There was a tree on the outskirts of Garven that appeared on no map.
It wasn't called the Lumen tree. That was the name Rael had given it four years ago because its trunk emitted a faint bluish glow at night, a small bioluminescent phenomenon that might have a long explanation if taken to a laboratory, but that was easier for Rael to solve by giving it a name. Its official name, if the tree even had one, was probably something long in Latin that nobody would want to pronounce twice.
The tree was enormous, growing at an angle toward the east as if it had spent its entire life being blown by wind from a single direction. Its roots rose from the ground to form a natural hollow comfortable enough for three people to sit in, provided those three people didn't mind being a little cramped or the occasional ant crawling past.
The three of them didn't mind.
They had been coming here since fourth grade, back when the place was far enough from each of their homes to feel like an adventure. Now it was because habit had become ritual, and rituals were hard to change. Every Sunday afternoon, after finishing their respective obligations, they met at the Lumen tree. No one had ever officially suggested it. It had simply happened, and somehow it had lasted.
This afternoon, two days after Sovi had found her grandmother's suitcase and still hadn't told anyone about it, the three of them sat among the Lumen tree's roots in positions they each claimed as their own: Rael on the thickest root, which curved like a bench; Dunk in the hollow between two massive roots, which fit his body perfectly; and Sovi on a higher root, so she was always sitting slightly above the other two—a fact she hadn't planned but didn't object to.
"I'm bored," Rael said.
"You say that every week," Sovi said.
"Because I'm bored every week."
"Consistent," Dunk said, chewing on something. Who knew what. It was always something.
Rael tossed a small twig at Dunk. It hit Dunk in the shoulder, then fell to the ground. Dunk didn't react at all, because over the course of his life he'd developed the ability to ignore anything that didn't directly threaten his safety.
"We should go somewhere," Rael said. "Actually go somewhere. Not just here."
"We always come here," Sovi said.
"That's the problem."
Sovi studied him for a moment. Something about Rael's face was different from usual—not more serious, because Rael didn't have a serious mode, but more focused. Like he already had a destination in mind but didn't want to say what it was yet.
"Where would we go?" Dunk asked.
"The edge of town."
"The edge of town isn't going anywhere," Sovi said. "It's still town."
"Yeah, but it's the first step."
"The first step toward what?"
Rael opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked south, toward the horizon where the dark line of Veth Canyon could be seen faintly even from here. Sovi followed his gaze. Dunk looked nowhere because he was focused on his food.
"The first step farther away from here," Rael said at last.
Sovi almost spoke. Something nearly came out of her mouth, something about the suitcase and the map and her grandmother, but she held it back. Not yet. She wasn't ready. She hadn't finished analyzing it.
"Okay," she said.
Rael turned to her quickly. "Okay?"
"Okay, we'll go to the edge of town. But if this is a bad idea, I want it on the record that I said so from the start."
"It's not a bad idea."
"You haven't proved that it's not a bad idea."
"Dunk?" Rael looked down at him.
Dunk raised his face. There were crumbs of something at the corner of his mouth. "In a minute, right? Is there anything else to eat here?"
Rael and Sovi exchanged a look.
"What are you eating?" Sovi asked.
"The sweet potato from earlier."
"Raw?"
"Roasted. I brought it earlier." Dunk pulled another piece from his jacket pocket. "Want some?"
Rael stood. "We're leaving."
The southern edge of Garven wasn't a dramatic boundary.
There was no wall, no portal, no sign that read YOU'VE REACHED THE EDGE OF CIVILIZATION. There was only an asphalt road that slowly became a gravel road, which slowly became hard-packed dirt rarely traveled by vehicles. On either side, the fields grew sparser the farther they got from the center of town, until they gave way to shrubs and plants no one had planted—things that grew because they wanted to, not because anyone had arranged them.
"This is the edge of town," Rael said, stopping.
"Yeah," Sovi said.
"Not as exciting as I imagined."
"You suggested it."
"I know."
