Chapter 4 Fateless
Fateless
No one has ever been Fateless before. I’m the first.
It’s the one time in my life I don’t want to be first.
Fireworks reflect off the gleaming stone of the building in front of me in endless rainbow ruptures. I hear the music filtering in, only a courtyard away, a merry melody played only for celebrations. But it might as well be worlds apart.
“Barbie,” a voice says, and I turn around.
Robin.
When I see her standing in the shadow of the door, I jump to my feet from where I’ve been curled into myself and race toward her, going almost limp with relief.
Finally.
I throw my arms around her. “Tell me—tell me this is a mistake. Tell me you can fix this,” I murmur into her shoulder. Now that the initial shock has worn off, Robin must have thought of a solution. She always knows what to do.
But her expression is sad when I pull back, and that’s when I know. That’s when the final piece of my heart breaks, the last bit of hope crumbling into ashes. “The Fates don’t make mistakes,” she says, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.
Right. Of course.
I must have done something wrong. Or maybe I was never as good as I thought I was…
Instead of feeling chastised, or ashamed, or full of regret… a wave of unfamiliar anger flares through me.
For years, I tried to be perfect in every single way. Every. Single. Day.
And this… this is what I get.
I stumble away from Robin. Her birds are silently flying above her head, circling in a ring. Ready to be sent to do her bidding.
“I don’t—I don’t understand,” I say, my voice sharpening. “I did everything right.”
Robin nods. “You did. And I know you must be thinking of this as a bad thing… but look on the bright side. It means you get to stay here at Swancrest. With me.”
I blink.
Maybe I’m unsure of what I want, but what I don’t want suddenly comes roaring to the surface.
I don’t want to stay here.
I love my dreamlike existence… but I don’t want an endless life of monotony, of getting woken up by singing birds, and having breakfast in Robin’s office, and being trapped within these walls that are beautiful, and magical, but are the only thing I’ve ever known.
Robin frowns. “Barbie? It’s not so bad… right?” Her voice hitches with something like hurt.
And all that flaming anger goes cold. “Of course not,” I say quickly. What’s wrong with me?
I was just shown that I’m not even worthy of a Fate, that I have nothing meaningful to contribute to our society, and yet Robin isn’t banishing me from Heartland. No, she’s promising me a home for life. I should be relieved. I should be grateful.
“Aren’t you… disappointed in me?” I look around. The whole point of this entire school is for students to prepare themselves to be worthy of incredible Fates.
I failed myself. I failed her.
“The Fates don’t make mistakes.” She repeats her favorite refrain softly, reaching out to touch my cheek. “If this is their will… then you are right where you are meant to be.”
Over the next few days, I watch all my former classmates move out of Swancrest and on to their Fates.
It’s torture.
I stand at the bright pink entry gates to the school, watching everyone else carrying their suitcases and boxes full of accessories that will grant them magic specific to their assigned Fates.
Each member of my class gets into a pink oak boat—a gift from the school to every graduate, for easy sailing through Heartland’s calm waters—before they’re magically swept down the rose-colored rivers to their new exciting futures.
A few people give me pitying looks. Others avoid me entirely, as if my failure is infectious.
It isn’t long before Callie and Sunny are standing at the docks, holding their own boxes of accessories, luggage packed, and my heart starts to feel like a mosaic in my chest.
No, not a mosaic. Is it even called that if the pieces are all scattered? If they don’t form anything beautiful, they’re just… broken?
Maybe it’s just called a mess.
Callie sees the look on my face. She drops her box of accessories beside her luggage. “You know what? I don’t have to leave. I can stay, too.”
My eyes burn, knowing she means it. But I don’t want that. I try my best to smile, bending down to pick up her box. “You have to go, Callie. How else am I going to have an excuse to leave Swancrest and visit you?”
My best friend looks unconvinced by my forced cheerfulness, but I avoid her concerned gaze by turning to place her belongings inside her boat.
“Barbie, I—”
I help her into the hull before she can say another word.
Sunny’s boat is right behind hers.
“Don’t even think about modifying it to go faster,” Teacher tells him from the other side of the docks, glaring daggers at his former student.
Sunny beams. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he answers, holding the box containing all his Mechanic accessories loosely in his hands—the perfect role for someone who likes to take things apart.
Also, slightly concerning, given his track record.
Teacher mumbles something about Sunny “not being his problem anymore,” then meanders off.
