Chapter 11 Rock Bottom
Rock Bottom
My charms remain inactive, no matter how hard I grip them and try to awaken the magic.
Nothing works.
No. This can’t be happening. I was—
I was so close.
Just when I thought I was finally getting the hang of this land and its rules, just when my confidence emerged, it was all just snuffed out.
It’s as though this world is mocking me—letting me get close to what I need, then ripping it away.
And now, I’ve been swallowed up by it. I’m at the bottom of a ditch so far down the sky is just a smear overhead.
In a rush of desperation, I jump to my feet and yell as loudly as I can. “Help!! Help!!!”
But my voice is absorbed by the distance.
“Okay, stay calm,” I say to myself, even as my heart rattles my ribs. I try to find that positivity I used to hold so tightly. “This isn’t so bad.”
It’s worse. It’s so much worse than any other obstacle I’ve faced on this journey, I think, as I look at the walls on either side, both miles high.
Miles. How am I possibly going to get back out?
I don’t know… but I have to try. Summoning my confidence with a shaky inhale, I turn toward one of the walls and start to climb, dirt coating my new pink clothing.
I pull myself up, inch by inch, arms trembling.
I bite my lip with focus. I narrow my eyes, gaze trained on the bright stroke of blue sky above.
My hands, slick with sweat, grip a ledge—
The rock crumbles beneath my fingertips, and I slide all the way back down.
I land on my back with a thud.
Ow. So much for that.
Yeah, I should give up now, I think. Stay here. Make a life at Rock Bottom. Maybe make friends with the rocks, and start to talk to them, and give them personalities and adventures and—
My eyes narrow. I bare my teeth.
I am not giving up this easily.
I get to my feet and roar as I run back to the wall. I climb again—
And fall.
And climb faster—
And fall.
And drag myself up by the sheer force of my iron will—
And fall.
Until my nails are all broken, my clothes are more dirt than pink, and my bones feel as if they’re screaming at me.
My muscles are yelling too, saying, You don’t even do PE, how dare you?
Back on the ground again, I look up and the opening seems to be getting smaller. Like… like the surface is getting farther away by the minute.
Okay. It’s officially time to panic.
Magic—there has to be magic here, just like everywhere else in this world.
I feel around desperately, clutching the only other thing on Rock Bottom: a rock.
“You’re not a rock…” I say, sounding half hysterical, clutching it like a treasure. “You’re… you’re a birthday balloon!”
It remains, very stubbornly, a rock.
I swallow. “I’m thinking of… birthday parties! And merry celebrations, and bubbles, and birds!” I say, my voice taking on a desperate hitch. “You’re… you’re a helicopter!” I say, tossing the rock up, imagining it turning into a glorious bit of machinery.
But it only falls back down, then splits into a hundred pieces.
“Okay. Maybe… maybe you’re just a rock,” I whisper. “And maybe I’m… just a failure.”
At last, I let myself sink back down onto the hard ground, curling myself around my knees.
This time… I stay down.
Why did I think I could do this? Why didn’t I listen when Robin told me to remain within the mists?
She’s only ever helped me my entire life. She wasn’t trying to hide anything… She was only trying to protect me. My mother—my mother died because of the dangers beyond our heart-shaped borders.
Now… I might suffer the same fate.
Because I just couldn’t listen.
I couldn’t accept my Fate.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into my knees, tears streaming down my dirt-dusted cheeks. But I know Robin can’t hear me. If she could, she would be here, saving me. I know that for certain.
Which means she can’t. It’s up to me to save myself.
But I don’t know how.
I sniffle against my skin, trying to wipe my tears away… and something rustles up ahead. My head lurches up, and I squint through the darkness…
That’s when I realize I’m not alone.
There’s a woman sitting on the opposite side of the trench, almost completely bathed in shadows.
“Are you—are you real?” I ask, wondering if this is just another illusion, another thing that is not what it seems.
She laughs. “I sure hope so.”
Yes. Real. “How—how did you get down here?”
She shrugs. “Everyone visits Rock Bottom at least once in their life, don’t they?”
I blink. “You don’t seem too torn up about it,” I say.
Then I tense. Should I be afraid? She’s the first person I’ve come across in this land… and she’s here in a pit, with me.
Ken in Summerland was friendly. So was the Archivist. Still…
I reach toward a rock, as if I could use it to defend myself…
But the woman just sighs deeply, stretching her long legs.
Her entire outfit is dark gray, like the rocks around us.
She practically blends in. Her skin is covered in freckles.
Dark brown waves frame her oval face. “The way I see it, things must have once been pretty good for them to go pretty bad. If not… Rock Bottom wouldn’t even exist. It would just be your whole life.
