than the ghost of Bill, who does not want Rafe to see what is in the sketchbook. Apart from the memories of Rafe’s beautiful time in Shanandoah, the book also contains his worst memory. Bill did not just slap Rafe that night; he also whipped his back raw with an electric cord, which is how Rafe got his scars. Rafe did not want to return home with this ugly memory, so he drew it in his sketchbook. Bill fears that if Rafe accesses the memory, it will destroy the tenuous peace that the father and son forged before Bill’s death. To force Rafe to destroy the book, Bill asks the Bright Boys to bring out Jeremy and Emilie, whom they have captured. 

Knowing that Skya will have a plan of attack, Rafe buys some time by inviting Bill to a one-shot archery contest for the book. If Rafe hits the spider at the center of the golden bull’s eye, Bill will leave him alone. Bill agrees, and the Bright Boys place an actual deadly spider in the bull’s eye, inches above Jeremy’s head. Rafe makes the impossible shot and defeats Bill. Skya appears on the scene, and the friends destroy the Bright Boys. Before they return to Shanandoah, Skya tells Bill that he will get one last chance to make things right with Rafe. If he doesn’t accept the chance, he will be trapped forever in limbo.

Back in Shanandoah, the friends reunite and enjoy 15 days of celebration, ending with Emilie’s coronation. Rafe finally opens the sketchbook and his memories return, flooding him with the realization that he and Jeremy were in love in Shanandoah. What’s more, Rafe has never stopped loving Jeremy. This happy turn of events does not last long. Skya reveals that the rules of Shanandoah say that the door to the land will open only thrice before being locked forever. If Rafe and Jeremy leave Shanandoah this time, they can never return. However, they need to go because of Rafe’s promise to Bobbi. Emilie begs Skya to rewrite the rules, but Skya replies that magic has rules that even she cannot control. Skya has not written about Shanandoah since she came to the kingdom, having left behind the pencil that her beloved teacher gave her. Emilie wishes for a magical pencil and gives it to Skya.

Meanwhile, Jeremy and Rafe are out camping when a resurrected Bright Boy stabs Jeremy in the chest, puncturing his lung. The return to the real world is now mandatory since Jeremy can only be saved by surgery. The quickest way back is through Ghost Town. When Rafe’s strength flags in Ghost Town, Skya’s red crow, Aurora, seeks help, which arrives in the form of Bill’s ghost. Bill seizes the last chance that Skya offered him and finally accepts Rafe’s love for Jeremy. Bill carries Jeremy to the door to the real world. Having redeemed himself, Bill transforms into a robin and flies away. 

Rafe and Jeremy return to West Virginia. Jeremy recovers and moves in with Rafe. Though the two are happy together, they never stop missing Skya and Emilie. The novel ends on a happy note when a postcard arrives from Emilie, stating that Skya has resumed her story using the magical pencil. Emilie also believes that she will dance at Rafe and Jeremy’s wedding in Shanandoah, implying that a new door to the kingdom may soon open up. This time, Rafe resolves, he will take Bobbi along.