A Secret in the Woods

That night, Timoteo finally had the chance to speak with Miguel and get filled in on the details of the Smeralda-Extraterrestrial agreement. “They say their home planet has been destroyed. They call themselves the Vermilionites,” said Miguel.

“Vermilionites?” said Timoteo. They were in Miguel’s room, sitting on his bed while the rest of the palace fell steadily to sleep.

“Their home planet was called Vermilion. The planet doesn’t appear on our records, though, which made mom and dad suspicious at first.”

“And?”

“Apparently their planet is beyond our scope. They’ve been traveling through space, at light speed, for centuries. So I guess it wouldn’t be surprising for us to have no record of their planet. They were able to indicate the exact location in space for us though—in the end, Hermenegildo’s suspicions were allayed. He was on edge the most, I’d say. Mom and dad seemed to be taking the Vermilionite leader’s words at face value.”

“What do you think?” Miguel was eighteen, only three years older than Timoteo, and while Timoteo didn’t look up to many people, he did look up to his brother. Though they didn’t always see eye to eye, Timoteo always wanted to know what Miguel’s opinions on matters were; more often than not, they shaped TImoteo’s opinions as well.

“I’m speaking from my gut here,” began Miguel, “but I don’t think there’s any reason to be alarmed. Klaus, the leader, seemed trustworthy enough. And, I know I’m not the best people reader out there, but he didn’t show any red flags, in my opinion. However… I do think mom and dad and the council could’ve taken a little longer coming to a decision. It all seems a little… precipitated.”

Timoteo frowned. “So what’s the agreement?”

“Well, believe it or not, he promised to teach us magic—well, not magic exactly—but something like a breed of technology far beyond anything we’ve ever imagined.”

“What’d he have to show for it?”

“At first, not much. Then he elaborated upon the whole cloaking system their ships were using, and how they only made themselves visible to Smeralda. We’d already figured that out, of course, but we had no idea how they were doing it. Then he did something really creepy—he teleported into the room.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Miguel nodded, remembering with excitement. “He manifested himself within his hologram—I mean, one second he was just a projection—the next, he’s stepping off the HoloProjection Pad and greeting us in person. It was crazy. The guards almost shot him, they were so startled.”

“He frikkin’ teleported?” cried Timoteo, thrilled at the prospect of figuring out how that worked.

“He teleported,” said Miguel with a nod. “It was awesome. So you can only imagine what else those guys are hiding up their sleeves—not to mention, if they’ve got the technology to teleport, and to stay in space for as long as they have and sustain their entire people—well they’ve certainly got something to teach us.”

“Why’d they come here? Why Smeralda?”

“‘Apt conditions.’ He didn’t say much more than that. Apparently, Coralende caught their eye from afar—and Smeralda is the country most like their original home.”

“How many are they?”

“About five hundred. Most of them died while escaping their home planet… And ever since, they’ve kept population growth tightly restricted.”

A brief silence. Timoteo was so fascinated, he couldn’t wait to run into Lila again. She could give him the full scoop—if she didn’t run off and vanish again. “What happened to their home planet?”

Miguel shrugged. “Don’t know. They don’t seem to like talking about it.”

By now the palace had fallen into a deep silence. Timoteo could see the golden light from the hallway’s faux-flame torches flickering through the crack beneath Miguel’s door. “Well OK. I guess I should—“ A bird perched itself suddenly on Miguel’s windowsill. A yellow bird, with a dog’s tail. 

“What the…”

The bird winked, and flew away. Miguel turned to look one second too late. “What is it?” he asked.

“I thought I just saw—“ Timoteo stuttered. A winking bird? Really? “Nevermind brother.” He hopped off Miguel’s bed. “Good night.”

A minute later Timoteo was in his bedroom down the hall, peering out his own window. Why would Lila’s chimera appear to him like that—and wink? He looked out into the darkness covering the palace gardens, dimly lit by the flickering glow of faux-flame torches. He strained his eyes, hoping to see a streak of bright yellow flying around, somewhere. Was the chimera spying on him? 

A chirp.

Timoteo turned around, just to spot the chimera perched on his dresser, head cocked to the left, staring straight at him as it vigorously wagged its tail. “What’re you doing here?” Timoteo whispered, not sure whether the bird even understood what he said.

The chimera soared past him and out the window, hovered in front of him for a bit, then darted across the gardens and over the palace gates in the distance. There was no doubt about it: it wanted to be followed. 

