It is not yet a problem for Anastasia to have such a rich fantasy life; at her age, this is fairly common. She should still be monitored in case of future issues telling the truth from fiction, as she will be expected to focus more on her studies as time goes by.

—letter home from Ms. Anne O’Toole, kindergarten teacher. Sent November 2002.

The Story

1.

This is a story. It can’t hurt you anymore.

It’s still important that you listen, because I am going to tell you things you need to know, and it will be easier for you to understand what’s happening if you pay attention to me now. But if you get scared, or if you wonder why I’m making you listen to this, just remember that this is a story. There was a time when it could hurt you, but that time is over and done. You’re safe. I’ll protect you, I promise. I really, really do.

This is a story. You need to know how it starts.

It can’t hurt you anymore.

2.

Like so many things, it begins with a seedpod, large and thick-skinned for protection, irregularly shaped to ease its passage through the air. It isn’t aerodynamic, but where this seedpod floats, there isn’t any atmosphere to pierce. It travels through the depths of space at a speed that no Earthly seedpod has ever approached, trapped in the frozen heart of a comet, followed by a bridal train of stardust and ice. It goes where gravity and orbital forces take it, and it knows nothing of where it is or where it came from. It is not aware.

In the beginning before the beginning that matters to us, this seedpod was one of dozens scattered through the same fertile cloud of icy planetesimals, left by a fruiting body long since passed. Ice and debris swirled around the seedpods, slowly coalescing into comets, which broke loose from their nursery and began their long, uncharted trek through the cosmos. Some of them died before they could finish forming, never quite hardening, their cargos destroyed and undelivered. Others crashed into lifeless moons or were pulled into blazing suns, the ice melting in an instant, the seedpods crisping and dying only a moment later. But some …

Some, like this one, managed to soar on gravitational lines, dancing through the sky on their unknown and unknowable errands. One by one, this seedpod’s fellows have dropped away, even the survivors, leaving it to chart its course alone.