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CHAPTER ONE 

The Tree with No Door

 

This is the story of a girl who was born in the trunk of a tree. There was no way in and no way out. Yet, out she was. Strange indeed. Few knew how it happened. Mr. and Mrs. Devoridge just wished she'd go back. They never said it aloud. They didn't have to.

Eleven years and fifty-one weeks later, Carli heard a voice shout, "Duck!"

Her stomach dropped like a stone down a well. She ducked. The sword whistled past her ear. She felt the air part her hair like cold fingers.

Who said that? She was alone in the shed.

Devlin jeered through the window. "Missed again, Freakeyes!"

Her hand shot up and covered her teal-blue eye. Her body knew the motion better than breathing.

Devlin pressed his nose to the glass. He made fish faces that left smelly breath-fog blooming on the pane, then swaggered away.

"Everyone knows your eyes make you a weirdo!"

The kitchen door slammed. The sound punched through her chest. Someone had saved her. Someone else was still trying to hurt her. She stood there in the potting shed trying to catch her breath. Shoulders in. Head down. Disappear.

"Actually," came a gentle voice from the corner, warm as honey melting in tea, "Your eyes are rather wonderful."

Carli whipped around. Her bonsai tree sat on its wobbly shelf. Its branches swayed. Its leaves fluttered. There was no wind.

"Friend?" The word stuck in her dry throat. "Did you…"

Friend's leaves rustled with what sounded like gentle laughter.

"Talk? Oh, I've been talking to you for years, my zhireth kaláh. You  haven't been ready to hear me."

The red ochre handprint on the wall blazed bright amber. Hot enough that she felt it from across the shed.

"This can't be happening."

"Oh, but it is. And you'll want to see what's happening at dinner."

Without thinking, Carli circled her fingers and thumb to make a spyglass. She held it up to her blue eye. She peeked through a crack between her boarded up windows. She didn't know why. 

It felt right, as if her eye knew something her hands already understood. Like the day years earlier when her fingers reached for a rare piece of turquoise sea glass in the harbor that gave her a word for her eye. 

Devlin called it frozen. She called it sea glass.

Through her brown eye—the normal one—she saw a regular family at dinner. Through the spyglass, crackling sparks sizzled between Devlin's head and his plastic sword, Excalibur. 

The light zigzagged through the air in sharp, bright bursts in the same way electricity jumps between two live wires. 

She watched Devlin plan to stab her mashed potatoes. Three seconds before his brain formed the thought. 

Not again.

"Carli!" Malvolia's voice shattered the air like breaking crystal, sharp enough to make Carli's teeth ache. "To the table!"

Carli army-crawled through the dog flap. The metal edges bit into her ribs and scraped the scab off her elbow. She didn't wince. Her body knew how to take small pains without showing them.

She chose the corner by the kitchen door. Good. Her escape route was close. She slid into her seat and watched the silver threads pulse. 

Three. Two. One. She slid her plate. 

Thud! 

Plastic hit empty tablecloth. Devlin stared at Excalibur. At the tablecloth. His face went pink, red, eggplant.

"How did you…"

"Stop fidgeting, Carli," Malvolia snapped without looking up.

Carli hadn't moved. Her heart hammered so hard she could feel it in her throat.

A Lucky Orphan whispered, "How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess."

"You've 'lucky guessed' twelve times this month."

Malvolia hissed through clenched teeth, "Stop talking. Nibble now. Dainty bites." 

She made a cat claw movement with pointed fingernails that looked sharp enough to draw blood. "Or else."

A lightbulb went out above the table. 

Malvolia rustled the magazine she was reading. "Diggy Doo. The light."

Mr. Diggory Devoridge scooted his chair back. The legs scraped linoleum. He lumbered onto it. The wood creaked under his weight. Reached for the bulb. The third one this week.

"These bulbs never last. Must be  a short in the wiring, or solar flares, or cosmic video overload."

The moment his fingers touched the metal base, the lightbulb began to glow. And buzz. The vibration traveled up his arm. Into his shoulder. Down his spine.

"Does anyone else smell mint?" Devlin sniffed.

"Brownies."

"Electricity."

"All three," Carli said. "Which shouldn't be possible."

