CyKid and the Mill That Wove Light

The first thing CyKid noticed about Bramblewick was that its river seemed to be climbing into the sky.

He leaned over the stone wall at the bend in the path. Far below, the river hurried between the houses of the mountain village. It slipped under an arched bridge, caught on the paddles of an enormous wooden wheel, and continued down the valley. The thing rising out of the mill window was finer than a river. A single thread of gold climbed past the chimney and trembled in the evening air.

“It looks like somebody's sewing up the sunset,” CyLuna said.

CyBot turned his head until a tiny lens clicked into place. “I can measure how bright it is. I cannot measure what it's sewing.”

“Then we'll have to get closer.”

CyDog, who had come to investigate a smell of fresh bread, gave the thread one suspicious glance and trotted on. CyUni followed with her horn dimmed so the children could see the gold.

At the bridge, CyLuna caught her brother's sleeve. The mill wheel had just gone round again.

“There,” she said. “The thread jumped when the wheel did.”

CyKid tried to see it happen a second time. By then the mill bell had begun to ring, and every face in the village was turned toward the roof.

An old woman in a teal apron opened the mill's balcony door. She was Nessa, the millkeeper. Her silver braid brushed the wooden rail as she leaned out.

“Is the bridge clear, Elin?” she called.

A girl about CyKid's age, wearing one red boot and one green one, rang a little brass handbell from the end of the bridge. Nessa pulled a bronze lever. The first thread split into a hundred. They crossed and looped over one another until a dragon shook itself loose above the roof, scattering drops of light as bright as sparks from an orange peel.

It had whiskers longer than the bridge and a belly full of stars. It dipped its nose to CyDog. He gave a sharp bark. The dragon opened its mouth, but all that came out was a warm glow that made his ears look pink.

Then CyLuna saw the little blue lanterns along the street turn blue-white in order, starting with the one nearest the mill. Beyond them, the big glass greenhouse lit up. The dragon swept across the valley in a grand turn.

Its tail disappeared halfway through.

“Was that meant to happen?” CyKid whispered.

Elin was still holding the bell. She shook her head.

The dragon folded in on itself. Its head became a knot of light no bigger than a button. Then the button went out.

At first the crowd clapped. They thought it was part of the show. The wheel gave a hollow knock, and the clapping stopped.

One by one, the street lanterns faded. CyLuna crouched beside the copper line that followed the curb. There was a blue flash inside a round inspection window, so small she would have missed it if CyBot hadn't turned down his own light.

“Can you make it do that again?” she asked.

“I didn't make it do that,” CyBot said. He crouched beside her. “Something just moved inside the line.”

CyKid looked down the street at the greenhouse. Its windows had gone dark too. Through the nearest pane he could make out rows of trays on benches and little drops of water on the glass.

Nessa came down from the mill, fast enough that her apron strings streamed behind her. She put one hand against the greenhouse wall. “Elin, find the thick blankets. Then get the growers.”

Elin sprinted away, her different boots splashing through the same puddles. CyKid was about to ask when they'd see the dragon again. He looked at Nessa's face and asked a different question.

“What's in the greenhouse?”

Inside the greenhouse, Elin lifted the glass lid of a tray. The seedlings were so small that CyKid had to bend down to see the leaves. Some of the stems were purple. The soil was dark where somebody had watered it.

“Sunpears,” Elin said. “Well, eventually.”

A landslide had buried the old orchard the previous spring. The villagers had found a few ripe pears on the branches that stuck out of the mud. These were the seeds they had saved. If the seedlings froze tonight, Elin's class would have to wait another year for a new batch from the next valley.

“My grandad planted the first tree,” she said. She set the lid down carefully. “I remember how the fruit tasted before he died. I don't want to be the only person my size who remembers.”

The grown-ups hung blankets across the lower panes and moved trays away from the draughty walls. The centre bench was the warmest spot left. There wasn't room for all the trays.

