Page 43 of Barbie: Dreamscape

“Well, usually… I just walk. I don’t go far in Heartland, only to classes in the school. I stay within its walls, mostly.”

Posey just stares at me again for a long while, and I swear I see an inkling of pity. “I’m glad you’re here,” she finally says.

I laugh without humor. “Oh yeah?” I say, looking around at the desolation of here. I’m certainly not glad to have reached this destination. “Why is that?”

“Rock Bottom is a pretty solid place to start a new life.”

Her words sink into me, clinging to some ember in my chest, but I shake them away. “I don’t want a new life. I just want my old one back. I want a Fate, and I want to forget any of this ever happened.”

I squint at Posey. As I’ve been talking, her clothes… they’ve become brighter. Instead of dark gray, they’re more of a silver now. How is that possible? I look down at my necklaces, but they’re still dark. No magic shining through.

“Okay, let’s say that’s what you really want. Now what?” Posey asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you aren’t going to find those Fates down here. What happens next?”

I put my hands up. “How should I know?” I look up at the miles of darkness above. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Join the club. No one does.”

“I’m scared,” I admit. “Scared that this is the end of my journey. That I failed without even getting that far.”

“Rock Bottom isn’t ever the end. It’s just another stop on your journey, if you let it be.”

Posey stands. She takes a step forward, and before my eyes, her silver-gray clothing starts to take on more hints of color. With every step, it grows brighter.

“It’s okay to be afraid, as long as fear doesn’t stall you. It’s okay to be sad, as long as sorrow doesn’t swallow you. It’s okay to be anything at all, as long as you don’t ever let one mistake or accomplishment define you. That’s why this place is called Anyland. Because anything can happen here.” Her eyes are fierce now, full of a fire that wasn’t there when I first encountered her. “Don’t fear change, Barbie, because it happens with or without your permission. Everyone and everything is always changing, all the time. Sometimes slowly, and sometimes… all at once, we transform.”

In a flash, her clothing turns fully purple.

“That’s all great—and I’m loving the outfit change—but we’re still here. Stuck. In the bottom of a dark pit. Unless you can turn your clothes into stairs, there’s no way out,” I say, as if it isn’t obvious.

“There’s always a way out,” she says, and then a pair of magnificent purple butterfly wings erupts from her back.

I gasp. They’re each ten feet tall, glimmering through the darkness.

She reaches out a hand. “Are you ready to leave this pit of despair?” She looks around. “Please? I’m ready now, and it’s kind of creepy down here.”

She… could have left the whole time? I have a thousand questions, but first of all, I just want out. “Yes.” I reach to take her hand, but she shakes her head and steps back.

“I can show you the way… but you have to be the one to get yourself out of this darkness.” She gives me a sympathetic smile. “Remember. Light exists in even the darkest places. You just have to find it.”

Then Posey shoots out of the trench, into the skies far above.

Wings

I stare upward, mouth agape, as Posey’s purple wings become just a sparkling speck in the distance.

Oh my gosh. She did not just—

She did. She left me.

She gave me this whole speech and then left me!

Frustration and anger and shock start to surface.

I try to snuff it out. Posey looked hopeless when I first saw her. She looked defeated.