The bulb blazed brighter. Hot enough now that sweat beaded on Diggory's upper lip. It smelled like a mélange of mint cream brownies, lightning, and impossible things becoming possible.

"No," Diggory whispered. His voice shook.

The buzzing rose. The filament inside the glass turned white-hot and sang at a painful frequency. Carli's sea glass eye blazed in its socket the way it did when something was true and close. Then the impossible happened.

∞

Inside the bulb, reality folded in on itself. It bloomed outward. A living room materialized countless light years wide, yet cozy as a cottage. Galaxies spun slow as cake batter on the floor and ceiling. The shag rug galaxy purred like a cat. Black hole lamps cast warm pools of light. Safety made visible. Three beings sat down.

Tutelargen reached for a brownie. His massive ears twitched.

"Brilliant hiding her with the most oblivious family imaginable." His voice rumbled like friendly thunder felt in bones before heard in ears. "Still, the name 'Orphanage for Orphans' makes me chuckle."

Inanna shimmered between solid and liquid starlight. Watery diamonds dripped from her hair. Each drop hit the floor with a sound like a bell made of frozen time.

"Perfect camouflage." Her voice flowed like water over smooth stones. "They care more about appearances than kindness." She paused. "Though our disguise grows thinner each day."

Ollin adjusted his feathered cowboy hat. He touched the golden snake coiled around his arm. Its scales caught light that had traveled millions of years to illuminate this moment.

"The real question is whether she'll stay safe until extraction."

Ollin waved his hand. A glowing hologram of a transparent tree appeared. It turned slowly. Its roots reached through dimensions. Its branches held reality together.

"We have a gravity problem." He pointed at the roots.  "Look. The Tree is uprooted. The hidden gravity ring has dimmed…"

Tutelargen turned to face him. "…to a dangerous level. The Tree of Life can only hold everything in place if it's grounded."

Ollin's finger passed through the hologram like touching warm smoke. He touched the inner ring. Its glow was fading. One of three rings hidden inside the chamber of massive tree. 

"Yes, this one. Gravity itself. Without grounding, the Tree floats unanchored. What isn't grounded can't hold weight."

Tutelargen nodded. "Nearly gone. The seed needs planting."

Inanna said, "And the other rings?"

"Connection severs. Consciousness drifts."

Silence. The kind that has weight and presses on chests.

"How long?" Inanna's voice tolled like funeral bells.

"It's already starting." Ollin zoomed into the tree. A small girl with mismatched eyes hid in a potting shed. So small she could fit in his cupped hands. 

"She needs to get to sanctuary, to Harbornacles. To remember how to wield primørdial power. To plant the Fire Seed."

Inanna whispered, "She has no idea."

"One seed to root the Tree," Tutelargen spoke.

"One seed to root the cosmos," Inanna whispered.

Ollin nodded. "One omringle to plant it."

A rumble sounded beneath their galactic floor as if the earth had remembered how to be angry. The black hole lamps flickered. Swallowed teacups. Burped them back out.

Tutelargen peered at rectangular dead spots spreading across the galaxy rug under their feet. Where the spots touched, stars went dark. Cold. Wrong.

"Look. He's getting closer." He set down his brownie with hands that wanted to shake. "Those metal feet leave perfect marks. And that sniffing…" 

He shuddered with a motion that traveled through dimensions. "Like a bloodhound with the patience of geological time."

"Carli's drainage guardian grows weaker every day," Inanna said. "Soon the golden hum's aroma won't mask her scent. Not against Archondath."

"Three days," Ollin said. "We have positioned the buses."

The plate of mint cream brownies slid toward the nearest black hole lamp.

"Not again." Tutelargen sighed.

He lunged. Too late. The plate tipped. Six brownies spiraled into the event horizon. Spinning. Spinning. Gone. Burp.

"Did the lamp just…" Inanna started.

"Yes," Ollin sighed. "It's been doing that since Tuesday."

"Should we… worry?"

"That it's burping? Or developing preferences?" Ollin gestured at the lamp. "That was its happy burp. It prefers my mint brownies. Not Tutelargen's walnuts."

They stared at the lamp. The lamp dimmed like a cat pretending it hadn't knocked something off the table.

