Perhaps because Mr. Lovegood's home was nestled in the gap between two gently sloping peaks, the wind at this high elevation was not as fierce as it was at the foot of the mountain.
Night fell, and the river of stars emerged.
Wisps of mist drifting with the breeze at the mountaintop made the ancient galaxy seem graceful and dreamlike.
Though they were in the same area, the scenery atop the mountain was vastly different from that below.
Bang!
An unexpected explosion jolted Evelyn out of her contemplation of the starry sky and her strange melancholy. She hurriedly turned her head to look back.
The explosion had come from the second floor of the house. Paper scraps fluttered through the living room, and quite a few drifted outside.
"What happened, Mr. Lovegood?"
Evelyn cried out in alarm as she hurried into the yard, intending to enter the house and check on things.
"Don't worry, Evelyn—"
Luna, who was in the yard introducing Pona to the strange plants, said with a smile. Her silver eyes glimmered with ethereal light beneath the stars.
"Has the printer broken again, Dad?"
After stopping Mrs. Sena from going inside to "make things worse," Luna herself called toward the second-floor window.
"Do you need my help?"
"Cough, cough!"
A bout of choking coughs came from the window.
"It's just a minor problem, Luna. I can handle it. You and Pona continue your research—"
Mr. Lovegood shouted from inside the room.
What surprised Evelyn was that Luna truly stopped worrying about it. Holding up the hem of her nightgown, she crouched down again. Paying no attention to the sparkling droplets falling onto her dark golden hair, she continued picking orange-red, tiny radish-shaped fruits from a lush bush for herself and Pona.
Luna squeezed juice from one of