Almost fourteen-year-old Carli Rockell makes clay handprints on her potting shed wall — one for every year she’s existed — because the Devoridges would rather forget she’s there at all. Her “brother” Devlin calls her Freakeyes. Her one friend is a talking bonsai named Friend. And she’s learned to hide her blue eye from a world that stares. Everything changes when a mysterious yellow bus arrives, collecting volunteers for training no one will explain. What Carli discovers at Harbornacles Sanctuary defies every rule she thought governed reality: a living tree-fortress where apprentices learn to wield the universe through sound and intention. Where a Flying Kitchen floats on spaghetti pillars and food carries memories. Where her mismatched eyes aren’t a curse — they’re the reason she was hidden for thirteen years. Because something with metal feet has been hunting her since birth. Archondath — an ancient being whose rectangular footprints burn reality itself — is closing in. The cosmic Tree of Life is dying. The Fire Seed that could save it has vanished. And when squid roots burst through underground pools to drag Carli into darkness, she discovers the terrible truth: her strange eyes don’t just see differently. They see through worlds, across time, into the spaces between existence. That’s exactly what Archondath needs. And he’s almost found her. For readers who crave Studio Ghibli wonder with Roald Dahl’s sharp edge. Note from the author: This Handprint Gift Edition was formatted lovingly but imperfectly on my trusty iPad in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. It couldn’t quite muster keeping my chapter headings in place, and I couldn’t find a new enough computer in time for getting this to family and friends in time for Christmas. A raw clay handprint pressed on the wall, while still warm. Like Carli’s wall, this edition may show fingerprints and minor imperfections . . . chapters that start in the middle of the page, like a manuscript found in the trunk of your grandparent’s attic. May its rough edges remind you that all creation begins with a simple pressing of hand to clay — real, immediate, and beautifully flawed. As proof it exists here, in this moment, just as it is. For family and friends who knew it first.