Page 53 of Barbie: Dreamscape

So this clearing really is full of spiders.

Talking spiders.

Of course we speak! Why wouldn’t we? one says, and now it’s official. Talking and mind-reading spiders.

Yes, we can read your mind, and to be frank, it’s quite a boring place to be, another spider says, swinging by, its voice a deep baritone.

I bristle. I am not boring, I think.

You were. You’re improving, though, another says, high-pitched as the first. As if that should make me feel any better.

I shake my head. I can’t believe I’m speaking to spiders in my mind.

But I came here for a reason.

“I need a dress for the masquerade. Can… can you please help me?” Even though I said some potentially unkind things about you in my head a few seconds ago…

Depends, a voice says close to my ear, like a hiss. Can you pay?

I swallow, remembering the word unsettling. “How much?”

Which really is a useless question, considering I didn’t bring any coins. I don’t have much of anything to give, especially now that the necklaces aren’t working.

Just one moment of wonder is all, the spider says.

I couldn’t have heard it correctly. A moment of wonder?

That’s exactly what I said! that same voice is hissing, swinging close.

Okay. Fine, it just wants a moment of wonder. It isn’t hard to remember the last time I felt that feeling. It happened just hours ago.

The spiders are in my mind… So I close my eyes and think of that moment. I think of the wind upon my skin, my wings fluttering behind me, the sparkle of the sun across the emerald lake, the patches of Anyland below—

A spider tsks near my face. No. A memory from your home. That’s what we want to see.

Oh. From Heartland.

Well, that’s easy. I’ll just think of a moment of wonder from my life before this strange journey began.

I try.

I try some more.

See, I told you. No wonder in her, one of the spiders says.

“No, wait!” I say. “I’m thinking.”

And thinking. But there’s nothing. Just an endless string of the same routine that I told Ken about back in Summerland. A life I really did find perfect. But now I’m starting to see how scheduled it was. Regimented. Predictable, down to the minute. Every single aspect controlled, as if my life was held in a fist.

No room for surprise. No room for wonder.

B-O-R-I-N-G, one of the spiders says, swinging right in front of my face.

And they’re kind of right. I—

I’m boring.

Beyond Sunny’s flying boat, I never did anything as adventurous in Heartland as I have in these last couple of days. I never sprouted wings, or walked through an ever-changing garden, or talked to spiders.