Chapter 23 My Magic Is Just as Stubborn as I Am
My Magic Is Just as Stubborn as I Am
Every day here really is like a dream.
I can do whatever I want. No Misty and Bonbon directing my every move. No Robin guiding my course selections or asking to see my latest test results. Just magic training, whenever I want it.
Which is every day, since I decided to stay in Dreamland.
I stroll through the halls of Dreamlake, wearing my same patchwork-style outfits I’ve been favoring for the last week.
I’ve been painting again since I’ve been here, too, the creativity spilling out onto my canvases and also onto my clothing.
Whatever I tapped into in Anyland, and unlocked fully in Everland—getting back to that part of myself I hadn’t seen in so long—is still with me here.
“Hey, Barbie,” calls a girl with dark hair tied up, dark skin, and a glowing pen she twirls between her fingers as she walks by, on her way to first lecture. I met Laurie one of my first days here. She’s taking writing classes, and she sparked to a pen that she’s infused with her own magic.
Now she writes everything that comes into her brain. A few days ago, she gave me some pages of her latest work, and I stayed up all night reading them.
“Hey, Laurie.” I smile at her. “Let me know when you’re done with that book; I need to know the ending!”
“Will do!” she says over her shoulder before turning into a classroom.
I skip down the marble steps, all the way to the first floor, which is currently abuzz with the energy of the Dream Team, a group of athletes who work together using their magic and accessories to try to get across the lake every morning.
They don’t compete against each other; they work together to beat their previous times.
“Two seconds faster than last week!” a boy named Ian with tan skin and slicked-back hair tells me. His accessory is a glove on his hand that funnels power through each finger.
“That’s amazing!” I say, beaming. He grins back before I make my way through the celebration, out of the arch, and over to the training grounds.
A few other students are here. There’s no start or end time. People come and go. Mentors like Lune check in on our progress.
If I’m not painting, I’m usually here, trying to find my magic. But there’s no pressure. No rush.
“Barbie!”
I turn to see Clover, a girl with curly red hair and tan skin. She’s been struggling to find her center of magic for a little longer than I have.
“You’ll never guess what happened!” she says.
“You found your center?”
She opens her mouth. Closes it. “Oh. You guessed.”
“That’s incredible!” I say, throwing my arms around her. “I’m so happy for you.” And I am. She’s worked hard, doing breathing exercises from early morning until noon, most days.
“You’ll get it, too,” Clover reassures me. “Something just… clicked. Like a key in a lock. I’m telling you, it’ll happen for you, too.”
I’m hoping it does. But I also don’t feel shame and worry that it hasn’t, not like I used to feel if I couldn’t get something right on the first try or, even worse, if I failed.
Because in Dreamland, there are always second chances. Choices can be made—then changed. There are no strict guidelines. There’s room for everyone on every team and in every profession. There’s no competition. You’re just… free.
Free to be completely and wholly and infinitely happy.
Negative thoughts slip through my mind the second I think them.
The outrage I felt toward Robin when I first learned the truth about my mother’s past and the Fates has dissipated to just a hum under my skin, something itching beneath the surface that scurries away whenever I try to claim it.
Or even missing Callie, which I did desperately at first…
It all just falls away into a big vat of happiness and cheer and joy and celebrations.
Not just figurative celebrating, either—literal celebrations happen every single day in the town square.
And I mean: Every. Single. Day.
That evening, I’m there, smiling just like everyone around me.
“What are we celebrating this time?” I ask, confetti stuck in my hair, colorful balloons whirling overhead, spinning in a hypnotic ring. A plate of pink cake with thick magenta icing appears out of nowhere and is placed in my hands.
“Everything!” the woman next to me exclaims, and okay! I chew my cake, the sugar melting away any questions or doubt.
The next morning, I stroll over to the training grounds to see Clover holding a glowing comb. She sticks it in her hair… and her red strands tumble into all different sorts of shapes, then streams of gold, then liquid magic.
“I sparked!” Clover squeals when she sees me. “It was amazing, Barbie. The Treasure Trove, it’s—it’s so… I don’t know. Amazing?! There were so many accessories to choose from!”
As thrilled as I am for Clover, as I watch her tresses magically grow and transform, as she brushes one of my own strands and it turns bright pink, a glimmer of disappointment forms in my chest that I still haven’t summoned my magic.
But the thought is snuffed out as soon as it forms.
I’ll get there.