CyKid held his hands above one of the pipes under the bench. It was only a little warmer than the air.

“Where does the heat come from?”

Nessa pointed back toward the mill. “The same place the dragon comes from.”

At the mill's threshold, Nessa set a lantern on a stool and unfolded a drawing. It showed the river, the wheel, and a loom with three lines running out of it. One line went to the street lamps, one to the greenhouse heater, and one to the balcony where the dragon had appeared.

“In the loom, we weave river power into light,” she said. “The heater can turn that light into warmth. We send it there first, even when there's a show.”

CyKid followed the three lines with his finger. The one to the balcony was drawn in gold. “If we make a really big dragon, could we bring the warmth back?”

Nessa looked through the open door at the motionless wheel. “We'd have to find out where the power's going before we ask for more of it.”

Outside, Elin's handbell rang once. In the greenhouse, that meant a tray needed moving. CyKid had liked that little bell when it had called up a dragon. He liked it much less now.

He put the idea of the big dragon away for a moment and looked at the drawing again. The very first thing on it was the river.

They went as far as the stone rail above the channel. The river was still flowing. On the far side of the island it charged down the old spillway in a white ribbon. On the near side, under the wheel, it barely covered the stones.

“There's plenty of water,” CyKid said. “Why isn't it pushing?”

CyLuna picked out a leaf as it circled beside the island. For a moment it looked as though it would slip toward the wheel. Then it swung away and went down the far side.

“The water can go two ways,” she said. “It's taking the other one.”

CyBot illuminated the shallow channel. Half a paddle showed above the surface, dry except for a patch of foam. “The river is moving quickly over there,” he said. “The water here is only brushing the wheel.”

CyKid had heard the river all the way from the greenhouse and assumed he knew what it was doing. Now he could see two different things happening under the same noise.

CyDog snuffled around the safe side of the railing, found a wet leaf wedged against a post, and pulled it free. The leaf had been torn almost neatly down the middle.

Nessa lifted her lantern toward a small iron indicator on the wall. Its needle pointed toward a painted blue wave. That meant the channel gate was open. In the lantern light, the surface of the water told a different story.

She led them along the upper maintenance path, where they could see the intake from behind a high stone wall. A willow limb had come down in the wind. Its twiggy end lay across the mouth of the channel, with leaves and silt packed behind it like a wet mattress. The spillway carried the water around the obstruction.

“I checked that indicator before the show,” Nessa said.

“It's right,” said CyLuna. “The gate's open. Something's in front of it.”

Nessa rang for the village gatekeepers. They arrived in heavy boots and clipped their lanterns to hooks. The children stayed by the wall with CyUni while Nessa explained what she needed the gatekeepers to do from the winch deck.

CyKid watched the branch flex in the current. A thing that looked easy to pull from up here would have been much stronger than him in the water.

Elin arrived with her scarf doubled around her hands. “The smallest ones have curled up,” she said. “The growers say some will straighten again if the room warms soon.”

She had folded the loose ends of the scarf around a clay cup. When she gave it to CyLuna, the cup was still warm from the kitchen.

“How long would it stay warm without the scarf?” CyLuna asked.

Elin fetched a second cup. The cook filled both cups with the same amount of water from the kettle and set them on the same dry bench. One got the scarf. The other sat in the cold air. A few minutes later CyBot checked both with the same sensor. The wrapped cup had cooled too, though it was warmer than the bare one.

“We're losing heat through all that glass,” Elin said. “Could we hang the rest of the blankets just around the centre bench? A smaller room inside the big one?”

“The growers can leave space for air and keep the cloth away from the heater,” said CyLuna.

Elin ran to ask. She took both cups with her. The gatekeepers gave their winch another turn.

A wet bundle of willow leaves rose from the intake. The gatekeepers hauled it onto their deck. Water raced into the channel and hit the lowest paddle with a clap that made CyDog jump. The wheel turned.