Timoteo threw on his cloak and headed out, taking the route he always took when visiting his tree house in the woods. He crossed the grounds undetected, as usual. The air, however, was unusually cold. He wrapped his cloak tightly around his shoulders and crept through the palace gardens, found the small iron gate, rusty, hidden and forgotten behind a wall of ivy, and slipped out beyond the palace’s domain.

He was now out in the open. Up ahead, the chimera flitted back and forth, urging him to approach the forest edge. Timoteo followed, and as soon as he stepped into the thick silence of the woods, found himself surrounded by an ever-growing number of blue fireflies. It was odd, but if Timoteo hadn’t known better, he’d have believed they were attracted to him.

“Where’re you taking me?” Timoteo whispered after the chimera. He knew the creature could understand him, but it just kept on flying ahead, keeping Timoteo at a swift trot. He tripped. He stumbled. He struggled through brambles. He was dangerously far from the palace now. “Hold up!” he called after the bird. It was flying faster now.

And then Timoteo stopped. This was as far as he would go. The chimera had vanished, and Timoteo was panting. He had never ventured so far into the woods—wasn’t even sure he’d know his way back properly. “I thought you’d stop here,” said Lila.

Timoteo jumped, his heart skipping a beat. She had startled him, severely. “Lila, what the—”

“I’m sorry to call on you so late,” she said, as if wandering the depths of the woods at night was the most natural thing in the world. “But I wanted to know if you were aware of this.” She pointed her finger into the air before her. “I assume you are.”

Timoteo blinked once. Twice. Waiting for the punch line. “The… trees?”

Lila looked at him sideways. “I thought you knew these woods.”

“I never come this deep. It’s really not safe—”

“So you don’t know what this is?” Again, she pointed into empty space.

“Lila—I don’t see anything.”

She pulled him by the wrist. “Come, stand here,” she said, setting him directly next to herself. She grabbed his hand and pointed his index finger forward, “There. See it?”

Timoteo didn’t, at first. But then, after a moment’s notice, it became apparent. A sort of shiver in midair—like heat rising off the street on a sunny summer day. Timoteo’s first instinct was to look at the ground, expecting to find some sort of hole or gas pipe. There was none. “Where’s it coming from?”

“It’s not coming from anywhere. It’s just there.”

“How’d you find it? I would’ve never noticed—"

“I ran into it, completely by accident. I thought you’d be familiar with it.”

Timoteo shook his head. He approached the shiver and stretched his hand out, attempting to touch it. It was like sticking his hand into a recently cooled oven. The air was warmer around his hand, but not significantly so. It was like a warm pocket in midair. He dipped his arm in… The heat was pleasant. He got closer, dipped his face in… then walked straight through the shiver. He expected to be engulfed in warmth, then step right out back into the chilly night air. He didn’t. The entire forest was now warm. “What the…”

“Tim!” he heard Lila cry, her voice muffled, as if submerged under water. He looked around, startled. She was nowhere to be seen.

“Lila!” Tim called, suddenly, aghast. Where had she gone? Where had the shiver gone? And why had the air become so suddenly warm? Suddenly, Lila’s disembodied hand appeared, floating in midair, waving frantically.

“Tim!” came Lila’s muffled voice. “Grab my hand!” Timoteo did, and Lila pulled him back through the shiver and into his own world. “Timoteo!” she scolded. “You’re not supposed to step inside it!”

The air was cool again. “What—what just happened?” He turned back, unnerved, to look at the shiver. There it was, sort of—difficult to observe if not from precisely the right angle.

“It must be a portal. That’s my best guess.”

“A portal?”

“Yes. I had never seen one. I know they existed back in the woods from my home planet. The forest from our country was also a strange, magical place. Or so I’ve been told.”

“A portal to where?”

“An alternate universe, I assume.”

Lila spoke with such offhandedness, he couldn’t tell whether she was pulling his leg or not. “You had portals, as well, where you come from?”

Lila nodded, the sincerity in her expression removing all doubt from Tim’s mind that she was kidding. “They’re everywhere. Your people aren’t familiar with portals?”

Timoteo shook his head. “Nooo,” he said, an inevitable pinch of sarcasm in his voice. “No portals. No alternate universes… We’ve never even considered the possibility—”

“How odd. All planets have portals, in some place or other. My people have never seen one because we’ve been on spaceships all our lives, but we’ve been taught about them. They’re extremely rare to come across, but they exist in a number of different spots.”