"We're cosmic guardians of reality itself," Tutelargen said. "And it's judging us. By our cooking."

"Your cooking," Inanna corrected.

Despite everything, they smiled the kind of smile people make right before the world ends. Because what else is there? The moment passed.

Ollin turned to Tutelargen. His face solemn. Ancient. Tired. "Begin the extraction countdown?"

Tutelargen set down his teacup. The sound of china on wood was final as a judge's gavel. As a door closing. As a choice made that couldn't be unmade. "We begin. Three days."

Crash!

∞

The lightbulb exploded in Diggory's hands. Glass everywhere. Sharp little razors rained down. Caught light as they fell. Threw rainbows across walls that looked almost like writing if anyone squinted. 

Carli dropped her spyglassed fingers. She had seen enough. Heard enough. We have a gravity problem.

The lightbulb had been hot. Diggory's palms were blistered red. For one impossible moment, he'd seen cosmic beings. Heard them talking about protection. Extraction. 

Someone at his dinner table was at the center of it all. His brain couldn't hold the bigness of it. The too muchness. When he crashed to the floor his head hit tile with a sound like a dropped melon. Solid, yet filled with something soft.

"My lumpy love!" Malvolia slapped his cheeks as if she was tenderizing meat. Whack. Whack. Whack. "Don't you dare leave me with these nuisance children and a reputation to maintain!"

Near the kitchen door, Malvolia's sign made its familiar click-clack of wood on wood. It was also the sound of something shifting that should stay still. 

Hand-painted tiles spelled "If You Want to Grow Be Status Kwo." Carli had been staring at that misspelling for as long as she knew how to read. Long enough that the letters lived in her bones. 

Recently, the tiles had started moving on their own. New letters appeared and disappeared as they pleased.

Click. Clack. Scrape. 

The new message appeared:

THEY'RE COMING

"Did you see that?" Carli whispered. 

The Lucky Orphan's red hot face told her she had. Status Kwo resumed its normal spelling. Click. Clack. As if nothing had happened.

From outside, a sound made everyone freeze. Sniff. Not just a dog. Sniff. Deeper. Damp. Like something tasting the air with its whole throat.

"Is that…" Malvolia whispered.

Sniff. Sniff. Closer now. The sound made Carli's stomach clench. Made her skin want to crawl off her bones and hide.

"The neighbor's dog?" Devlin offered. His voice thin. Small.

Sniff. Loud enough to rattle the windows. Loud enough to feel in chests. 

"That's not a dog," Carli whispered. She wrapped her arms around herself. Her breath moved like a wisp in the suddenly cold kitchen. The world shifted through Carli's eye as she adjusted the spyglass her fingers had made. 

There. Beneath the soil. 

Beneath the grass two shapes crept through earth and stone as if it were air. One with too many joints. Its angles bent wrong as it moved with purpose and turned the air cold. The other shape was a hairless dog with red eyes.

"How do you know?"

"Because it… and his red-eyed dog… They made an octagon around the yard. In thirty seconds."

They all looked at her. Shivering.

"What? I see patterns… and… well…"

Devlin finished, "Freaky things, Freakeyes. You make them up."

The sound circled again patient as stone. Carli saw perfect rectangular footprints appear in the flower beds. Metal impressions. 

Where they touched, the earth smoked, went black and died. The smell of meat left too long in the sun fingered its way through the closed window. Or potatoes rotting from the inside out. 

"Ewwww!" Everyone covered their noses. Carli's throat closed. Her hands went cold.

Malvolia ran to the window. "My Venus Fly Traps are smoking! My Snapdragons are shriveling!"

The things were steady. Patient. They had been searching for something very specific for a very long time. And now they were close enough to smell her.

"Do something, my fidgety fig!"

Diggory's eyes popped open. Glass fell from his hair. Tinkled on the floor like tiny bells. "The lightbulb. Three cosmic beings. Protecting someone with special eyes.

He sat up like a corpse, raised his arm and slowly pointed it around the room. It stopped when it pointed at Carli. His finger shook as it pointed true. "Someone he's trying to find."

Malvolia's gaze bored into Carli with pupils so small they were almost gone. Carli's skin crawled as a thousand ants marched up her spine. 

