The first time Malik Reed made the refrigerator float, his mother told him to put it down before the milk spoiled.
The second time, his little brother climbed underneath it.
“Jalen!” shouted everyone.
“What?” Jalen said. “I dropped a grape.”
By Friday, the Reed family had established three rules: no bass shields at the dinner table, no echo doubles doing Malik’s homework, and absolutely no opening doors to the afterlife without telling somebody.
His older sister, Nia, added a fourth.
“If your superpowers interrupt my internet, you’re walking to school.”
Malik—known at Eddie Clack High School as Reverb—thought these were reasonable rules.
Then the school bell rang backward.
Zuri Watts stopped beside his locker, her gold-tipped braids brushing her burgundy jacket.
“Please tell me that was one of your beats.”
Across the hallway, Mateo Cruz lifted his drumsticks. Both were vibrating.
“Wasn’t me.”
Every screen in the school went black.
A silver mask appeared.
DR. NULL.
“Malik Reed,” said the voice. “The old auditorium. Come alone.”
Principal Imani Sterling stepped out of her office, emerald circuitry glowing beneath her gold glasses.
Malik started toward the stairs.
“Mr. Reed.”
He stopped.
“When someone threatens my students,” she said, “they do not get to arrange private appointments.”
She pressed her security bracelet.
“Your parents are on their way.”
Dr. Null stood beneath the auditorium’s ruined spotlight. Beside him, Glitch leaned against a speaker in plum-colored techwear, pink hair falling across one orange eye.
Between them sat a small music box.
Null opened it.
Three delicate notes drifted through the room.
Malik’s headphones answered with a golden glow.
“My daughter built that,” Null said. “Her name was Lyra.”
Glitch straightened. The bored expression disappeared from their silver face.
“You said we were stealing a power source.”
“We are.”
Malik looked at the music box.
“You want the Encore.”
“I want my daughter.”
The auditorium doors opened behind Malik.
Darius Reed entered first, his old sonic gauntlet exposed. Dr. Amara Reed followed with Nia and Jalen.
Null’s mask tilted toward Darius.
“You.”
Darius went still.
“You two know each other?” Malik asked.
“We built resonance engines together,” his father said.
“Before he decided some doors should stay closed,” Null replied.
Malik knelt beside the music box.
He listened past its tiny gears, past the electricity in the walls, until he heard something no microphone could record.
A person’s unmistakable note.
He raised his hands.
A golden doorway unfolded above the stage.
Through it stretched Everwhere.
An ocean curved overhead without falling. Islands drifted through violet clouds. A silver whale became a train, then a thousand bright birds.
A girl landed on a floating staircase.
Her face was made of midnight-blue metal. Silver curls circled her head. One arm became a ribbon of stars before returning to fingers.
“Dad?”
Null’s hands trembled.
“Lyra.”
He pulled off his mask.
For the first time, Malik saw an exhausted face beneath it.
“I found a way,” Null whispered. “You can come home.”
Lyra looked through the doorway.
Behind her, a little wooden boat unfolded into an enormous flowering tree.
“I’ve been learning to make places,” she said. “Yesterday I became rain over a desert.”
“I kept your room.”
“I know.”
“Then come back.”
She moved closer.
“I love you, Dad. But I’m not ready.”
Null slammed his fist onto the device beneath the music box.
Black rings climbed the golden doorway.
Darius lunged forward.
“Don’t lock the frequency!”
The stage buckled.
Lyra’s staircase shattered into light.
Nia’s wrist display flashed red.
“He’s trying to force the connection!”
Malik threw up a shield as a lighting rig crashed overhead. Across the room, Principal Sterling and Mateo pulled students away from the doors.
Glitch stared at Null.
“She answered you.”
“Stay out of this!”
“She said she wasn’t ready.”
Null reached for another switch.
Glitch kicked the machine’s power cable loose.
The silence field collapsed—but the doorway kept widening.
Malik’s arms shook.
He could hear Lyra. His family. Everyone running through the hall.
He couldn’t hold all those rhythms together.
Then something tapped his wrist.
Jalen.
Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
“Your breakfast beat,” his little brother said.
Nia caught Malik’s other hand. Amara braced his shoulder. Darius placed his gauntlet against the floor.
“Follow one rhythm,” his father said.
Cyan rings spread beneath their feet.
Malik found the beat.
The doorway steadied.
Across it, Lyra reached toward her father.
“You can still talk to me,” she said. “You have to listen when I answer.”
Null slowly lowered his hand.
Malik looked at her.
“Ready?”
She nodded.
The golden doorway folded closed.
On Monday, Principal Sterling gave Malik detention.
“For what?”
She pointed toward the auditorium.
Malik considered arguing.
Then he picked up a broom.
Zuri carried in a box of replacement cables. Mateo followed with sandwiches. Nia arrived holding a tablet, while Jalen wore safety goggles much too large for his face.
At the back door stood Glitch.
“Your dad said I could help.”
Malik handed them a dustpan.
“No silence machines.”
“No promises about the school bell.”
Across the city, Dr. Null sat alone beside Lyra’s music box.
For once, he let the song finish.
TO BE CONTINUED.