Timoteo stared hard at the shiver in midair. Little by little, everything he thought he knew about the world seemed to have been turning on its head since the Vermilionites arrived. Magic… teleportation… chimeras… alternate universes…

“So what happens if… you know…”

“Walk through them?” Lila asked. “Well from what I’ve learned from my physical sciences teacher, you’re not supposed to. She says portals are ruptures in the fabric of space-time. They’re not supposed to exist, and their existence, as of yet, is unexplained. But I know that back in my home planet, tampering with them was forbidden. Every portal, once discovered, was strictly watched and forever off bounds.”

“Why?”

Lila shrugged. “Something about the butterfly effect and the balance between universes. How any slight alteration of events on either side could cause a massive ripple… And so on and so on.” Timoteo was fascinated. He wished he could speak with Lila for hours on end, just to satisfy his curiosity regarding all those things which, while to her seemed so mundane, to him were so incredibly intriguing. Lila caught the wonder in his eyes.

“I can lend you a book on the subject, if you like.”

Timoteo nodded. “That would be great.”

Lila turned to look at the portal. “So… what do we do about the portal?”

Timoteo found the possibility of such an extraordinary discovery becoming off limits. He needed to explore it further—or at least have the option of exploring it further, once he read about portals and alternate universes in Lila’s book.

He looked sideways at Lila, a sly smile on his face. “Can you keep a secret?”

The Morning

The first full day of house arrest was torture for elizabeth. By 11:35 am her leg started twitching. She itched to leave the coffin of an apartment. Since she woke up, at 4:30, she had been waiting for something, anything to happen. Of course nothing did happen – at least not on her radar. Plenty of things did happen.

mr. livral, forgetting, or neglecting, the fact that elizabeth was their only guest, made a breakfast buffet fit for the star hotel. He was not in the least bit offended when no one, not even himself, had much appetite that morning. He carefully rationed out all the leftovers into portions that would last them the next six meals.

sempere busied himself down in the bookstore searching through the magazine archive for stories about prior mass disasters. Whenever he found an article, he scanned it onto his tablet. After scouring the archives, he planned to create a collage, employing the lessons of the social contagions class he was taking. He would post the final product on his blog, which cataloged all the emergencies he had gone on as part of his paramedic training.

elizabeth paced sempere’s room that had been hurriedly tidied for her.

After rationing food for the week, mr. livral began scrounging together end-of-the-world disaster kits with combinatory plans for every possible arrangement of every possible situation. Once he had revised the plans three times he typed them up on the typewriter center-staged on the desk in his room.

sempere found that his blog as well as the rest of the internet was in a state of “temporary control” and no activity would occur until further notice. So his disaster collage would have to wait. Wait, that is, until after he researched internet hacking. After two hours or so back in the magazine archives (you are now probably wondering why he didn’t just find a book about computer hacking but the bookstore, as all bookstores in nilbmah, was more of a magazine store; nilbmahians had insatiable appetites for magazines past and present but liked books as much as raw garlic.) So after searching the archives, sempere found lots of interesting things about hacking but nothing that would quite help him with the current project. But, in his opinion, it was time well spent. He put his collage project on hold and then started creating a disaster playlist on his tablet.

elizabeth had almost managed to tolerate the muffled typewriter tapping, when sempere started playing the beginnings and endings of songs over and over again. Within 36 seconds, she lost it. She started pounding her head against the wall.

Before all this, she had read the letter from jacob but that did little at all to calm her nerves. Quite the opposite. All it said was:

I regret leaving you this way, but now you know.

Yours,

JM

OHMYGOODNESSGRACIOUSANDAWHOLEBUNCHOFCURSEWORDSTOO!!!!

Everything had to be so annoying. Bang. What was she supposed to make of that? His spider thin handwriting wasn’t rushed so how could he have known he would leave like that? What did she know? And yours? Bang. Oh my goodness, yours? It was so creepy. Bang. elizabeth couldn’t think about it anymore but she did. Over and over again. Bang. Bang. Bang. She couldn’t even distract herself by walking the city. She was trapped in an 800 square foot cage that smelled too heavily of earl grey. Bang. And the worst of it was she had the key to leave. But she would only save her sanity to lose the resistance. Catch 22. Bang. Bang. Bang! BANG!