Ahead of them, the dirt road continued straight south before curving around the contours of a small hill and disappearing. Beyond it were knee-high plants, air that smelled different from the air inside town—fresher, sharper, with a mineral tang clinging to the back of the throat—and an evening sky beginning to turn red in the west.
"Should we keep going?" Rael asked.
"We should head back before dark," Sovi said.
"It isn't dark yet."
"It isn't dark yet."
"Dunk?"
Dunk didn't answer right away. He stared ahead with the expression of someone calculating risk without using numbers. "Is the comm signal good outside town?"
"Usually it's fine for up to two kilometers."
"Then if something happens, we can still call for help."
"Something like what?"
Dunk thought about it for a moment. "Animals."
"There aren't any dangerous animals on Ager Nova," Sovi said. "The highest danger rating for living things here is three out of ten. And that's only if you disturb their nests."
"What if I accidentally disturb their nests?"
"Then you could say you didn't disturb them."
"That logic isn't comforting at all."
Rael had already started walking ahead. "You two are so philosophical. Come on."
They followed, Sovi with measured steps and Dunk with steps slightly more cautious than the situation required, his eyes occasionally darting left and right as if anticipating a nest that might be hiding there.
The road curved past the small hill. On the other side, the view opened up a little: a shallow valley filled with taller plants, broad-leafed shrubs unlike those in the fields, and, hidden among the vegetation at its center, a small building.
"What's that?" Dunk asked.
Rael narrowed his eyes. "Looks like an old observation post. Probably not in use anymore."
"Should we go inside?"
"We're going inside."
"We're not going inside," Sovi said at the same time.
Rael and Dunk looked at her.
"An abandoned building," Sovi said patiently, as if explaining the concept of risk to someone learning it for the first time. "We don't know the condition of the structure. There could be hazardous materials, an unstable roof, nesting animals inside—"
"Danger rating three out of ten," Dunk said.
Sovi closed her mouth for a moment. "There could be insects rated higher than that."
"I'm not afraid of insects."
"You are afraid of insects."
"I'm afraid of certain insects. The ones with lots of legs."
"That's most insects."
Rael had already reached the building. He pushed on the wooden door, half of which had already come off its hinges. It opened with a sound best described as a long complaint from something that hadn't been asked to move in a very long time.
Then there was another sound.
The sound of a whole lot of wings flapping, all at once.
Hundreds of small gray birds exploded out of the building in a swirling cloud, flying directly over the three of them. The rush of air made Sovi's hair stand on end and made Dunk let out a noise that couldn't be classified as a scream but wasn't acoustically all that different from one.
In one reflexive motion, Dunk ran.
Not far—only twelve steps backward before he tripped over a root and fell in a way that produced the highest-pitched sound of the entire incident. From his position on the ground, he stared at the sky, where the flock had already dispersed calmly in every direction, completely uninterested in the humans below.
Rael stood in front of the building's door without moving, wearing the expression of someone who had just been startled but refused to admit it.
Sovi stood exactly where she had been the whole time, wearing the expression of someone who had anticipated something like this.
"Are you okay?" Sovi asked Dunk.
"I'm fine." Dunk still hadn't gotten up. "I sat down here on purpose."
"On the ground?"
"This particular patch of ground. The texture is interesting."
Rael sat down beside him. After considering it for a few seconds, Sovi sat down too. The ground was damp and cold, but none of them complained.
The three of them sat on the ground outside town beneath an evening sky beginning to turn orange, surrounded by shrubs and the remnants of small feathers falling from the sky after the panic. No one spoke for a while.
"A successful adventure," Rael said at last.
"Very," Sovi said.
"Are there any sweet potatoes left?" Dunk asked no one in particular.
As it turned out, there were.
They walked home when the sky was half dark, their clothes a little dirty and their moods strangely lighter than when they had set out.
This was what Sovi found hardest to explain to other people about being friends with Rael and Dunk: even doing nothing important could feel like something. They hadn't gone anywhere today. They'd walked to the edge of town, nearly entered a crumbling building, been startled by a flock of birds, and sat on the ground eating sweet potatoes while waiting for Dunk's heartbeat to return to normal. That was all.
