Chapter 1

The rain fell in a hypnotic rhythm as the sky darkened, both from the clouds threatening a storm and from the approaching night.

Many people disliked rainy days, but to me, they meant only one thing: spending time in my blanket fort, surrounded by pillows and cozy blankets, where I could hide away for hours with one of my favorite books.

My grandfather George worked as a chauffeur for a very powerful family, and ever since my parents had died in a car accident, he had been the only family I had left. When he decided to take me in, he asked the Morgans for permission to let me live with him in the small cottage he occupied at the back of their estate. Fortunately, they had no objections, though they imposed one very clear condition: I was to stay away from the mansion and never enter it under any circumstances, except in the kitchen, where all the employees ate their meals.

Our cottage stood beside the garage, where my grandfather was also responsible for looking after the family's numerous vehicles. Since he spent much of his afternoons cleaning them, he had allowed me to set up my little fort in one corner so we could keep each other company while enjoying our own activities.

With his help, I had improvised a structure resembling a small tent, using blankets that hung from the ceiling to the floor. A string of warm lights illuminated the inside, where I had arranged several blankets to create a soft surface and gathered as many pillows as I could find. It wasn't particularly large, but there was enough room for me to stretch out comfortably and lose myself in the pages of my books for hours.

While my grandfather polished and waxed the cars, I traveled to worlds inhabited by dragons, magical creatures, and brave adventurers. After all, for an eight-year-old girl, imagination knew no limits, and that little corner of the garage could become any place I wished.

At night, my grandfather returned to the cottage to rest, but whenever it rained, he allowed me to stay in my fort. He knew how much I enjoyed listening to the raindrops falling against the roof while I remained curled up among my blankets, although he always warned me that I couldn't sleep there too many nights in a row or I would eventually hurt my back.

That particular evening, I was completely absorbed in a book about dragons when I heard the garage's side door open. I barely paid any attention, convinced that my grandfather had forgotten something, and continued reading until unfamiliar footsteps approached my little hideaway.

I looked up just as a head appeared between the blankets forming the entrance to my fort.

"What are you doing?" a boy asked with obvious curiosity.

He seemed a little older than me, and although I had never seen him before, I couldn't think of any reason not to trust him. On the contrary, I found the confused expression with which he examined my little hiding place rather amusing.

"I'm reading a book about dragons. Do you want to read with me?"

The boy didn't answer immediately. First, he examined the structure, the tiny lights hanging above our heads, and the many pillows scattered across the floor. After a few seconds, he nodded.

I moved aside to make room for him, and he settled down next to me, carefully avoiding hitting his head against the blankets that formed the ceiling.

"I'm Mia. What's your name?"

"Christopher."

"Nice to meet you, Christopher. Can you do voices?"

He frowned, puzzled by my question.

"Voices?"

"Yes! Look, you have to read this part, but you need to use a different voice for the dragon," I explained, pointing to one of the paragraphs in the book. "He has to sound really big and powerful because he's the most feared dragon in the entire kingdom."

Christopher studied the words I was pointing at before looking back at me with an expression that seemed caught somewhere between curiosity and embarrassment.

"All right. I'll give it a try."

And he certainly did.

His first attempt made me burst into such loud laughter that he had to stop, although he soon started laughing along with me. Then he tried again, this time using a voice so deep and exaggerated that it seemed impossible for it to come from a child. I loved it so much that I asked him to keep reading, and to my surprise, Christopher happily agreed.

He turned out to be extraordinarily good at inventing voices. The dragons roared, the knights spoke with great solemnity, and the princesses had such high-pitched voices that I laughed until my stomach hurt. Whenever we came across a new character, we discussed what they should sound like, and he experimented with different interpretations until we were both satisfied.

I don't know how long we spent reading that way, but I remember the rain continuing to patter softly against the roof and Christopher's voice growing more and more distant. At some point, my eyelids grew so heavy that I could no longer keep them open, and I eventually fell asleep among the pillows.

What I wouldn't discover until much later was that Christopher had also fallen asleep beside me and that, while we were both resting peacefully, absolute chaos had erupted inside the Morgan mansion.

Christopher was no ordinary boy. He was the youngest son of the owners of that enormous estate. He was twelve years old and had been suffering from severe insomnia for a long time, a condition that had turned nights into a genuine nightmare for both him and his parents.

That afternoon, he had disappeared without telling anyone, and when his parents discovered he was neither in his bedroom nor in any of the places he usually frequented, they ordered the entire staff to search for him.

