Chapter 13 Wonder and Whimsy
Wonder and Whimsy
Wind blows my hair back. It whistles in my ears.
The dark gray cliffs on each side are just a blur as I hurtle toward the bright blue sky, and finally—
I’m out of the trench.
And this world is transformed.
My necklaces form an orb around me, their pink glow vanquishing all this land’s darkness. Everywhere I turn, there’s only nature, and light, and an endless sea of rainbow colors.
Posey is waiting, her purple wings translucent in the sunlight. She’s beaming. “You did it!”
Strange—I’m grateful she didn’t just save me. It meant I had to find this light and strength within myself.
I never expected I could do something like this… in my dream-life existence, I’ve never been pushed to my limits, and then pushed even further. Until now.
And… I did it.
I sprouted wings. I’m flying!
And there, floating nearby, is the bell with wings, the key out of this land and into the next. “Thank you,” I tell Posey. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” I turn to reach my hand toward the bell.
“Wait!”
Slowly, I turn back.
“Are you leaving? Already?”
I look at the key… then back at her. “This is what I came for.”
Posey slowly shakes her head in disbelief. “You just created wings. Don’t you want to try them out?”
Of course I do. I’m flying! But I have a destination.
She seems to read the words in my head, because she juts out a hip, still floating several feet above the trench. “You’re acting like your destination is the entire point of your journey.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No! Journeys are never about the destination, Barbie.”
They… aren’t? Because I’m pretty sure I’m doing all this for a very specific reason…
She must see my continued disbelief, because she lifts a shoulder. “It’s fine that you don’t see that yet. That just means your journey isn’t over. When it is… you’ll know exactly what I mean.”
I’m not holding my breath.
She continues, “Life’s color is the in-betweens, the quiet realizations, the side quests, the unexpected adventures.”
Right.
“That’s amazing,” I say, really trying to mean it. I reach toward the bell. I’m just a hair too far away. “But I really need to—”
“No,” Posey says, her voice firm. “It can wait. Trust me.”
Then she shoots up into the air, her wings curling around her, launching up through the sky like a rocket.
And I hesitate.
Why am I hesitating?
I should grab the bell while I can. I’m lucky I even made it out of that trench. Who knows if this land is about to change again?
But I watch Posey, and that ember of light I felt in the pit… it turns into a longing I haven’t felt in years—that simplicity and infinite yearning for play…
The same emotion that had me laughing, running down halls with Robin. The same one that had me painting far past my bedtime.
The same feeling I abandoned after school started taking up all my free time, and life got busy.
Any time I got the urge to do something not related to academics or success, I would admonish myself. Tell myself I was too old to be joking around or pursuing things just for the fun of it.
But are you really ever too old to just play?
Are you really expected to just abandon fun for the sake of success, and only do things that are deemed productive?
Another thing I don’t want becomes clear as day, the realization slamming into my soul like it did when Robin told me I could stay in Swancrest with her forever.
I don’t want to live a life devoid of color, and creativity, and imagination and fun.
Not anymore.
So I shoot off after Posey.
My body pierces cloud after cloud, and some are cold, some are full of water, some are full of surprises, and I emerge from one covered in glitter, another covered in crystals, yet another covered in—
Chocolate?
“Chocolate rain is the best,” Posey crows, flying past me. She reaches inside the cloud I just emerged from and pours some into her mouth. “Here, follow me…”
I race after her, through a storm cloud that washes the chocolate away, then into a wind funnel that dries me and sends my hair flying out of what was left of my braided crown, the strands now fully loose and free. When was the last time they weren’t pulled back into bows or clips?
Relief. The tension in my head eases, air flowing against my scalp, the tightness released.
I reach up and clutch the necklaces, thinking of an entirely new outfit, before shooting through yet another cloud—and emerging in a billowing dress of various fabrics every shade of pink, cut into squares like a quilt, inspired by the landscape below.
I hear Posey whoop with approval before flying through a cloud and appearing in a completely different ensemble as well, violet pants with bell-shaped bottoms and a rhinestone top in the shape of butterfly wings.
That officially starts an Outfit Battle.
In bursts of pink and purple glitter, we change ensembles over and over, going back and forth, until our designs start to bleed into the clouds. We paint them every shade and pattern, from houndstooth to candy stripes to polka dots to herringbone.
I’m laughing. And I can’t remember the last time I did that, really, truly, with my whole face.
I follow Posey down, and we race right over a lake as smooth as a sheet of glass, as perfectly round as a compact mirror, and I see my reflection, and—
Yes. That’s what a real smile looks like.
I reach a hand down, parting the water, making it ripple, and it’s like a summoning. All around me, fish begin to leap out of the lake, their scales glistening—and then they change right before my eyes, becoming sparkling gemstones before shifting back again.
And when one of them jumps over me, my outfit transforms without my having to use the necklaces’ magic at all—
Then I’m glittering just as much as they are, in a shift dress draped with rubies.
“The world opens up when you do,” Posey calls back to me from ahead. She motions all around her. “Isn’t Anyland amazing?”
It is. It really is.
When anything can change to anything at all… unexpected magic can happen. I feel it. My necklaces feel it, too.
I thought I had lost my creativity… my imagination. But it’s still here. Even after years of not using it.
Maybe this is what I needed to unlock. Maybe Posey is right, and being Fateless was a good thing… because it forced me to find this part of myself again and uncover my strength.
The Fates will see that, won’t they? It’ll change their minds?
There’s only one way to find out.
Full of conviction and confidence, I finally grab the winged bell. I wave goodbye to Posey and her massive purple wings as my own disappear and pink light pours through my fingers.
Then I’m catapulted forward, hurtling through what looks like a tunnel of glittering pink, until it finally ends, and—
I’m surrounded.