Page 19 of Barbie: Dreamscape

I follow her.

The Wall’s Secrets

I sprint into a sea of shelves.

The faerie darts around a corner, and I’m right on her glittering trail, so focused on keeping up that I hardly notice I’m venturing deeper and deeper into the library. My heels click along the marble floor as I follow the faerie down a quiet corridor, up a set of stairs that nearly leaves me breathless, then around a sharp right turn—

Nearly crashing into a stone wall.

“Got you!” I say, cornering the faerie. But she just turns back into paper that slowly drifts to the floor. Right next to two other small, blank pages.

I frown, peering down at the faeries-turned-paper, then around at where following the faerie has brought me.

Why did the faeries come here, to this obscure corner of the library?

There’s just a plain wall in front of me. I’ve hit a dead end, in more ways than one. “Great. I can’t even use the paper right,” I say, wondering how I’m going to find my way back to the library’s entrance. I lean against the wall.

And the stone behind me gives.

I pause. Look down at the paper faeries. Push my back against the wall… and then stumble a few steps as it falls open, revealing a hidden room.

No. Way. I step inside, my breath hitching. The room is rounded, as though it’s in a turret. It’s dim, the only light coming from the corridor, and completely abandoned. There’s even a layer of dust on the floor, like no one’s been in here for ages.

Strange.

But the faeries must have been coming here to try to answer my question.

What lies beyond the mists? The answer is in this room.

Suddenly, something catches my eye. A flash of color on the far wall.

Carefully, I shuffle forward, squinting, my steps echoing.

As I move closer to the stone, I see it’s covered in remnants of an old painting, most of the pieces chipped off or faded. With enough studying, I realize the pieces are part of a map of Heartland.

But not just Heartland.

I drag my finger from a tiny remaining fleck that looks like part of Swancrest outward, toward a curl that looks like the pink mist surrounding our border.

And then farther still, toward the other bits and pieces dotting the wall.

There isn’t enough of the painting left to read or make sense of, as if it’s been scraped away.

But one thing is clear.

There are other lands all around us.

Hope springs in my heart.

Maybe the Fates do live in one of these other places.

I take several steps backward to consider my piecemeal, barely there map. When I do, I notice one more speck of color off to the left that I missed when I was up close.

That’s when I go very still.

Because there is a symbol on that fleck of remaining paint that I’d recognize as easily as my own heartbeat.

A circle of shooting stars, melting into a single, larger star at the center.