Every cell in her body screamed hide. She had two eyes that didn't match. She had never been normal. Had she ever been safe?

The sniffing grew hungrier as it continued its methodical circuit. Carli's eye hurt. Her throat closed. Her hands went cold. Whatever was out there knew exactly what it was looking for. And it was getting very close to finding it.

∞

That night, Carli twisted the dial on her old radio. Static hissed. Voices faded in and out like angry cats. On clear nights—if she moved the dial just so—she could pick up news from Echo Harbor. Tonight the static was worse than usual. It hurt her ears.

"… reports of unusual gravitational…"

Static filled the shed like invisible, airborne sand, swirling and settling in her thoughts. "… people advised to secure loose objects…"

More crackling. "… scientists baffled as furniture begins to…" The signal died with a pop Carli felt in her back molars. 

In the kitchen, things slid by themselves a few inches. Chairs lifted off the floor and settled back down. Spoons rose off the table. Malvolia's voice was sharp with panic that made Carli's stomach tight.

In the potting shed, everything stayed where it should. Friend's pot sat steady. Carli's red ochre handprints stayed flat against the wall. Warm. Alive.

She quieted. Listened for the familiar sound from the zigzag drainage channel. Its hum came from the brick floor next to her mattress, a melody woven with ancient, golden liquid light. She had felt it through the floorboards for years. 

The sound of the golden river thrummed in Carli's bones, whispering safe, safe, safe. Night after night, the bricks on its shores breathed like lungs to the rhythm of the universe, keeping one small girl hidden a little longer.

Yet, even ancient power has its limits. Eleven years and fifty-one weeks is a very long time to hide from something and its dog that never stops hunting. The Status Kwo sign in the kitchen let some letters tumble to spell: 

 

RUN

 

CHAPTER TWO

The Thing That Doesn't Sleep

 

The next morning, Carli dropped her tiny scissors mid-snip. Morning sun rays shone through cracks in the boards nailed over her windows. 

"You're pruning me again?" Friend sighed. Its leaves rustled with botanical indignation.

Talking to a plant in daylight felt even more impossible than it had yesterday. "You look hit by lightning," Carli whispered. 

She gulped and glanced at the kitchen window. Malvolia's silhouette turned toward the shed. Arms folded.

"I was hoping for a gentle windswept look," Friend replied. Offended and amused. "I want to look like I've spent many seasons hanging onto a cliff face. There's an art to graceful aging, you know."

The walls held their breath. Dust motes danced in figure eights in the morning light. Others spelled out messages in a language of sparkling dust and golden light. Carli's thoughts drifted to a secret that was hers and hers alone. 

The golden river in her floor zigzagged from the steps to the far wall in a space between the herringbone bricks. It was a dreary drainage channel to anyone else. Carli's sea glass eye saw golden light. Even in midday it glowed between the bricks like liquid honey. Flowed without end. 

Its song made the bricks breathe. In and out with slow, deep breaths that matched her own. Maybe the first owners meant for drainage. Or maybe they knew. 

At night, it hummed a lullaby hum, a safe-now hum. Every night, she watched from the edge of her mattress and listened. She knew every note by heart.

On especially hard days, Carli whispered to the spaces between bricks, "Will you sing me to sleep?" And the golden river did. It always did. Sometimes it wasn't always enough.

Two months ago, Barnaby stopped coming to the shed. No warning. No goodbye. One night his warmth was there beside her, steady as a second heartbeat, her fingers finding fur in the dark. The next night, nothing. The warm patch of dirt where he had lain was just dirt. His massive dog flap at the end of the breezeway just a flap.

She had whispered to the river that first night, "Barnaby's gone." The river hummed on the same as always, which was comforting and unbearable at once.

"Do you think he's alright?" she asked Friend now. Not for the first time.

Friend's leaves rustled with the patience of something rooted. "I think some creatures go where they're needed. Even when we can't see why."

"That's not an answer."

"No," Friend agreed. "It isn't."

She pulled her knees to her chest. The river hummed, safe, safe, safe. She still believed it. She just believed she was safe more carefully now, the way you hold something you've learned can be dropped.

The river worked harder on the nights she missed Barnaby most. She noticed that. As if it knew the shape of what was missing—the warm weight of him, the place where her fingers used to find fur in the dark—and was trying, in its patient way, to fill it.