CyKid counted. One turn. Two. Three. The loom gave a hum he could feel through the stone beneath his shoes. On the street, one lantern lit, then a second.

“There it is!” he called. “We found it!”

Elin was already at the greenhouse door. She looked back through the glass and shook her head. The heater had stayed dark. A short blue glow ran along the copper line and was gone, just like the flash CyLuna had seen in the street.

In the mill, something began tapping. Three quick taps, a pause, and then two more. The wheel itself turned evenly.

CyKid pressed his fingers into his coat pockets. He'd already pictured the seedlings standing up and Elin smiling. He found it hard to look straight at her now.

“Come hear this,” CyLuna said. She kept her voice low. “Something inside is trying again.”

Nessa turned down the loom before she opened its wooden service door. She latched the dragon lever shut and told CyBot he could look through the small glass window.

A brass shuttle carried threads from the wheel axle into three copper guides. Beside it, a smaller frame held a nearly invisible silver strand. That frame should have slid sideways to line up the shuttle with the heater guide. It was sitting still.

Nessa took a finger-sized notebook off a peg. “My teacher called this the return thread. The heater sends a small signal back when it needs warmth. That's what moves the frame. I've never had to change it.”

CyLuna listened. Three taps, then two. At each tap the loose end of the silver strand twitched against the glass.

CyBot bent closer. “It appears to be broken.”

From across the room CyKid could see the shine of the river threads. He could also see the big gold dragon lever, even in the dim light. The tiny silver thread had been there all along. He wouldn't have been able to say what colour it was five minutes earlier.

A hook next to the notebook held a spool of red spare thread. CyKid pointed to it. “We can tie that in where the silver one broke.”

Nessa lifted the spool so he could see the tag. It was marked with a lamp. The red threads carried light out of the loom. She placed a short piece beside the broken silver end on her worktable. The red was about as thick as a shoelace. The silver end was barely thicker than a hair.

“Let's see what happens before we put anything in the machine,” said CyBot.

Nessa put both samples in a little wooden tester. The red line lit a pin-sized bulb. The silver line in the other slot rang a very quiet chime and left the bulb dark.

CyKid watched the silver sample quiver. It seemed absurd that something so small could decide where all the bright thread went.

“There's a signal in the silver,” said CyBot. “I can hear the chime.”

“Can you send the message yourself?” asked Elin.

CyBot started to say yes. Then he looked at the two slots. “I can try. First I need to find out what message it expects.”

Nessa knelt to get the old spare-thread box from under the loom. It was light enough to lift with one hand. Inside was an envelope containing six brass fasteners. The slot for the silver spool was empty.

“I used it to mend the roof signal in the spring,” she said. “I thought I had ordered another.”

Elin looked at the blankets across the path. For a few seconds nobody spoke.

“There is a manual setting,” Nessa said. She pointed to a bronze handle that could hold the heater guide open. “It sends a fixed share of the light to the heater. The trouble is that the river's running high and the thread comes through in surges. The heater could get too much, even if the setting seemed fine when we started.”

“What if we watch very carefully?” CyKid asked.

“I would still have to catch the surge before it reached the glass pipe.”

Nessa shut the little door over the handle. “We'll use the tester. I can turn its power all the way down.”

Elin emptied her pockets onto the bench. A stub of chalk fell out, followed by a piece of pear skin she had meant to give CyDog. He waited beside her chair until she saw him.

CyLuna went back to the greenhouse. She stood with her eyes shut by the heater, listening through a blanket hung across the work alcove. Under the rustle of fabric came a sound she'd heard before. Tap, tap, tap. Silence. Tap, tap.

She asked the grower beside her to turn the heater's test dial one step. The taps went away. He turned it back. They came again.

“Three and two is the cold message,” she said. “It gets quiet when you tell it the bench is warm.”

