CHAPTER ONE: The Tree Behind the Glass
The sun poured through the shiny glass windows of Ridgeway Heights – Block C3, glinting off chrome balcony railings and spotless cars parked in neat rows. To anyone passing by, it looked like the perfect place to begin again.
Again.
Eight-year-old Daisy Rowe sat in the backseat of her mom's small grey car, clutching her faded teddy bear with one arm and holding the strap of her backpack with the other. Her face was smudged with sleep, and her braids, once tight, had begun to fray at the ends. The boxes in the trunk were all labeled in her mother's careful handwriting: DAISY'S ROOM, KITCHEN STUFF, OLD FILES. Another move. Another new building. Another set of blank walls.
"Do we always have to move?" Daisy asked, not for the first time.
Her mother, Rose, didn't look back. Her hands gripped the wheel tighter. "This new house has a room of your own," she said, like it was enough to erase the question.
Daisy opened her mouth again, but they were already pulling into the complex. A cheery security guard waved them in. No one ever looked like they had secrets here.
Their new apartment was on the second floor, and Daisy's room was small but sunlit. The bed was already made, the curtains were a soft purple, and her name was spelled out in magnetic letters on the door: DAISY.
It was almost enough to make her forget. Almost.
But then she looked out the window.
Behind the apartment, past the neat fence and trimmed grass, was a single, tall tree. It didn't match the others in the complex. While everything else looked planted and planned, this one felt… wild. Its trunk was thick and twisted, like it had grown old watching people come and go. Its branches leaned toward her window, no matter the time of day.
That night, Daisy lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
The apartment smelled like paint and lemon cleaner. Her mother was in the living room, typing on her laptop. Daisy could hear the soft tapping through the wall.
But she couldn't sleep.
She sat up and looked out the window again.
The tree had moved.
It wasn't just in her head. When they arrived, it had stood straight, slightly bent away from her window. Now, under the moonlight, its upper branches were reaching toward her. Closer. Definitely closer.
Daisy ran into the living room.
"Mom!"
Rose didn't even look up. "What is it, baby?"
"The tree… it moved."
Rose sighed, rubbed her eyes, and finally turned around. "The earth rotates, sweetie. Things look like they shift, but they really don't. It's just perspective. Now go to sleep, okay?"
Daisy nodded slowly, though she didn't really understand.
She returned to her room and pulled the blanket up to her chin. Her bear, Mr. Buttons, sat beside her. She whispered to him, "Trees don't move like that."
Mr. Buttons, as usual, had no answer.
The next afternoon, Daisy decided to test it.
While her mom was on a call, Daisy slipped outside and walked toward the tree. It was taller up close—its bark was dark, almost black, and covered in strange cracks that looked like runes or symbols. She stared for a while, then placed her second-favorite doll, Mimi, at the base of the trunk.
"I'm watching you," she whispered.
Then she ran back upstairs.
That night, she couldn't sleep again.
She kept checking the tree.
It didn't move.
But in the morning, when she woke up and looked outside…
The tree was leaning again. Even closer.
And Mimi was still there, sitting just where she had left her.
But something was off.
Her doll's head was turned all the way around, facing the tree.
And it was now behind the tree and still in the little chair Daisy had hooked on the floor ,way behind as if the tree moved in front of it .