Something made a click against glass. She ran to her window. No one. She found a marble wedged between one of the boards nailed over the window and the dirty glass. Tiny treasures were part of her little world.

"You don't seem pleased," said Friend. "Usually little treasures make you smile."

Carli mumbled, "Not today." Over the years, she left small trinkets for the orphans in places she knew they would find. A rock in a tree hollow here. A paper bird in between shingles there. 

In return, the nice ones left pressed flowers and unusual sticks in places only Carli would find them. Silent messages that she wasn't as alone as the Devoridges wanted her to be.

Lately, her biggest question was why her brother and the orphans were treated with kindness… and she wasn't. That question had no answer. And so, when the house's creaks and groans settled into familiar silence, she threw small pebbles at the upstairs classroom windows from the back yard. 

Orphans peeked out of the curtains and waved. Carli did cartwheels. She smiled when they laughed. 

The last few weeks, Carli's cartwheels stopped. The golden river seemed to sense her ache. Its lullaby wrapped around her like a blanket that smelled of safety… earth… and something older than names. The sense of arms holding her. 

Carli closed her eyes. Inhaled. In her mind, the fragrance of the melody transformed the shed into a cozy closet. It smelled of cedar wood walls and something sweet. Burning that wasn't fire. She inhaled again. There it was. The scent of earth after rain.

The golden hum filled the cracks where cold air tried to creep in. Created a shield that kept her hidden from things that hunted in the dark. Doing double duty now that Barnaby was gone. She was safe as long as her river sang, night or day. It had protected her for eleven years and fifty-one weeks.

Friend's tone shifted. "You may need a few courage berries to prepare for what's coming." It flexed its branches like muscles. Dozens of firm berries popped onto the stems.

"Come on. Try a courage berry, Carli."

"Ohhh…kay." She picked one. Chomped. The taste exploded. Lychee mixed with something older. Something that tasted like bravery felt in her bones. Heat bloomed in her belly. Spread outward. Down her legs to her toes. Up through her chest to her fingertips. A tingling warmth that made her feel bigger. Taller. Less afraid.

"What's happening to me?" Her voice was quiet as the golden river's hum in the zigzag drainage channel nearby.

"It's courage, Carli." 

Carli looked at her hands. Warmth moved through them, finger by finger, as if her body were being introduced to itself for the first time. 

Carli had always known things she couldn't explain— when someone was lying, when a room had held sadness before she walked into it. She'd learned not to mention it. But this was different. This was a plant. Talking.

 "And how is it possible that I can even hear you, Friend? Plants don't talk. Everyone knows that."

"The same reason you know when storms are coming before the first clouds appear. The same way birds know to fly south, or bees know how to make honey.

"The same reason you know how to make handprints on the wall," Friend said gently. "You've always known things, Carli. You simply haven't known that you knew."

Friend's voice carried the patience of something with roots deeper than basements and much older than the mansion above. 

In fact, if Carli looked at the basement with her sea glass eye through her spyglassed hand (and the coal room beneath the potting shed) she would have seen it filled by a golden lake. Her brown eye would have seen a damp, unused space with dirt floors and water that wept between stone wall cracks.

Bang. Bang. Bang. 

Devlin's fist against the shed door was like thunder. "Carli!" His voice carried malicious glee. 

"Mom says inside right now! The news is starting! Something about a luxury school bus I get to ride because I'm special!"

Carli's heart jumped. She tiptoed down the breezeway and lifted the dog flap. Chaos was building in the kitchen.

Devlin’s face was already waiting for her. He shoved his face close to Carli's and gloated, "Something about a new global school system." A cold fleck of spit landed on her cheek. 

"Luxury school buses with leather seats you'll never get to ride, Freakeyes. And it will prolly have snacks!"

In the potting shed, Friend's branches trembled from something deep and cosmic. "Oh my gentle leaves," it breathed. "After all these years of waiting and watching, the time has actually come."

Carli army-crawled through the dog flap into absolute pandemonium. The kitchen swarmed with Lucky Orphans. The Devoridges had their faces inches from the television. Their features glowed blue.

