_Chapter 1: _
The rain was loud that night.
Oliver liked loud rain. It meant Gran Mae wouldn't hear him dragging the couch cushions to build a fort. It meant the house would smell like wet dirt and cinnamon.
It also meant the power would blink out.
_Click_.
Dark.
Oliver counted to ten. When he got to seven, something _thumped_ on the roof.
Not rain. Rain didn't go _thump-CRASH-ouch_.
He grabbed Gran's flashlight and ran outside. The yard was empty except for puddles and one pale lump by the old oak tree. Then the lump moved.
It wasn't a lump.
It was a girl.
She sat in the mud, blinking. Her hair was silver and dripping. Her dress looked like it was stitched from moonlight. And she was glowing. Not flashlight glow. Firefly glow. Soft.
"You're in my puddle," Oliver said. First rule of the house: state the obvious.
The girl looked at her hands. "I think I'm in your world."
Lightning flashed. Oliver saw her back.
No wings.
But there were two marks between her shoulders. Like something had been there and got pulled off.
"Are you from the circus?" he asked. Gran Mae said the circus didn't come in storms, but Gran was wrong about the weather sometimes.
"I'm Celeste," the girl said as she fainted..
Oliver didn't know about homes in the sky. He knew about homes with creaky stairs and Gran's apple pies. He knew about missing things.