Seeds and Strings

Some miracles arrive without fanfare—just a handful of seeds pressed into alien soil, a familiar bark cutting through silence, and a violin case buried beneath blankets in a dust-caked car. For Glenda, these small impossibilities carry more weight than any grand revelation could.

When Karen's coriander seeds split open before her eyes, roots threading into earth that shouldn't sustain life, Glenda finds herself caught between the clinical precision of her medical training and the half-remembered echo of her father's stories. Gebhardt Donger spoke of portals and hidden worlds when she was a child—tales she dismissed as creative fantasy until she stepped through one herself. Now, watching green unfurl from barren dust, she wonders what else he knew that she never believed.

But Clivilius offers more than scientific mysteries. A golden blur bounds over the ridge, and suddenly Lois is there—warm fur, wet nose, unbothered loyalty that asks no questions about dimensional displacement. Then come the keys to her own car, bogged somewhere beyond the camp, and inside it: pillows, blankets, and something that makes her breath catch in her throat. Her violin. Which means Luke spoke to Pierre. Which means home hasn't entirely let go.

In a place that defies logic, where every discovery walks the knife-edge between wonder and danger, Glenda is learning that survival isn't just about medicine and resources. It's about finding reasons—small, stubborn, impossibly precious reasons—to keep hoping.