The window on one wall faces the street, and the other window looks out onto the backyard. I love the back window because it’s in the shape of a circle, and because my bedroom is on the second floor I can see far off into the distance. We have a fence all the way around our yard, but then past our yard is just woods, as far as I can see. It’s always reminded me of an enchanted forest, like the kinds that you see in movies or read about in stories.

I try to think about that: the enchanted forest just on the other side of my backyard—instead of worrying about what’s really going on with Gramps.

No one in my family ever tells me anything. Everyone thinks I’m too young—a toddler, like Noah says—but I’m not. They think all I do is daydream about dragons and fairies and outer space, but the truth is I have a lot of things on my mind. It just makes me feel better to have my head in the clouds sometimes. But with Jude gone and Noah’s buttheadedness, and now that Gramps might be losing his mind or something, can anyone really blame me? The clouds are a lot more fun.

I glance back to my screen to see if Jude responded, but she hasn’t.

Sighing, I pull my sketchbook from my bedside table where I left it last night when I was drawing before bed. I thumb through the pages, the chronicles of S. Hawkins, intergalactic teenage time traveler, trying to find her best friend and partner, who is trapped in an alternate timeline in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Usually, working on my graphic novel lets me forget all the things that are not going right, like with Jude, and now Gramps. Last night I left off just as S. Hawkins wakes up on her spaceship, which has crash-landed on the planet Earth.

My pencil scratches against the paper fast, sketching the outline of her space suit as she stumbles out of the smoking aircraft in the middle of a field in a land called “UTAH,” her malfunctioning GPS tells her right before it goes haywire. She looks all around, taking samples of the vegetation to bring to her home planet—text bubble: IF SHE CAN MAKE IT BACK THERE.

Next panel: S. Hawkins sees a forest of tall trees, a rocky mountain range in the distance, and she knows she’ll have to make it over the mountains to find help. She walks toward the dense tree line, wondering if the first earthlings she meets will be friends or foes . . .

Just then, there’s a howl in the woods.

I look up from my sketch, and I’m back in my room. I can’t tell if I imagined the howl in my pages or if it really happened.

I check my laptop again. Still nothing from Jude.