Chapter 4 Fateless #2
I turn around slowly, trying to take in this magical, endless room.
Because it does feel magical, like something only Robin would be able to create.
Did she… make it for my mom? They were best friends, after all.
I would definitely make Callie a magical, intradimensional closet if I could. She’d do the same for me, I’m sure.
And I know my mom made a lot of clothing in her day. I rarely ever rewear an outfit. It’s like a lifetime supply. But seeing it all here… rows upon rows of clothing…
It makes my eyes sting.
My mother was so talented.
She would think of me as such a disappointment.
The rows of clothes continue to move along their unseen path, alive, a maze of gossamer and silk and tweed, everything so very pink. When I reach out to brush the sleeve of a gown, it stops in place. The whole row does.
Then the dress slides off its hanger, as if alive, and begins to twirl around and around me, like an invisible dancing partner, as if showing me what it was made for. Auditioning for use.
I smile—it’s the first time in days that I’ve smiled. “I don’t have anywhere to wear you,” I say regretfully.
The dress crosses its arms. It looks like it… stomps an invisible foot?
I throw my hands up. “You look like you belong at a party or a dance. I don’t have anything like that to go to.”
The gown gives a harrumph somehow, then promptly flies back to its hanger and sighs, falling motionless once more.
I walk in awe along the lines upon lines of clothing I’ve never seen before. There must be thousands of pieces here. How would she have been able to make this all herself? As a Designer, did her Fate-gifted accessories help her create ten dresses in the time it would normally take to make one?
An entire section is devoted to endless uniforms, for every Fate imaginable, all pink, all fashionable, all designed to perfection as if… as if my mother wanted to make sure I always had something to wear no matter what I became.
“She made all of them. For you.”
I whirl around to face Robin, who’s appeared behind me.
“She didn’t know which Fate was in store for you,” she says, looking around at the room with a touch of sadness. “She wanted you to have an outfit from her no matter where life took you. An outfit for every occasion.”
I try to swallow down the hurt that rises up within me at those words, but I can’t. “Then I guess it was all for nothing,” I say, and just like that, we’re whooshed out of the closet dimension, back into my room.
“Barbie…” Robin says gently, reaching for my shoulder. She frowns at the shredded bits of paper all over the floor. With a wave of her wrist, they all piece back together and resume their places on the wall, good as new.
If only my own heart could recover so easily.
I take a step back. My mood is like a poison that’s been steeping. The golden pins holding up my hair in its crown of braids are just making it worse. I want to rip them all out and just… just scream.
Because I’m angry, and sad, and scared, and—
“I… I failed her. I failed both of you.” Tears are running down my cheeks.
Robin is not a warm person, not really. But she has her moments. Like right now, when she puts her hands on my shoulders and draws me close. “You could never be a failure,” she whispers.
“But I am. I don’t have a Fate. I am the biggest failure!”
Robin frowns. She looks at my tears, confused, like she’s not quite sure what to do about them. I’ve never cried in front of her about anything but missing my mom. And I haven’t done even that in years.
I always try to be strong in front of her. Perfect.
But now… I’m splitting at the seams. I’m jagged at the edges.
“What if you got out of Swancrest for a little while today?” Robin finally suggests, making a pink tissue box appear, then handing it to me. “Go… see Callie and Sunny?”
At the sound of my friends’ names, I calm a little.
I pull one of the tissues out of the box. Sniffle. “Okay,” I say, because that’s better than wallowing alone in my room, or wandering the halls. I wipe my eyes, then lift a shoulder. “I’m pretty sure everyone in here is tired of my crying, anyway.”
Everything in my room—from the lamps, to Wardrobe, to my nightstand, to my bed frame, to Misty and Bonbon—nods at the same time, and I glare at them.
“Sorry my agony is so annoying,” I snap.
They all nod again, accepting my apology.
A little while later, I’m ready in a pale pink dress, standing at the gates of the school with Robin.
To my surprise, it’s not her majestic, two-story boat that magically floats up in front of us.
It’s one I’ve never seen before—long, with curved ends carved into swirls.
The side has a magnificent “B,” surrounded by the same stars that frame the “B” on my necklace.
Pink cushions line built-in wooden benches.
“It was your mother’s,” she says as I stare at it in awe. “And now it’s yours.”
I blink, certain I’ve misheard. “I—I assumed, because I don’t have a Fate—”
“Of course you get a boat, Barbie,” she says. “It will take you anywhere you want to go.”
For the first time in days, something that resembles excitement breaks through the despair. “Thank you,” I say, my voice quiet.
“Be careful.”
“Always,” I respond, because I always am.
The boat rocks beneath my foot as I step onto it, but I quickly straighten and gain my balance. I sit directly in the middle, my blush skirts ballooning around me in waves of silk and gossamer.
The color might not be bright, but the style is one of my favorites. I picked it out to lift my mood. It’s hard to be sad in a pretty dress.
With a few steadying breaths, I close my eyes, the sun’s heat cutting through the surrounding mists and warming my face. A gentle breeze blows one of the strands of my crown-like braids free.
I envision where I want to go, and just like that, the boat starts moving.