Malvolia stood frozen in her pink bathrobe. Her perfect curls quivered on her head. Her hands clutched her mug. White knuckles. Eyes wide enough to make her pupils shrink to pinpoints.

Carli looked closer. Malvolia's curls were rising. Floating. Moving.

Diggory snuck a glance. Cleared his throat. "Your hair has…"

"Has what, my grumpy goose?"

"Your hair has stopped obeying the laws of gravity, my curly, um… cheese cracker."

"Nonsense." She grumbled. Her hand moved up to check. She resisted the urge to press it down.

Diggory gripped the kitchen counter like a man trying to anchor himself to reality. One foot had trouble staying on the floor. Then the other. 

He looked like a dog in front of a fire hydrant. Every few seconds, he glanced at the light fixture. Expected it to explode and rain down more impossible truths.

On the television screen, a bewildered news reporter faced the camera. Open mouthed. Gaping like a fish on land. 

The strangest vehicle Carli had ever seen hummed behind him. An old VW bus stretched through unseen dimensions that didn't fit together. Its seven sections were yellow and floated several inches off the ground.

The most impossible thing about the bus was how completely possible it looked. Of course, buses had always floated. Or planned to.

The reporter's voice was tight with professional calm. "The global high-speed school bus phenomenon continues to baffle experts worldwide. Last night, families with surnames P through Z experienced what we can only describe as impossible transportation. Or, so witnesses say. Let's hear from a few of them."

The scene shifted to a family in Lichtenstein. The mother's hair resembled a bird's nest after a tornado. "Ve vere gone for vhat felt like hours!" Her accent was thick.

 "Und ze bus, it did ze barrel rolls! Ze barrel rolls vith ze children inside, but nobody got hurt! Ze children, they vere laughing upside down!"

"Barrel rolls?" Diggory's cocoa mug began to rattle. "In a school bus? Not possible!"

"Mein schnitzel dinner," the woman continued, eyes wide. "It vas doing ze polka in ze air! And so shtrange… none of it landed on ze children… Ya ya!  It settled down into ze dish again."

A new family appeared. From Tokyo. The father was pale green. His young son bounced beside him. "My ramen noodles danced," the boy announced with scientific precision. "They danced with the seaweed shreds. And my chopsticks played drums on my head!"

His father managed a weak smile. "The transportation was unlike anything we've experienced. The Omringle Bus is very smooth, very fast, very…" He paused. "Very impossible." He patted his son's head. "But also somehow exactly what we needed."

The news cut to the morning anchor in New York. Her styled hair was no longer perfect. It rose strand by strand until she looked like she had stuck her finger in an electrical socket.

"We're experiencing some…" She grabbed her hair with both hands. Held it down. The moment she let go, it floated up again. 

Her co-anchor's toupee lifted off his head, then hovered six inches above his scalp. He snatched it back down. It escaped and drifted across the desk.

The split screen showed kitchen tables worldwide. Children with hair floating up. Parents' hair standing on end. Everyone looking electrocuted while eating breakfast.

In Mumbai, a father tried using hairspray on his daughter's pigtails. They stood straight up like antennae, anyway.

The screen cut to a London neighborhood. A woman walked her corgi down the sidewalk, except the corgi wasn't walking. Its paws hovered three inches off the ground. 

The dog looked confused as its legs paddled through the air. It appeared to swim above ground, suspended like a furry balloon. The woman tugged the leash. The corgi bobbed higher.

All down the street, dogs floated on their leashes. Spaniels paddled through the air. Terriers barked at their airborne paws. A Chihuahua drifted past a second-story window. An old woman inside shrieked. Ripped the curtains closed. 

From London, shaky phone footage showed Hampstead Heath. A family lifted off in front of a tree. All four clung to a single dragon kite as they rose higher. The children were laughing. The parents were grabbing branches.

A park ranger ran beneath them with a megaphone. "Release your kites! I repeat! Release. Your. Kites!" Instead, their hands locked around the string in panic.

The news anchor gripped his desk. His escaped toupée orbited around his head. A pencil drifted past his ear.

"I, uh. We're… we're advising citizens worldwide to secure loose objects. Avoid kite-flying, and remain indoors until gravitational conditions stabilize." He paused. 

He snatched his toupee. Gulped. "That is… if gravitational conditions stabilize."

