Sunny Dayz's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Sunny Dayz built a haven for outcasts, and now she had no one to fill it. She stood on the villa's front steps at dawn and stared at the empty rooms behind her. Every bed she had made stayed cold. The gardens outside bloomed and burst with fruit, but no one came to eat it. She had promised herself that every lost soul in Poptrop would find a home here. She just didn't know where the lost souls hid. Her small pet nosed against her ankle. The odd little creature had two soft antennae and one huge trusting eye that watched her worry. "Where are they?" Sunny asked it. "People don't just vanish." The creature chirped and tugged her sleeve toward the trees. Sunny followed. She had passed that cluster of trees a hundred times. Now she noticed the music. Soft notes drifted from the flowers, curling through the branches like ribbons of sound. She had never heard the grove sing before. Rowan found her there, kneeling in the glowing grass. He was her partner in every plan, a man who chased any small chance to help her. He carried a basket of tomatoes from the villa garden and set it down without a word. "You hear it too," he said. It wasn't a question. "The flowers," Sunny whispered. "They only sing when someone's close." Rowan crouched beside her. He touched a bent stem near the roots. Someone had walked here recently. The grass held the shape of small feet, many of them, pressed into the soft ground. "Not just someone," he said. "A lot of them." Sunny's heart pounded. She parted the tall flowers and saw a narrow path worn through the grass. It led away from the villa, down toward a shadowed hollow she had always ignored. The music grew louder as she stepped onto the trail. The grove was pointing the way. She walked until the trees opened. In the hollow below, a dozen figures huddled around a dead fire. They were the ones Poptrop had thrown away. A boy with scales on his hands. An old woman with wings too broken to fly. They flinched when they saw her, and pressed together like they expected to be chased off again. "Please don't run," Sunny called. Her voice shook. "I'm not here to move you along." She pointed back at the villa on the hill, its windows warm and its gardens full. "I built that for you. Every one of you. There's a bed with your name waiting." The boy with scales stared at her. "Nobody wants us there," he said. "I do," Sunny said. "I have been looking for you for weeks." The old woman rose slowly. She studied Sunny's face, then the shining house above. She took one step forward, and the others watched to see what she would do. Sunny had found them at last. Now she had to prove her haven was real.