When elizabeth finally looked up she saw mr. livral and sempere both hunched at the door whispering to each other. When they noticed she noticed them, they both muttered apologies and shuffled away. elizabeth didn’t say anything.

While this awkward moment forced perspective onto elizabeth’s outward appearance, her insides still bubbled. She came to dinner composed with a bit of make up to conceal the large red welt she now wore on her forehead. She swiftly apologized to the livral’s explaining that the whole experience was just too overwhelming for her frail composition. The livral’s in turn brushed her apology aside and told embellished stories of how they were coping with the ordeal. They all had a little more appetite than breakfast and no one seemed to mind that they were having leftover pancakes for dinner.

The next day was even worse. The livrals continued to make odd jobs for themselves while elizabeth plunged into mental entropy. She hadn’t sat around this long since she had the sertoba virus in the second grade. And even though she kept the nauseating current of thoughts and emotions bottled up, the frenzy shown in her eyes and the livrals walked on eggshells when they passed her door.

The third night elizabeth gave up trying to sleep. So unlike the rest of nilbmah, when pounding came from the door at 5 am, she sprang into action, before the livrals even woke up.

“Who is it?”

“Your presence is required in the square. Everyone must come at once.”

“Who is it?”

elizabeth's unworried persistence earned a pause before the next reply.

“You must come at once. Open the door.”

“I will only open the door if you tell me who’s there. You don’t have to make this difficult.”

Another pause.

“Everything will be explained at the square.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

The response came louder and with unmasked edge this time, “I will not ask you again.”

“That’s great. Thank you. Have a nice day?”

Now shouting, “I will break down the door in 5 seconds if you don’t open it. 5. 4. 3.”

sempere, his father two steps behind him, both in only their bathrobes came running to the door before the soldier at the other side could finish counting.

sempere offered a string of apologies for elizabeth even after being told to be quiet, while mr. livral tried to tone down elizabeth.

The soldier repeated the original demand and asked if there was anyone else in the house.

Elizabeth remained firm. “We are not going with you until you tell us who you are.”

But sempere jumped in, “Of course we are going with you. Don’t listen to her. She’s very much shaken up by all the recent hullabaloo. Do forgive us.”

While mr. livral quietly cautioned “elizabeth, can’t you see his guns. You can’t do this. Aren’t you glad to get out? Don’t make a scene.”

mr. livral’s warnings seemed marginally effect and elizabeth gave into the soldier’s demands.

At the square they found half the neighborhood already gathered in their night cloths and the street lights still the only light. A stage had been set up at one side of the square. It took only five minutes for the rest of the neighborhood to gather. Everyone was dying to talk to their neighbors but too scared to let anything out. So they all stood shivering with cold and expectation.

When the crowd seemed to grow restless, a woman in an ornate military-meets-corporate uniform took to the stage with three other soldiers.

As you already know, this woman began to tell the nilbmahians the story of how they had been saved by the generous and timely intervention of her people. Just as in all the other squares and plazas across nilbmah, she painted a Foggistan that had come inches from usurping nilbmahian rule, a Foggistan that still loomed with its massive star fleet, a Foggistan that that they needed to be protected against.

By the end of the speech, elizabeth couldn’t stand it any longer. She knew she couldn’t draw any more attention to herself. She knew she couldn’t cause a scene. She knew the resistance depended on her complacency. But she just couldn’t put up with it. She took a deep breath to project her voice across the square when sempere thrust his hand over her mouth and pulled her into his chest, pinning her. elizabeth tried to wiggle free but sempere was stronger than he looked. To prepare for lifting bodies out of wreckage as an EMT, sempere had been lifting twice a day for a month. elizabeth wasn’t going anywhere.

Of course she struggled for the rest of the speech and all the way back to the apartment. mr. livral was quite surprised by his son’s behavior but he didn’t say anything.

Once back the apartment, mr. livral noticed elizabeth had a new look in her eyes and he didn’t dare seek his son’s. He noticed that sempere took her, no longer struggling, to his room and shut the door. Then mr. livral went to his room and started typing and stopped noticing things.

And that, unfortunately dear reader, is where I must leave it. elizabeth of course refuses to answer any questions about that morning and sempere, rest his soul, closed his story long before I started mine. So mr. livral offering is all we have. The rest of the morning has been lost to the clouds.

