Gravity is failing. Hair is rising. Dogs are floating. Carli Rockell makes clay handprints on her potting shed wall — one for every year she’s been forgotten. The Devoridges would rather pretend she doesn’t exist. 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.

All that changes when the Global School System announces a test run of a mysterious high speed bus. Carli is the last person anyone expects to be chosen. The bus doesn’t go around the world. It barrel-rolls through space into the realm of Primørdiya.

When she lands at Harbornacles Sanctuary of Primørdial Arts it defies anything she could have imagined. A living tree-fortress where apprentices learn to wield the primørdial forces that hold reality together. A Flying Kitchen that floats on spaghetti pillars where food carries memories. Where her mismatched eyes aren’t a flaw — they’re the reason she was hidden.

Something with metal feet has been hunting her since the day she arrived. The cosmic Tree of Life is uprooted and dying. The Fire Seed that could save it has vanished. And the truth about who Carli really is — and why she was hidden — changes everything.

Some children are born ordinary. Carli Rockell was born necessary.

For fans of Spirited Away, and readers who crave Studio Ghibli wonder with Roald Dahl’s sharp edge.

Includes an illustrated recipe collection from the wonderfully wacky Guzzellini family of the Flying Kitchen.