He turned the dial to a second mark. A single tap sounded. That was how the heater said it had reached its target. CyLuna asked him to repeat it, and the same faint tap sounded again.

By the time she ran across to the mill, Elin had drawn the three copper lines on the back of Nessa's envelope. CyLuna drew five circles beside the heater line, with a gap after the first three. Then she drew one circle underneath.

CyBot played the two rhythms back. CyLuna nodded. “The gap matters. You have to leave it in.”

CyBot clipped a small speaker onto the tester's silver-thread slot. He sent three beats, waited, then sent two. The little brass frame moved at the first three beats. Then it stopped short of the guide.

“Again,” said CyKid.

They tried it again. They got the same half-step.

Elin watched the silver sample shake against the wooden tester. “The thread's touching the frame,” she said. “Your speaker is on the edge of the box.”

CyBot paused. The sound had reached every person in the room. Most of the movement from his speaker had stayed in the wood. He set a spare brass pin against the end of the tiny strand and tried again at lower volume. CyLuna held her breath. The frame slid all the way over until it was in line with the heater slot.

Then CyBot sent the single beat. The frame went back.

CyKid raised his hand for a high five. CyBot was balancing the brass pin with both of his. CyKid let his hand drop again, laughing, and Elin drew a thick chalk mark at the end of the frame's travel.

On the far side of the island, the white ribbon of the spillway widened. The rain from the upper valley had reached Bramblewick. On the mill side, the wheel started to turn faster.

A bright thread flicked across the loom window before Nessa lowered the feed. Its ends snapped like a woollen jumper full of static. CyKid imagined that pulse hitting the greenhouse pipe and felt grateful the bronze handle was behind its door.

CyBot put away his pin. “Our signal works here. I can fit a temporary sender in the real loom if we can keep it aligned.”

Nessa studied the drawing. “When your sender is in the loom, how will it hear when the greenhouse is warm?”

CyBot's eyes grew smaller. He'd been concentrating so hard on making the frame move that he'd forgotten the first job of the silver thread. It linked two places.

CyLuna looked out at the windows across the dark lane. The heater was there. They were here. The longest spare lead in CyBot's tool drawer wouldn't have reached the door.

Then CyUni's horn caught the edge of the mill window. On the greenhouse glass, directly across the lane, a small gold point appeared.

CyUni turned her head. The spot slid along the greenhouse glass and disappeared.

“Go back,” CyLuna said. “Slowly.”

The spot returned. From the far side of the lane, Elin waved her mitten in its path. The gold light vanished behind her mitten. When she took it away, CyLuna could see it again.

“I can make it blink without moving,” said CyUni. Her horn flashed twice. From across the lane came two flashes in reply. Elin had used the shutter on the grower's lantern.

Nessa dimmed the lantern by the mill door so they could see Elin's signal better. CyBot aimed a light sensor toward the greenhouse. “I can turn Elin's flashes into taps for the loom,” he said. “If I see the right number, with the right gaps.”

CyKid ran outside to tell her. Halfway across the lane he found himself standing in the beam. CyBot called out from the doorway. His sensor had gone dark.

CyKid stepped out of the light. The gold point returned.

“We'll need a clear path,” he said. “Over the lane, where people can walk underneath.”

Nessa had an old signal shelf high in the mill doorway. It faced a broad upstairs greenhouse window above the growers' work alcove. A grower clipped Elin's shuttered lantern to the window rail, with the shutter pull within reach from the landing. CyBot put his sensor on the opposite shelf. CyKid waved from the lane below. The light travelled over his head.

CyDog heard Elin's shutter open and shut and thought it sounded like the cook tapping a spoon against his food bowl. He ran into the greenhouse and sat against Elin's boots. When she leaned down to pat him, her elbow covered the window.

Back at the mill, CyBot received two flashes, a very long gap, and then one. He left the tester frame where it was.

“Good,” Nessa said. “I want the heater to stay off if the loom can't read the message.”