The Newcomers

The next day, Timoteo set off to wander alone through Green City, and no one seemed to mind. His parents and brother were too preoccupied with present events, as was the entire palace staff. So Timoteo took advantage of the situation, and wandered down the streets of the city he would never rule, and which he didn’t much care to rule over to begin with.

Considering it was a Day of Rest, more people were wandering the streets than usual, no doubt due to the presence of the extraterrestrials. After last night, a long conversation with the extraterrestrial leader, and a heated discussion between the King, Queen and the Smeraldian Governing Council, it had been agreed upon that the aliens would be granted sanctuary in Smeralda. Timoteo didn’t know the details. Of course there was something in it for Smeralda—he just hadn’t figured it all out. He’d been kicked out of the Skylight Office by his mother as soon as things started getting interesting. So much for learning how to “handle unexpected situations.”

At any rate, Timoteo didn’t doubt he’d get the full scoop from his brother soon enough. In the meantime, he’d settle for wandering the streets of Green City. A strictly organized and symmetrical city, the capital of Smeralda was both quaint and metropolitan, traditional and modern. It was, for the most part, walkable, almost like a town, dominated by one and two-story houses made mostly of smooth, polished limestone bricks, most with regal wrought-iron gates and ivy-laden balconies. Trees, plants, bushes, shrubs, flowers and fountains—they were everywhere, as a matter of principle, which made the city very shaded, cool and delightfully breezy. The streets were made of granite setts, in homage to the streets of the first Green City, destroyed centuries ago, and the traditional yet anachronistic style of the entire city was dutifully preserved by the Municipal Council. All houses were to be made of limestone. The architectural style of all new buildings was to be “harmonious” with the current city and “respectful” of the city’s past, and so on. Timoteo had initially considered these regulations stifling and silly. He had admired the architectural styles of Coralende’s more advanced countries. Then he learned that Green City’s outdated style was one of the things that made it unique in the world. The King also made significant advances in teaching Timoteo the value of one’s past and history.

As for the city’s downtown, it was considerably more modern, though not entirely so. It held taller buildings, slightly less greenery, and overall felt more “stony” as Timoteo put it. Ivy creeped over the walls of some of Green City’s tallest buildings, none of which exceeded fifty stories, and elaborate fountains called “waterways,” unique to Green City, were designed to curve, swirl and wind their way around streets, buildings and elevated walkways in such a way that inhabitants of Green City could always hear the trickling, gurgling or gushing of water wherever they were.

The City, Timoteo had to admit, had succeeded at becoming larger and busier yet never more stressful. When he wasn’t wandering the woods, Timoteo liked to visit it—at least on Days of Rest. Today, however, there was a sense of excitement in the air—like there was going to be some sort of parade. The extraterrestrials had settled their spaceships where Hermenegildo, Smeralda’s Head Military Strategist, had predicted: in the vast expanse of meadow, between the palace and the woods. Now, some extraterrestrials were making themselves at home; others had taken the King’s offer of hospitality very much to heart and started exploring the city on foot, receiving their fare share of curious glances and occasional questions from Smeraldian city folk.

Change was in the air, and Timoteo liked it.

“It’s you,” came a familiar voice, from behind.

Timoteo turned and found himself facing Lila. “Lila. What’re you—” Then he noticed the curious creature on Lila’s shoulder. A little finch of sorts. Faded yellow, like a female goldfinch—but definitely not a goldfinch. “That bird has a dog tail,” Timoteo said.

“Yes, yes it does,” said Lila, petting the bird’s head lightly with her finger. The bird nuzzled sweetly against her cheek, and Lila giggled. The bird had a tail like that of a golden retriever, and bunny ears. “It’s my pet. We all have one. My dad calls it my ‘little conscience.’ She speaks—but only to me.”

Timoteo shook his head, confused. “What? You all who have one?”

Lila fidgeted with the red band around her wrist. Timoteo noticed that today, once again, she was wearing red. “I think you’re calling us ‘the extraterrestrials’ or something.”

Timoteo’s eyebrows rose. “You’re—You’re one of them?” Lila nodded. “But I saw you before they even—”

“If you look closely, you’ll notice we all have a little conscience. Of one sort or another. Look.” Lila indicated with a nod a group of five extraterrestrials walking the streets, three adults and two children. They were taking everything in with wide-eyed wonder. Timoteo could only conclude they’d been in spaceships for most, if not all, of their lives. “The children each have one.” The two kids did have creatures of their own. One looked like a toad with butterfly wings. The other a hummingbird with what appeared to be kangaroo legs. “They’re chimeras. They’re magical byproducts of our birth—each is unique to its child.”