Sunny turns to us. “Notice he didn’t say anything about not making it fly,” he whispers with a wink.
Make that incredibly concerning.
“You are so getting kicked out of your Fate,” Callie says. Then her mouth snaps closed, like she instantly regrets the words that just spilled out of it. Her eyes slide to me.
I sigh. “You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me. I’ll be fine. I promise.”
Neither of my friends buy it. But I give them hugs and wave them off. I stand at the Swancrest gates until their boats are just dots on the horizon. My smile is bright as ever. My wave is outright enthusiastic.
Tears are flowing down my cheeks and—
Wait. I don’t cry.
Especially not while smiling.
This is concerning.
But these tears won’t slow. They keep running and running, until finally, a sob rips through my lips.
Everyone is gone. Everyone has a purpose. Everyone has a new community—except for me.
Now I wish my life really was a dream, so I could wake up from it.
Life goes on, even though it feels like my soul was left in that empty box-shaped room.
It turns out the blank, vacant space was a look into my future.
After days of crying, I finally go quiet. I feel like a void, hollow and useless.
I find myself wandering the school halls before classes start, ending up at my mother’s statue, and just… staring at her. I can’t find the words to tell her what happened.
So I don’t say anything.
I stand there for hours, only moving when the younger students stream out of their classrooms, looking at me like I’m some kind of warning.
I can’t even find it in myself to feel embarrassed. Or upset.
I just feel…
Nothing.
Misty and Bonbon continue to wake me up each morning, though I long to stay in bed. Today, they pull back the covers and—
I don’t want to get up. And it’s too cold. And what is the point of getting ready in the first place, when I have nothing to do and nowhere to go?
But when I try to tear the covers away from their beaks, to hide beneath them like maybe I will wake up and all of this will just have been the worst possible version of my nightmare, they start snapping at my hands.
“Won’t you just leave me alone?” I say weakly.
They don’t. They just stubbornly start to braid my hair even as it’s splayed across my pillow, and so I sigh and get up, slowly making my way to the bathroom.
Wardrobe folds open, and it must sense my ever-worsening mood, because it does so with far less enthusiasm than usual.
“Let’s see,” I bite out. “What should I wear that says, ‘Look at me. I’m an absolute failure’?”
Wardrobe has been offering a new shade of pink I’ve never seen before—so pale it’s almost gray. This morning’s sartorial options are no different.
My teeth slide together. Frustration blooms through my chest, filling the hollowness. Suddenly, after days of being numb, I’m feeling everything at once.
“What do I wear to show that I’m a mistake? That I’m so meaningless the Fates couldn’t even figure out what to do with me? What outfit says, ‘Trailblazer and Record Breaker in All the Wrong Ways’? How about ‘Town’s Biggest Disappointment’?” I throw my hands up.
I always keep my emotions packed down. I keep them folded nice and tidy, like my clothes, like my laundry.
But where has that gotten me? What good was any of it?
Now, it all comes spilling out.
You’re the best! a banner across my wall says, atop hundreds of assignments with 100% written on them.
I don’t think. I just rush over and start tearing each paper off the wall, then ripping them into the world’s worst confetti. Over and over and over. All my work is soon in tatters.
All that studying. All those nights holed up in this room. All this effort. All this hope and confidence.
Only to end up with nothing.
I followed the rules as best I could. It didn’t make any difference.
So why should I listen to any of them now? Why should I still try to dress perfectly and pretend everything’s okay, when clearly it isn’t?
“You know what?” I snap, turning. “Wardrobe, show me everything.”
There’s a moment of quiet, perhaps hesitation.
Then, it happens.
In a continuous ripple, Wardrobe keeps opening and opening and opening, unfolding in a ripple, presenting new drawers I’ve never seen and then drawers within those drawers.
Compartment after compartment is revealed, filling the room, until the wood becomes a whoosh, and my stomach is falling, and I—
I’m falling.
I land in a heap, then groan. Ow. When I get up off the ground, even my anger stills. I’m in some sort of cavernous room that doesn’t appear to have a ceiling. All I can see are clothes…
And clothes, and clothes, and clothes. Clothes up the walls, clothes crisscrossing in an intricate pattern overhead, and racks upon racks of outfits covering the entire floor, as if I’ve stepped into a galaxy of fashions. All the clothes are moving, as though running on an invisible track.