Everyone always does.
And I’m my mother’s daughter. She was one of the strongest wielders of magic. This power is in my blood.
I just have to stop blocking it.
A few hours later, I sit on the edge of the pink water the way I like to do and close my eyes. I do the same breathing exercises Lune taught me that first day. I take a deep breath, hold it… then release. Until my mind feels completely empty and calm. Until my troubles float away.
My body thrums, a new sense awakening. It’s gotten stronger with every day.
I grip my mother’s “B” charm, feeling the silver warm in my palm.
“I’m here, Mom,” I whisper. “I’m here where you grew up… I know about your past. I know you had magic.”
My throat thickens.
There are so many dark, heavy emotions that I’ve just… pushed down, out of fear of returning to that Nightmareland. But deep in my bones I know that I can smile and celebrate nothing and eat cake forever—yet, until I face those emotions, I won’t be able to find this magic buried inside.
I take another deep breath.
In the last few weeks, I’ve traveled across various worlds. I’ve fought against immense danger. I’ve found a way out of everything.
Still… the toughest challenge I’ve had to face resides within me.
Myself.
I inhale again. Exhale in a rush through my mouth.
I can do this. I can face the worst of me, and I can stay tethered here in Dreamland. I can look at the darkness without falling into it.
I take one last deep breath. And let it all come rushing up.
“What happened to my mom?” I ask.
I’m twelve years old, and I’ve asked this question many times before. Robin never answers, always saying it’s not the right time, she’ll tell me when I’m ready, or she doesn’t want it to distract me from my studies.
She looks up from her breakfast. I could tell she was lost in another worry, her eyebrows already pinched.
But at the mention of my mother, her face pales. “Barbie, I—”
“You’ve never told me. I think—I think I’m old enough to know now.”
She swallows. She considers me, sitting in the chair across from her. My hair perfectly done up. My outfit perfectly pressed. All my good grades that I’ve just presented to her stacked in my folder for the semester.
Finally, Robin sighs. Drums her fingers on the table. Then: “Your mother was killed by magic,” she says.
I frown. “Yours?” I ask. She’s the only one with magic that powerful in Heartland.
“No,” she says quickly. “She… was killed by fell magic, defending our land from evil beyond the mists. She was powerless against it.”
Because she didn’t have magic, I think.
It explains the armor my mom’s statue wears… I knew she was a warrior, but I didn’t think she died defending our land…
“Fell magic?” I ask. “What’s that?”
Robin shakes her head sharply. “It’s not for you to worry about, Barbie. There is no such thing as fell magic here. That’s why it’s important we stay within the mists. Here… you’re safe. You’re with me.”
And I feel safe.
I know that no matter what, Robin will protect me.
Back in the Dreamlake training grounds, I feel tears spilling down my cheeks. Robin lied. She said my mother was powerless… but that wasn’t true. So what is the truth? Did fell magic really kill her?
Or did Robin’s?
All the anger and hurt and betrayal I feel comes boiling up.
But it isn’t all recent. No. There is a deep-rooted fury, a rage and hurt that was planted many years ago.
I’ve always tried to bury it, so grateful for everything Robin has done to make my life easier and keep things in Heartland perfect… but now, I allow myself to feel it all.
I hate magic.
It’s true. Ever since I learned magic killed my mother… I’ve hated it.
So there it is. The block.
The reason my magic never had a chance at developing.
I open my eyes and gasp at the reflection on the water. I see myself, face red, tears dripping down my cheeks… but I’m not alone.
My mother is sitting beside me. She’s smiling, one hand resting on my shoulder. Her eyes are full of understanding. She’s glowing pink, encased in the magic that she used so effortlessly in those memories Lune showed me.
And I understand. She loved magic. It made her life brighter.
She created an entire land with it… for me.
I slowly reach toward the water, not wanting to blink, wanting my mother’s visage to be real. But the moment my fingertips touch the surface, she vanishes.
I swallow down the hurt.
Magic, in some way, might have taken my mother from me. But I have to let go of that hatred for it. Because magic is the only thing still connecting me to her.
And deep inside… I know she would have wanted me to learn.
“There it is,” a voice says, and I whirl around to see Lune standing behind me, her blue eyes glistening. She puts a hand on my shoulder just as my mother did.
When I look down, I see it. A faint pink light glowing from my chest, in a tiny seed. Right in the center of my heart.
“You found it.”