Elin moved CyDog's mat to the far side of the landing. From there, he could see Elin and keep an eye on the worktable. She gave him the piece of pear skin she'd saved. He settled down to guard his new station.

The plan needed someone at each end and someone who could see both windows. Elin and a grower stayed in the greenhouse. CyBot sat by the light sensor with the little tapping pin. Nessa stood at the loom. CyKid and CyLuna took the stair landing above the lane, where they could see the lantern and the mill window at the same time. CyUni stayed with them, keeping her horn dim.

They rehearsed. Elin sent three flashes, a pause, and two flashes. CyBot tapped the rhythm into the silver end in the tester. The tester's frame moved to the chalk mark. Elin sent one flash. It moved back.

They did it again with a grower opening the greenhouse door. The wind carried a square of blanket toward the work alcove. The lantern stayed visible.

“Ready to try at low power,” Nessa said.

CyKid put his hand on the stair rail. A few hours ago he'd wanted the dragon to come back. He still wanted it. He wanted Elin to be able to pick a sunpear from her own tree even more. He was surprised how clear that felt once he had said it to himself.

Nessa moved the tapping pin to the loom, closed the service cover, and set the feed at its lowest mark. Elin sent the cold message. The frame moved. A narrow gold line appeared inside the heater pipe. CyLuna could see it from the landing, low to the floor like sunrise under a door.

The heater had been on for only a few seconds when CyBot saw a single flash. He sent the warm signal. The line went dark.

“Elin?” CyKid called.

“I didn't touch it,” she called back.

CyLuna turned toward the far wall of the mill. It was wet from the river spray. One of the street lanterns had just flickered in a puddle on its ledge. The reflection had reached the sensor at almost the same angle as Elin's lantern.

She asked CyBot to mark the time of the next flash and watched the puddle. When the lantern flickered again, his sensor clicked. Elin's shutter was closed.

“There's another light getting through,” CyLuna said. “We can see where it comes from now.”

CyKid looked at the puddle. It was a beautiful little rectangle of blue. He would have liked it better a minute earlier.

Elin rolled a sheet of dark paper into a tube. She held it around the shutter of her lantern for a moment and saw that it made the bright patch narrower.

CyLuna tried the same idea at the other end. She stood on the landing with a cardboard roll and looked down it at the greenhouse window. The roll showed her the window and a sliver of gutter. It hid the puddle entirely.

CyBot fitted a short matte tube around his sensor. He asked Elin to repeat the cold signal with the loom feed held off. Three flashes came through, a gap, then two. The street lantern flickered again. His sensor didn't click. He shifted the tube a little and tested once more. Same result.

Nessa checked the sky through the upper window. Clouds were crossing the moon fast. The coldest air had begun to settle in the lowest lane. Inside the greenhouse, two growers were carrying the last uncovered tray toward the curtained bench.

“We've got a clear path for the signal,” said CyLuna.

Nessa looked at the river, then at the shuttered balcony lever. “Before we try again, there's one more decision to make about where the power goes.”

Nessa walked them to the loom's three output guides and showed them the marks beside each one. She could send a little power to the lamps and enough to the heater if they kept the dragon guide shut. The dragon needed a long, steady run to weave its whole body. The river had started to settle, but with the intake only partly open, the wheel couldn't give all three lines what they needed.

Some children on the bridge were still waiting for the show. CyKid knew exactly where they were standing. It was where he'd have stood.

“Can we make the lamps a little dimmer?” he asked.

Nessa nodded. “We can leave the crossings lit and use the rest for the greenhouse.”

CyKid followed her down to the door. He was going to go to the bridge and tell the children. Then he saw Elin coming out of the greenhouse for more blankets, with only one glove on. He brought her the two blankets on the mill bench and went to the bridge with the other glove in his pocket. She'd dropped it by the tester.

