But morning is the great revealer of secrets. Leo shuffled into the kitchen, still in his dinosaur pajamas, and opened the fridge. His breath caught.

Leo wasn't bored anymore. He was a creator. And all it took was salt, water, and the magic of a quiet night.

"It's also for crystals," she said, and that was all the encouragement he needed.

The hardest part, he discovered, was waiting. The instructions said to put the jar in the refrigerator. "They need to be cold and still," his mom explained.

He set the jar on the windowsill. The morning sun hit the crystals, and they scattered tiny rainbows across the kitchen wall. His mom smiled. His dad took a picture.

The jar was a frozen forest of magic. Spiky, needle-like crystals had climbed the sides of the glass and woven themselves into a tangled web at the bottom. They shimmered like pale blue icicles from a fairy tale. When he tilted the jar, the liquid moved, but the crystals stayed, clinging to the glass as if they had always belonged there.