It was a moment or five before Pepper answered, scuffing a foot against the pavement. "Someone I cared about went home," she said as neutrally as she could manage, with middling success.

Better not to think about it too hard, even if her mind wandered that way whenever she wasn't occupied.

"Hmm. Still, even if you don't have magic, there's probably something about you that's interacting with these things." She reached out and almost touched the tree, ghosting her fingers under the leaves of one branch. "Is there magic in your world at least? Or like... things that could be magic? Sometimes even super advanced tech is similar enough to magic that there may as well not be a difference."

See: Gene and the Makluan Rings.