A little boy in a green cap told CyKid he'd come all the way from the next village. “I didn't see the tail,” he said. “My dad picked me up too late.”

CyKid told him where the light had gone and what it was going to warm. The boy asked if he could help and then looked down at the cold water, as though the seedlings might be somewhere under the bridge.

“Can you tell the others to stay off the mill stairs?” CyKid asked. “We're watching signals between two windows.”

The boy turned around and told the next family exactly which stairs to keep clear. Then he pointed out the shuttered lantern in the greenhouse window. When it opened, everyone on the bridge saw a little round glow. Several people stopped talking so they could count the flashes.

CyKid watched them lean against the stone rail. They were waiting just as eagerly as they had for the dragon. They were waiting to see if the gold line would stay in the heater pipe.

Elin closed her shutter after the fifth flash.

The brass frame slid over. Gold went down the line under the cobbles. This time it reached the greenhouse and held steady. Water in the heater's closed pipes began to circulate under the benches.

CyBot watched his sensor. CyLuna watched Elin. CyKid watched the bit of the smallest tray he could see through a gap in the curtains. For the whole first minute, the leaves looked exactly as they had before.

“Is it doing anything?” he whispered.

Elin lifted a thermometer beside the tray so the grower could see it. The temperature had gone up one mark. He checked again a minute later and saw it climb another. The warmth had reached the air by the tray.

A girl at the bridge asked if the plants could hear them cheering. Her dad told her she could cheer anyway. She gave a little cheer and nearly everyone joined in, quietly at first and then all at once.

CyKid didn't cheer yet. They still had to find out whether the heater would stop when it was warm enough. He watched Elin keep her hand still on the lantern shutter. She was looking at the thermometer, which the grower had brought up to show her.

At last the grower tapped Elin gently on the shoulder. The thermometer had reached the pencil mark beside the tray. Elin pulled the shutter open for one clean flash.

Inside the mill, the little frame slid back. The gold in the line went out. The heater cooled slowly. The air under the blankets stayed warm while they counted to sixty.

Later, when the thermometer dropped again, Elin sent the cold rhythm and the heater came back on. Nessa made them run another full cycle. They saw the same change in both directions. Then she put a kettle on and invited CyBot to have the first break, which he took by sitting down exactly where he was.

The smallest leaves had started to uncurl. Two stayed bent. Elin set a small marker beside each so they could see how those seedlings did in the morning.

The boy in the green cap looked through the window and counted the trays. He had lost count of the flashes. There were so many tiny plants, and now he was counting them too.

When the next grower arrived to take the night shift, Nessa handed her the notebook, the thermometer readings and the little envelope with the two rhythms drawn on it. She and the gatekeepers would keep the system running and fetch a replacement silver strand in the morning.

CyKid sat at the edge of the bridge, against the high stone wall. He was tired enough to forget that his shoes were wet. Elin came out with warm bread folded in a towel and sat beside him.

“I thought I had to find a way to make more light,” he told her.

“I'm glad you came to the greenhouse,” Elin said. “I thought everybody would stay out here waiting for the show.”

CyUni walked to the top of the bridge. Her horn traced a small arc in the dark. It looked like the curve the dragon's tail would have made. She let the glow settle until it was just bright enough for them to see the butter melting into the bread.

From inside the greenhouse came a little snore. CyDog had fallen asleep on his mat. His ears still flicked every time the shutter opened.

The sun rose on wet roofs, bright enough to turn every gutter silver. CyKid woke to Elin knocking on the kitchen door. She was carrying one of the markers she'd left beside the bent seedlings.

“One stood up,” she said. “The other still needs time.”

She took him to the greenhouse, where the growers were opening the outer blankets. The room smelled of damp earth and bread crust. The tiny leaves were green in places that had looked almost black by lantern light. One seedling was still limp. Elin watered the soil around it with a few drops and left its marker in place.

“Will it grow?” CyKid asked.

