Zira and the others stood in the dark woods, panting and watching the five towering bots. With menacing, glowing eyes, the bots paced just outside the trees, sweeping spotlights across the tree trunks. They were in a standoff: the bots could not enter the woods, and Rolo could not leave.

“See, they can’t get us here,” said Riffa.

“Okay,” said Rolo, “but what are we going to do? They’re just going to wait there and catch me when we finally go home.”

Zira wondered that too. How were they going to get home?

“About that …” said Riffa. She sat on a nearby log and patted the space next to her. “Zira … here, sit down.”

Zira looked at her curiously and sat beside her. “What?”

“Zira …” She took a deep breath. “Every day and every year since those aliens took Lazro, we hoped he was still alive, and we wished they would let him come back to us … home. Well, that’s what Rolo wants too, to go home.”

“We are going home.”

“Not our home … his home.”

“Oh.” And then the realization sank in deeper. “Ohhh …”

“Do you understand?”

Zira’s thoughts and feelings turned against each other as she started to question things she had not questioned before.

Riffa continued, “Maybe it’s time to let go, you know? Time to move on … All of us.”

Her words were heavy. Zira thought about Lazro, and imagined what it must have been like for him to be trapped in a world that wasn’t his own, wanting to come home. She thought about Rolo, and what he kept trying to tell her—what she didn’t want to hear, what she wasn’t ready to hear.

“Zira?” asked Riffa delicately.

Zira sniffled and wiped her nose. Then, with a newfound determination, she stood.

“Okay, I know what to do … Follow me.”

Zira led the others up a winding trail through the dense woods, which gradually turned uphill, climbing higher and higher.

The sky was blacked out by the thick canopy of foliage, but the trees provided their own illumination. Glowing seeds dropped from the treetops—helicopter seeds that spun in their descent, tracing luminous spirals in the air, sprinkling sporadically among the sprawling roots. A nightinowl cooed a mournful sonata while the clickets chirped in pizzicato, accompanying the aerial ballet of lights.

“I don’t understand,” said Rolo, trailing behind her. “What do you mean, my home?”

“You’ll see,” said Zira.

“Wait, tell me now. I wanna know.”

She stopped and smiled at him. “I know how you can go find Earth.”

“Earth? Really? How?”

She smiled more. “You’ll see.”