The reporter consulted his notes with shaking hands. "The transportation system appears to be targeting families whose children display—well, this is odd… what officials are calling unusual characteristics or special gifts."

Carli's blood turned to winter wind. Her eye tingled. Her mouth tasted like old pennies. Like the moment before lightning strikes.

"Unusual characteristics," Malvolia repeated. Her nose swiveled toward Carli as if her nostrils had caught a very specific scent. Every orphan in the kitchen turned to look at her.

The reporter's voice grew more strained. "Tonight… yes, folks. Families A through O board the Omringle Bus for the next phase of… educational transport evaluation."

He grabbed his desk. "Excuse me. We're experiencing some technical…" His chair left the ground. An inch. Then two. 

Someone spoke off camera. "We've got another Herbert. Herbert floating."

He gripped his desk harder. "I'm aware!" he hissed through a pained smile at the camera. "And folks, at seven o'clock—sharp—the buses arrive at designated pickup points worldwide. Attendance is mandatory for those who don't want their child held back a year."

"That's us," Devlin whispered. His voice combined excitement and terror. "We're D. For Devoridge."

"And Frida, you'll stay back with Carli to make sure she's… fine. She's not… well… able to go."

The kitchen went silent except for the tick of the wall clock. And the soft sound of Frida's humming. She moved with unusual softness. Stirred something that smelled like comfort and safety. 

Frida hummed under her breath. The same melody from the night before: Eyes that Truly See. A sound that made the very air feel calmer.

Frida's feet lifted a few inches off the ground. She looked at her feet, then Carli. When their eyes met, she nodded imperceptibly. Was this the grumpy Frida she had known all her life? To Carli, this shift felt like a promise wrapped in starlight.

The news anchor's voice cut through their stunned silence. "Folks, even more startling news. We've received breaking news from Modena, Italy. 

"A restaurant vanished during last night's test run. La Cucina Volante—The Flying Kitchen. Yes, vanished. Along with the entire Gustallini family who had run it for hundreds of years."

The anchor looked up from fresh newsprint. "It appears the first Flying Kitchen wasn't actually a kitchen. It was a red Ferrari 250 GTO that the ageless Papa Luigi used for deliveries."

He squinted at the page. "Strange thing was, customers swore their food arrived faster than humanly possible. Still piping hot, even across town. Some even said they saw the car lift off the ground when Papa Luigi sang particularly high notes."

Carli felt something stir in her memory. Like déjà vu, but deeper. Something about a friend who used to tell stories… about his family's restaurant. Where food danced and pasta sang opera.

She hadn't seen him since… since when? The memory felt fuzzy. Like trying to see through steamed glass. It made her chest tight. Like grief, but for something she couldn't quite remember losing.

"Truly sad news," another reporter added. His voice heavy. "The Italian Heritage Society had just declared The Flying Kitchen a Living National Treasure. Nonna Giacinta and Papa Luigi's unique, theatrical approach was legendary. Apparently, they sang opera as they cooked and served customers."

∞

A live Italian reporter appeared on screen. He gestured with both hands at the camera as if he was conducting a symphony. 

"Mama mia! Who willa make the pasta noodles dance now?" He pulled at his hair and cried at the sky in despair. "Who willa sing arias to the sauce to make the herbsa swirl?"

Bile bubbled into his eyes. He aimed his pinched thumb and fingers at the camera as if they could speak. 

"Anda whoever stole Papa Luigi's Ferrari… You agonna pay. I still wanta my pizza delivered by thatta bellissimo piece of art!"

As he spoke, something impossible happened behind him. A replica of La Cucina Volante landed with a hush in the original spot. Complete. Perfect. Utterly wrong.

The Italian reporter sniffed the air. "I musta say. I have noted a strange smell of fresha focaccia. Notta quite Gustallini." He turned around. 

When he saw the replica, he jumped like he'd touched a hot stove. He covered his cheeks with his hands and cried, "Mama mia! Butta what izza this monster? It izza notta Gustallini!" 

He glared at the camera, pressed his fingers and thumbs together and shook them at the lens. He narrowed his eyes. "It'sa time to mortify!"

 

MORE CHAPTERS COMING SOON!