Their concern grew as the minutes passed without anyone being able to account for his whereabouts. They searched the bedrooms, gardens, and various buildings across the estate until they finally called my grandfather and asked him to join the search.

George decided to start with the garage, thinking that young Christopher might have hidden inside one of the vehicles. However, when he entered, he noticed that the lights inside my fort were still on and approached to make sure everything was all right.

What he discovered when he gently pulled aside one of the blankets left him utterly bewildered.

Christopher was fast asleep beside me, surrounded by pillows, with the dragon book still lying open between us. My grandfather needed a few seconds to recover from the surprise of finding his employers' youngest son sleeping on the floor of a garage before taking out his phone and calling Mr. Morgan.

"Mr. Morgan, I've found Christopher. He's here in the garage."

"In the garage? What is he doing there?" Henry Morgan asked, clearly bewildered.

"He's asleep, sir."

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line.

"We'll be right there."

Barely a couple of minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan entered the garage and found George waiting beside the fort.

"I'm terribly sorry, sir," my grandfather apologized immediately. "He's asleep next to my granddaughter. I had no idea Christopher had come here."

Marylee Morgan approached carefully and gently pulled aside the blanket covering the entrance. When she discovered us both sound asleep, she remained motionless for several seconds, watching her son with a mixture of disbelief and relief.

My grandfather, who until that moment hadn't considered that the makeshift structure might pose a problem, began to worry that he had allowed me to build it without requesting permission.

"I also apologize for this, Mrs. Morgan. Mia built the fort to keep me company while I work on the cars. I'll have her take it down first thing tomorrow."

"That won't be necessary," Marylee replied without taking her eyes off us.

Her husband stepped closer to look inside the fort and appeared just as astonished as she was to discover Christopher sleeping so peacefully.

"How long has he been here?" he asked.

"I couldn't say for certain, sir. They were both already asleep when I came in."

Marylee looked at her son once more before turning to my grandfather.

"George, Christopher has terrible trouble sleeping, and with tonight's storm, we were convinced he would spend another night wide awake. But look at him... He's so peaceful that I can't bring myself to wake him. Do you think we could let them sleep here?"

The request caught my grandfather completely off guard, and he glanced back and forth between the Morgans and the little fort.

"I'm not sure it's appropriate for young Master Christopher to spend the night in the garage, ma'am. There are only a few blankets and pillows on the floor."

Marylee gave him a reassuring smile.

"I assure you, Christopher has slept in beds far more comfortable than this without managing to get a single hour of rest. If he can finally sleep tonight, I'd rather not disturb him." She looked at the fort again before adding, "And there's no need to take it down. Would it be any inconvenience to you if we let them stay here?"

"No, ma'am, not at all. Mia often sleeps in her fort when it rains, so it wouldn't be any trouble."

"Then thank you very much, George."

That was the first night Christopher Morgan slept in my little fort made of blankets and pillows, although none of us could have imagined that it would eventually become a habit that would change our lives.

From then on, whenever Christopher had trouble falling asleep or went several nights without getting enough rest, his parents would ask my grandfather's permission for him to come and sleep beside me.

At first, our encounters were occasional, but they soon became more frequent. Christopher would arrive in the afternoons carrying a new fantasy book he had chosen especially for us, and after settling ourselves among the blankets, we would resume our peculiar tradition of giving every character a different voice.

I loved having someone to read with, and he seemed to enjoy our adventures so much that he never complained when I asked him to play a particular dragon again. Sometimes we stayed up talking about what we had read, and other times we fell asleep before finishing a chapter, but we always ended up resting side by side, as though that little refuge belonged to both of us.

What I didn't know was that the Morgans had reached a financial agreement with my grandfather. For every night Christopher spent with me, they paid him a certain amount of money as compensation, even though George had insisted it wasn't necessary.

Eventually, my grandfather opened a bank account in my name and began depositing everything we received into it. He said the money would be for my future and that one day I would understand how important it was to have some savings.

I didn't really understand why anyone would want to pay me for sharing my blankets with Christopher. After all, we were just two children reading stories about dragons, inventing ridiculous voices, and sleeping in a makeshift fort.

To me, there was nothing particularly extraordinary about those nights, except that I had found someone who enjoyed fantasy worlds as much as I did and who never seemed to grow tired of my company.

And so two years passed, filled with books, laughter, and nights spent together beneath the tiny lights of our refuge, until another tragedy entered my life and threatened to take away what little I still had.