Timoteo’s head was spinning. Chimeras? Magic? “Magical byproducts?”

Lila nodded, beginning to walk in no particular direction. Timoteo followed. “Father says we are going to share our knowledge with your people, in exchange for protection and a home. I can answer your questions, if you like.”

“You said magic?” Timoteo couldn’t quite get over that.

“We call it magic. But really, magic is just science we don’t understand yet, right? We understand it now—it just works in such unexpected and unpredictable ways, we’ve never stopped calling it magic.” She smiled. “We’re supposed to share it with your people at some point.” Being an avid fantasy reader, Timoteo’s interest was piqued. “If you like, I can—” The bird chimera pecked Lila’s cheek. Startled, Lila put her ear to the creature’s beak. Was it speaking to her? “Oh Tim, I’m sorry. I must go.”

“Why—What’s the matter?”

“It was good seeing you again,” she said, running off. How did she even know where she was going? “I’ll see you again! Bye!” And just like that, Lila turned a corner and vanished.

Curious, confused, eager, weirded out—Timoteo wasn’t sure what he felt. This Lila girl came and went like a fairy, appearing and disappearing. Was this just a social quirk of her race? She was also incredibly adept at evading questions. One moment Timoteo was finding out she was an extraterrestrial, the next he thought she’d answer all his questions and they’d get to have a good long chat—and then she was gone, before a proper conversation had even started.

Timoteo glanced at the extraterrestrial children with their chimera pets. Chimeras. What else had these people brought from space that was fantastic… magical… new? Of all the countries in Coralende, why had they chosen Smeralda? And the biggest question yet: why all the secrecy? 

Timoteo hadn’t learned much from last night’s exchange with the extraterrestrial leader, but he did learn that the bald-headed, elegant man had requested zero media coverage, and implored that the presence of his people be kept entirely under wraps. They had studied Coralende on their way here, and had deemed Smeralda the most suitable environment. In exchange for privacy and shelter, they offered—

That was when Timoteo had been kicked out from the Skylight Office. He could only assume that this “knowledge” the extraterrestrials were going to share included magic. But how had his parents guaranteed secrecy? Nowadays it was almost impossible to keep anything hidden for long, what with the speed and ease with which news and information spread. Mustn’t there be some Smeraldian out there who had already spilled the beans and sold the story to some foreign news station? Not even the local news station made any mention of the arrival.

Timoteo reached the city’s Community Park and sat at a bench, to people watch. A few yards away were a trio of extraterrestrials, two men and a woman, sitting upon the grass and marveling at its feel and texture. The newcomers had a few curiosities, but seemed mostly human. Exotic humans, at their worst. Their skin was uniformly olive, yet pale, like Lila’s, no doubt due to lack of sunlight, of course. As for their features, they all shared that jagged angularity and sharply pronounced bone structure TImoteo had found so peculiar in their leader. They were taller than most people, and for the most part sported long, straight black hair, though there were a few dark redheads. And they all, without exception, wore something red.

Timoteo observed the trio for some time without being noticed, though he wasn’t exactly discreet. Perhaps they were more lax when it came to staring. Then he noticed something odd. The extraterrestrials began to rub their hands quickly over the grass, as if giving the earth a quick belly rub. TImoteo narrowed his eyes, intrigued. The trio were muttering excitedly in their unintelligible tongue. They had discovered something. One rubbed the grass. Then another. They laughed, delighted. Whatever they were doing, they had done it before, and it brought them joy.

What the hell are you so excited about, Timoteo wondered. The man, apparently the oldest, passed his hand over the grass one more time, with particularly strength this time. Instantly, a jet of blue sparks shot up from the grass like static and whirred around the man’s hand, hovering there a few seconds before dissolving into nothingness. The trio burst into joyful laughter, hopped to their feet and ran off, presumably to inform their fellow people of the good news.

As soon as they were gone, Timoteo dashed over to the patch of grass where they’d been seated and examined the ground. Nothing seemed different there. He rubbed his hand across the grass, like he’d seen the man do. Nothing. He rubbed more vigorously this time.

Nothing.

Confused, Timoteo looked off into the distance, after the vanishing silhouettes of the three newcomers. He didn’t know it yet, but that was the first time Timoteo witnessed magic in Smeralda.