Page 79 of Barbie: Dreamscape

And something within me wants to. It wants to feed into the sadness and rage because then there’s someone to blame.

There’s a target for all this hurt.

All at once, a thought occurs to me.

Was this the place Robin was in when she was little, after she lost her parents? When the magic around her was all cobwebs and storms and haunted houses? I think back to the girl clothed all in black, a single rain cloud above her head like a warning.

She was so sad… so alone…

A seed of empathy starts trying to take root in my heart, and—

No. Robin doesn’t deserve it.

She doesn’t deserve it, the world around me echoes.

But it does give me pause. I don’t need to try to understand what Robin has done, and I certainly don’t need to forgive her.

Yet, as easily as I could continue to dig myself deeper into this pit of despair, and have the shattered pieces of my heart finally freeze over…

I don’t want to live that way.

You don’t have a choice! the shadows around me hiss.

But that’s not true. If anything… my journey here has taught me this.

“I always have a choice,” I say out loud.

Then I grip my necklaces, close my eyes—and choose.

Dreamland (Really, This Time)

“Barbie?”

Sunshine heats my frigid skin. The pink-hued rainbow blinks back at me.

Lune is back. She grips my shoulders.

There is a well behind Lune. Only now, the sign above it is a fluffy pink cloud again that says, Wishing Well.

“Thank goodness,” Lune says, hugging me. “I thought you might—” She shakes her head as though to will away the thought. “But you’re back. I’ve never seen someone break out of a nightmare’s hold so quickly.”

“I didn’t think I would,” I say honestly.

I feel shaky from my little trip into Nightmareland, but also renewed in some way. Conviction settles in my bones. I can’t change what happened, or the lies Robin has fed me my whole life, but I can control what I do with all this newfound information.

My mother had magic. I have magic. Maybe I can learn how to use it.

“Will you teach me?” I ask, the words coming slowly. “Magic?”

Lune stares for a beat. “Of course,” she says, but she frowns slightly. “Does that mean you want to stay here?”

This was never part of the plan. I was supposed to meet the Fates, claim a future, and go back home to Heartland.

Be just like my other classmates—have a role, a purpose.

But this whole journey hasn’t been part of the plan. Meeting Ken, watching a sunset, flying with Posey, dancing with mermaids, and besting an evil lord in a dress woven by talking spiders.

Now I know the Fates aren’t real, but there’s so much more that is. Maybe Posey was right about the worst moments turning into gifts.