” She shrugs. “And if things were good once… they can be good again.”
If only that were true. If only I could go back to how things were before Boxing Day, when my life was a dream, and I was actually excited for my future.
If only I’d received a Fate. Right now, I would be working in Heartland, fulfilling the role I was always meant for. Having a purpose.
I definitely wouldn’t be miles deep in a trench in a mysterious land far from home.
“I hope you’re right,” I say. “But right now… good feels impossible. Hope feels stupid.”
“I know what you mean.” She looks up at the trench. “Things aren’t looking good, are they?”
That’s an understatement. The walls definitely seem to have grown taller in the last few minutes, like Rock Bottom is some sort of amorphous prison, able to change just like everything else in this place.
How wonderful.
“Things are awful,” I say, kicking up rocks with my dust-covered sneaker. “This is the worst place I’ve ever been in my life.”
“Rock Bottom?”
“All of it! This entire land.”
With that, she scoots partly out of the shadows. I see her freckled face more clearly. “It isn’t all bad.”
I scoff. “This place is a living nightmare. Nothing is fixed. Everything is constantly transforming.”
She lifts a shoulder. “Well, change can be a good thing.”
Sure. But not lately. Not here.
I didn’t want the rainbow to become a slide. I didn’t want to go from top of the class to a cautionary tale.
The woman looks me over. “Something pretty bad happened to you, didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “That’s one way of putting it.”
She looks at me expectantly.
She’s a stranger. I’m not about to go spilling the worst thing that’s ever happened to me to some woman trapped in the bottom of a trench.
She just shrugs. “Well, I fell in here looking for something.”
I lift a brow at her. “Really?”
She nods. “I’m not from here originally, though I’ve been here for a while. I ended up in this land by accident. Where I was before… was pure and utter darkness. I was trapped. Lonely. Stuck in the most awful place.”
“You mean, like this?” I say flatly.
Even though my tone is vile, she smiles slightly. “Yes, pretty close to this.”
“How did you leave?”
“I broke free.”
I look around, in case I missed anything else in the shadows. Any door we can ram our way through. But there’s nothing but rock. I turn to her. “Do it again, then. Get us out of here.”
“It isn’t so easy. There used to be roads between lands, you see… but a while ago, all of them were destroyed. Still, there are rips between them sometimes. Tiny pockets. I found one and left. I’ve been looking for another ever since.”
“To go back home?”
She shakes her head steadily. “Never. To free everyone else, too.”
Hope bubbles within me. “Wait—are you… are you from Dreamland?”
It fizzles quickly. “No, I’m not. I’ve never even heard of it.” She tilts her head at me. “You’re trying to get there?”
I nod.
“What’s your name?”
“Barbie.”
“Hi, Barbie,” she says merrily, like we aren’t both trapped miles down. “Welcome to Anyland, where anything can change at any time!” She throws open her arms as though ushering me into the world’s most exciting party. “I’m Posey. When did you arrive?”
Anyland. Posey. “A few hours ago, I think? Time moves… strangely here.”
She nods. “It’s like you said before. Nothing here is what it seems.”
Yeah. I noticed. “So… it’s the opposite?”
She tilts her head. “Sometimes. Who’s to know?”
“Um… you?” I ask, baffled.
She laughs. “Well, that would be boring, wouldn’t it? Knowing how everything works, all the time?” She scoffs. “What an awful way to live. Surprises make life interesting.”
“Surprises ended me up here,” I say, motioning toward the dark pit of nothing I’ve found myself in. “Lately, I don’t think I like surprises.”
She laughs. “Too bad. Life’s full of them! Best to treat them like gifts instead of ghosts, popping up to scare you.”
Gifts. I huff.
As if being declared Fateless in front of everyone in Heartland was a present.
But she keeps going, her voice getting more excited with every sentence.
She’s inching closer, until she’s out of the shadows completely.
Her face brightens. “Surprises are gifts. Unexpected detours. Unplanned stops. Going backward, instead of forward. Life doesn’t have a map!
And that’s the fun part, isn’t it? Not knowing how it will go? ”
“No,” I say, my voice blunt.
I want a map. I want a plan. I want a Fate. I want a future handed to me on a platter, just like everyone else on Boxing Day. That is what I want, more than anything.
“Sometimes… the worst moments of your life turn into the best ones.”
I give her a flat stare. “Are you saying one day I’m going to be grateful I was humiliated in front of everyone I know, had my dreams dashed, and then got stuck at Rock Bottom?”
She lifts a brow. “Anything’s possible. Haven’t you learned that by now, in a place like this?”
I just stare at her. “I’d like my circumstances to change. Right now.”