Chapter Three | Constellations in the Pantry

There were diagrams in her pantry.

Not food labels or expiration dates—Marblecake had scratched star charts onto the wooden shelves with the tip of a spoon. Orion next to the rice. Andromeda above the apricots. A nebula of lentils swirled into the shape of home.

It was how she remembered.
What stars had looked like before Thimbletuck.
Before pancakes and porch swings and Petra’s contagious laughter.

But Earth had stars, too. She was learning them now.
Milo had given her a constellation book with notes in the margins like:
“This one looks like a squirrel with a monocle. Scientists disagree.”

She liked that about him. That he believed in facts but made room for fiction.

Petra was different. Petra saw magic in everything.
In steam rising from tea. In marbles that glowed without light.
She didn’t ask where Marblecake came from. She just asked what she wanted for her birthday.

That weekend, they all met at the greenhouse café.
It was mostly a place for old women to drink dandelion wine and knit aggressively, but Marblecake loved it. The warmth. The hum of bees in distant corners. The way the air smelled like mint and memory.

“I want to build something,” Marblecake told them as they shared a cake shaped like a meteor.

“Like a spaceship?” Milo asked, intrigued.

“No,” she said. “Like a place. For us. Where we can just be.”

Petra nodded. “We could call it The Pocket.”

“The Pocket?” Milo scrunched his face.

“Yeah,” Petra said. “Like… a pocket in the world. Safe. Hidden. With snacks.”

Marblecake smiled.

She’d never had a pocket before.
Not one she fit in.

That night, she etched a new constellation into the pantry.
Three small stars, very close together.

She called it: The Pocket.