But this walk home, with Rael striding ahead and dramatizing the bird incident as though he had been the calmest one there, even though Sovi had seen his shoulders tense too; with Dunk laughing in a way that used his whole body; with Ager Nova's night wind beginning to settle in, carrying the smell of soil Sovi had known all her life—this walk home felt like something she would remember.
"Next time," Rael said, still walking ahead, "we need to prepare better."
"Prepare what?" Sovi asked.
"The supplies. The route. The destination."
"The destination to where?"
Rael stopped. Sovi nearly walked into his back.
In the night sky, only half dark, amid stars that were beginning to light up one by one, something moved. It wasn't a cargo ship—too small, too low, too quiet. A tiny white light moved with a precision no bird or wind possessed, traveling in a straight, measured line as if whatever it was knew exactly where it was going.
"A drone," Sovi said softly.
"A survey drone," Rael said, his eyes following the tiny light. "Whose?"
"The local government usually uses blue ones. This one's white." Sovi watched it. "Could be a corporation. Could be a galactic survey agency. We can't tell from here."
The three of them lifted their faces and followed the drone with their eyes.
Its direction: south.
Straight south, without turning, at a consistent speed and altitude, as if it knew its exact coordinates and had no need to hesitate.
The tiny light grew smaller, smaller, then vanished beyond the dark horizon.
In the same direction as Veth Canyon.
No one spoke for several seconds.
"How many times have you seen drones heading that way?" Sovi asked Rael.
Rael thought. "Three times this month. I think it was more frequent two months ago, but I didn't keep track."
Sovi pulled out her journal. In starlight too dim for writing properly, she wrote anyway.
Dunk stared south with an expression different from the one he'd worn when facing the flock of birds—not panic, not fear. Something quieter than that. "I wonder what they're looking for down there."
"There's nothing interesting down there," Rael said, repeating his father's words from a few days ago, but his tone belonged to someone who didn't believe what he was saying.
Sovi closed her journal. Tomorrow, she thought again, for the second time in two days. Tomorrow, she would tell them.
But tonight, she had nothing to add. The southern horizon had already said more than enough.
They split up at the village crossroads that had been their parting place since fourth grade.
Three roads, each leading to a different house, three different families, three lives technically separate but long intertwined in practice.
"Next Sunday," Rael said, without explaining what he meant by next Sunday.
"Next Sunday," Dunk said, understanding even though nothing had been explained.
Sovi didn't answer right away. She looked south one more time, a new habit these past two days, as if there were a magnet there that hadn't existed before—or perhaps had always been there and only now made itself felt.
"Not necessarily next Sunday," she said.
Rael turned. "Huh?"
"I mean..." Sovi chose her words carefully. "Maybe sooner than that. Maybe I have something you two need to see first."
Rael and Dunk exchanged a look.
"What is it?" Rael asked.
"Tomorrow," Sovi said. "The Lumen tree. Morning, before eight."
Then she turned and walked toward her house without adding anything else.
Rael stood at the crossroads, watching Sovi's back grow smaller in the darkness, with an unfamiliar feeling—something like anticipation, something like an itch at his fingertips, the kind he usually felt before something big happened, even if he didn't yet know what kind of big it would be.
"What do you think she wants to show us?" Dunk asked.
"I don't know."
"Are you scared?"
Rael thought for a moment. "No."
"You have to be a little."
"A little," Rael admitted. "But that's different from being scared."
"What's the difference?"
Rael looked up at the sky. The stars were out in full now, thousands of points of light, each with its own name, each with its own story unrelated to a boy in the wheat fields on a small planet nobody cared about.
Dunk weighed that answer for several moments.
"Okay," he said at last. "I'm in. But I'm still bringing sweet potatoes tomorrow."
"Of course you're bringing sweet potatoes."
They parted. Each walked toward his or her own home, each carrying something without an official name but that felt the same in their chests: a kind of tomorrow that felt different from all the tomorrows before it.