Timeline

2

"Well that was... interesting," Lynne said with a smile as the trio headed up the stairs of Julia's house to her teleporter room.

"Yeah, we should not have given Tom the freedom to hide anywhere he wanted," Julia agreed with a laugh.

"What do you mean, I was amazing," Tom said with a huff.

"You tried to hide on the roof!" Julia reminded him.

"I won, though," he said, grinning.

"And then you hid in a tree with a beehive!" Lynne jumped in.

"I knew you wouldn't look there," he told her, rubbing a spot on his elbow.

Julia threw her hands up in defeat. "What do we do with you?"

"Away with him! Send him home!" Lynne said in a mock superior voice.

The three broke down and laughed.

"Well, I'll see you guys tomorrow," Lynne said as she selected her house's coordinates. A bolt of sapphire energy crackled around her and she blurred away.

***

"There you are," Lynne's mom said as she appeared on the property. "Were you at Tom's house again?"

"Julia's," Lynne corrected. "We went to see Brady."

"That's nice," her mom said. "Ever since he graduated and left the school, he's been a little lonely."

"Wait, how do you know that?" Lynne asked.

Her mom smiled. "He usually comes to Julia's parent-instructor meetings," she said. "We've talked plenty there."

"Oh, that makes sense, I guess," Lynne said, heading down the hall to the kitchen. She grabbed a granola bar from the pantry and turned to go to her room. "I have a little bit of detecting homework, so I should probably go do that."

"Alright, moonbeam," her mom said.

A few hours later, Lynne collapsed onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling. After a second, she rolled over and flicked a switch next to her nightstand.

The jet-black ceiling came alive with specks of white light, little stars in a never-ending sky. She settled back and gazed up, imagining herself as small as those stars.

A soft sound echoed through her room and she sat up, blinking. A small, fluffy shape leaped onto her pillow and curled up next to her. She stroked her cat's soft gray fur and laid back on the bed. His rumbly purr filled the room.

"Tomorrow's the last day of detecting this month, Smoke," she murmured to him. "Only a few kids have shown any signs of unlocking an ability this early, but no one really knows." Smoke waved his tail and meowed as if to say what's that to me? Lynne smiled and looked back up at the ceiling. "Someone needs to unlock something or they'll stop testing us," she continued, though she wasn't sure why she was still talking to an animal that probably didn't care. People did say that animals were good listeners, though.

"I guess we'll have to wait for next month unless someone triggers tomorrow," she said. Smoke purred and nosed her arm, then snuggled into the space between her arm and her body. Lynne smiled at him and drifted off to sleep.