Her stomach felt sick. The only thing she could think about was home. Her friends, her school, her own house. Her parents. She never knew that being homesick made you literally sick. She typically wasn't one to be sad, she was just the one who was constantly making jokes and running around so that no one would try to look any deeper.

Yet even now, her pillow was damp with the tears of several months that hadn't had a chance to escape. She never cried. It felt wrong somehow. She was scared someone would come in and see, but she had the door locked and music playing so that if anyone tried, she would play it off as forgetting she locked it, and that would give her enough time to get herself in order.

She couldn't think of a valid reason why her homesickness was a secret, but she couldn't bring herself to tell anyone. She just wasn't the type. She never cried.

The years fly by, but the days drag on. For eight-year-old Stella, nothing could be truer. Alone at the boarding house where her father and his new wife dropped her, she feels as if her life is all but ended.

She wakes alone, attends class (where she sits alone), eats alone and returns to her room, alone.

Is life supposed to be like that at eight? Aren't there supposed to be times for laughing and playing and make-believe?

At her wits end and with not a soul to counsel her, Stella shifts and turns her real-world upside down. If her life isn't what she hoped, she'll just make up a new one.

Picturing a doorway in her room, she takes a deep breath and steps through into a world full of warm colors and friendly fellows. Spotting a bakery along the road, she steps into it and smiles. "May I help you?" a woman asks and Stella gives her a double-take as she has pointed ears and a pert little nose.

"Um, I don't have any currency."

The woman smiles. "We don't need any here." She promptly hands Stella a steaming mug of hot chocolate and a warm slice of bread with butter. "You're welcome to stay while you enjoy your food and I'll pack you something for your journey as well."

"My journey?"

"Well, everyone who steps through my door is usually on a journey of some sort. Either traveling for an afternoon or longer, you're heading someplace other than just my bakery, correct?"

"I don't know," Stella admits. "I just got here."

"Oh," the woman says. "Then please, stay as long as you need. If it gets late, I'll make you a pallet on the floor for sleeping and in the morning, we'll see how things are."

"Thank you."