“I don't know. We'll check again this afternoon.”

CyBot recorded how many trays had stayed within the warm range and how many plants were still bent. CyLuna made a sketch of one leaf so they could see how much it changed during the day. Elin wrote the date next to it.

Out by the wheel, Nessa and the gatekeepers had already cleared the last loose branches. The paddles came out of the river shining, one after another. CyKid could see their shadows turn in the kitchen window.

The keeper from the upper village arrived after breakfast with a silver spool wrapped in waxed cloth. Nessa fitted a new strand and showed Elin how to spot the little frame's full travel through the window. They ran the original system through the same cold and warm tests. It passed both. Then they left the cardboard tube on its shelf beside the spare shuttered lantern.

Elin drew a new line on the maintenance map, up the hill to the intake. She marked a place on the dry path where somebody could look down and see whether water was actually getting through. The little painted gate indicator still had its job. Now there was a second thing to look at.

Nessa gave Elin the old envelope to copy into the notebook. Next to the five circles, Elin drew a picture of CyDog's two ears. He had slept through the last several checks, so she drew them drooping.

CyBot watched her draw. “Please make mine a little less round,” he said.

Elin gave his drawing square spectacles, which he examined with a great deal of interest.

The mayor came to the mill to ask whether they could try the show again that evening. Elin looked at Nessa. Nessa looked at the river chart and the heater readings. The afternoon flow was steady, and the heater was only coming on in brief bursts.

They planned a smaller dragon and chose a moment when the greenhouse had already warmed. If the heater called, Nessa would release the dragon lever and send the light back down the line.

CyKid helped Elin draw the dragon's new shape. It was short enough to curl above the mill. CyLuna gave it extra-long whiskers. CyUni suggested one little golden wing. CyBot measured it and suggested two, because the lopsided silhouette might upset him. He sounded serious until his eyes made their laughing crescents.

Elin drew a second wing. Then she made the tail a bit longer so the boy in the green cap would be able to see it from the bridge.

At dusk the windows by the lane lit up first. CyKid found the boy's family and stood beside them on the river wall.

Nessa waited until Elin rang the brass handbell. One stroke. A gold line rose out of the mill.

The new dragon was small enough to weave between the stone chimneys. It banked over the bridge with one long whisker on either side. The boy in the green cap pointed as its tail curled into view. Every strand of it was there.

Before the dragon could make a second turn, Elin saw the heater signal change. She rang the bell twice. Nessa released the lever. The dragon gave a last flick of its tail and folded itself into a bright knot that slipped back toward the loom. In the greenhouse, the heater guide lit and the pipes began to warm.

For a second the boy's mouth hung open. Then he turned toward the greenhouse and pointed. “There it is again.”

What he could see was a warm stripe below a row of leaf-shaped shadows. CyKid didn't tell him the light was a different shape now. The boy already knew. He stood up on his toes to see whether any of the leaves on the far bench had moved.

When it was time to leave Bramblewick, Elin gave CyLuna a paper packet. Inside were three seeds from the village's reserve. “Plant them when it gets warm,” she said. “Write to me if one comes up.”

CyLuna tucked the packet into the pocket that held her pencil. CyKid offered Elin his page of notes on the wheel. There was a scratchy drawing of a willow branch, a sketch of the two cups and a dragon with a very long tail. In the margin, close to the gutter where he'd nearly missed it, he'd drawn one small blue flash.

Elin folded the page and put it in her notebook. She walked with the friends as far as the bridge. The river divided around its island and met itself again below the mill. In the greenhouse a grower was checking the marked seedling. The plant was still there, a little greener than it had been at dawn.

CyDog trotted ahead, then came back because CyKid and CyLuna had both stopped to watch the wheel.

CyLuna held the packet through the cloth of her pocket. She could feel three little hard shapes. She wondered how many pears there might be in her garden one day, and what else was already on its way to growing there that she hadn't thought to look for.