Chapter 7 Chelsea
Chelsea
There are hundreds of us making our way to the barrier. It looms ominously ahead—a transparent circular portal, tall as a house, a misty image on the other side—homes, wet streets. The picture is distorted, warped like it’s a wall of water and not one of magic.
The Nightmare District was here before Castleview, before any of us, and I have a feeling that if my town disappeared tomorrow, this place will continue to exist, unaffected.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Dallas nudges me. “We’re about to walk in.”
“With hundreds of other people.”
“That makes it all the better.”
I give her a side-eye as she grins. “You’re not bringing me down tonight, Chelsea. Nothing you can say will damage my mood.”
Emory links her arm in mine. “Me neither.”
“I thought you’d have enough sense to want to avoid this place.”
“Never,” she replies with a giggle. “This is the chance of a lifetime.”
“It might be the last chance, too,” I grumble.
“What’d you say?”
“Nothing.”
I’m with my four sisters—besides Dallas and Emory, the two youngest are Finn and Georgia. Ovie and my nana are escorting us. My parents are coming, too; they’re just a little behind.
And to be honest, it looks like all of Castleview has taken the opportunity to meet the Nightmare King. I seriously doubt everyone has an invitation. There are just too many of them.
This is probably the king’s plan. Get us out of our houses, curse them while we’re gone. When we return, we’ll slowly go mad from the nightmares he’ll cast while we sleep.
They say he doesn’t walk in daylight. They say he can pull fear from your throat with a glance.
They say a lot of things.
Our group reaches the barrier, and Ovie eyes it. It’s even more looming up close, the distortion a wave instead of a simple ripple. It looks thick and viscous, like I’ll have to swim to the other side.
My aunt turns around. She looks beautiful in a gold dress with her hair swept back from her face. “Girls, this is it. Are y’all ready?”
“Yes,” everyone says but me.
My nana, hovering beside Ovie, gives me a sharp look.
“Yes,” I reply, forcing a smile. “I’m ready.”
“Then let’s do this. Stick together.”
I grab both Dallas’s and Emory’s hands and step into the barrier. A shock wave of icy cold magic hits me. Yes, it’s a wall, and it makes every inch of my skin awaken like I’ve been tossed into a cold pool of water.
It’s so jarring that I gasp, and that makes it worse. Unease seeps into my bones, but along with it comes something else, a familiarity, like my body recognizes this.
That cold, volatile magic from the man in the street. The one who made roses grow with a touch. This barrier carries a similar signature—like it's built from the same power that thrummed under his skin.
Before I can analyze it further, I’m out the other side and the eerie magic has vanished.
My magic, usually bubbling, goes quiet. Calm.
“Well, that was fun,” Ovie says, looking back at us. “And here we are. Wow. Look at that.”
As she leads us on, I take a minute to let this place sink in.
It’s dark, of course, not like a regular evening, but true night, with stars scattered overhead and the crescent moon hanging low, like it has no intention of leaving. Swirling purple balls of energy fill glass globes that line the streets.
Are those nightmares?
So this is how he keeps the lights on.
And the buildings are so different from ours—tall Victorian structures made of thickly cut gray stone. The residents watch us from stoops and windows like we’re bright gemstones they’ve never seen.
But that’s not all. There’s music in the background, the sound of a violin playing a song that evokes a sense of longing, of wanting something you can’t quite reach.
All of us from Castleview gaze around as we walk, murmuring to one another.
“I wonder if there will be paintings that watch us,” Emory jokes.
“If the inside of the house is as gothic as the outside, the paintings will have eyes,” Dallas adds.
It is gothic, but not in the way that adds gloom. There’s something alluring about this—the purple light, the gray buildings, like it’s the dark side of the moon and must exist because Castleview exists with all its light.
Dallas stops short. “There it is. The manor.”
Sitting in the middle of a busy street is a building unlike any of the others. It’s got the same gray stone, but this one is mortared with silver, making it reflect the moonlight and glow ethereally.
It’s easily as long as a city block and tall, over seven stories.
I practically swallow my tongue as I drink it in.
This is the Nightmare King’s manor? Here I was thinking it would be a black castle with awful gargoyles and bats flying around it.
But this place is anything but. Yes, it’s dark. But it’s also beautiful.
The line outside is long, and as we join it, all I can think is, Here we go.
The queue moves quickly, and when we’re almost at the front of it, Dallas pushes up on her tiptoes. “I can’t see inside.”
“We’ll be there in just a minute,” I reply, holding my stomach as butterflies suddenly kick up a tornado inside me.
“I know, but I want to get a look,” she tells me.
“I see him,” Emory says.
Dallas cranes her neck. “Where?”
“Just kidding. I don’t.”
“Not funny, Emory.”
Ovie turns around. “We’re next. Y’all hush.”
She hands an invitation—one that didn’t turn into a plume of smoke—to the man at the door.
This isn’t our world.
This is his.