Page 89 of Barbie: Dreamscape

I can’t leave without saying goodbye to her.

In moments, I’m running through Dreamland, beneath the rainbow that becomes an arch of glimmering stars at night, streams of constellations. Before, this simple act would have winded me, but now, my legs push me forward. My lungs are steady.

I stop outside of Lune’s small, cozy home, which opens up at my approach, and find her baking cakes for tomorrow’s regularly scheduled celebration. Unlike Robin, Lune doesn’t live at the school she oversees. She says she doesn’t want her constant presence to interrupt the freedom necessary for magical learning.

“Barbie!” she says, happily surprised to see me. “What a pleasant surprise.”

A timer goes off, and she pulls on gloves, opens her heart-shaped oven, and then sighs as a caramel-sweet scent spills out of it.

She loves to bake. When I asked her why she doesn’t just let magic create all the cakes, she asked, “Then how am I supposed to test out recipes?”

Now, I watch her carefully place the heart-shaped pan on her stove, remove her gloves, and begin preparing a buttercream icing.

This is maybe the biggest choice allowed in Dreamland: to use magic… or not. It isn’t required. It isn’t particularly encouraged, frowned upon, or questioned.

Everyone is free to make their own decisions, all the time.

Including me.

“Lune.” I get the words out before I can lose my nerve. “I’m leaving,” I say, and she goes still, piping bag in hand.

She turns to me. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I’m going back to Heartland,” I say, holding my compact against my chest. “I’m going back home.”

She frowns. “Barbie. You know you’re free to do whatever you think is best… but you’re home now. This was your mother’s home. It’s where she grew up, and trained, and—”

“I’m not my mother,” I say gently. “I’m… me.”

And for some reason, a weight is released.

“My home is Heartland,” I continue, because it’s true. No matter if my childhood was full of lies, that’s where I grew up. That’s where my friends are.

And I’m not turning my back on them now.

“Barbie, please, think this through,” Lune says. “If you leave now… you might never be able to come back again.”

Lune’s right. I was only able to travel here with all the charms. The moment I confront Robin, she could take them from me. Possibly destroy them. She could take everything—my charms, my fledgling magic, my compact, all of it.

I might not ever get a chance to train at a magic school again.

“I know,” I say. “But I’m going anyway.”

I can tell Lune still doesn’t agree. But she nods and opens her arms to me, accepting my decision.

I step into her embrace, burying my face in her sugar-scented shoulder for a moment. “Thank you for everything. Goodbye, Lune.”

I step outside of Lune’s home and, in the calm, star-studded dark of Dreamland at night, gather all the charms together: Summerland, Anyland, Everland.

Heartland.

I close my eyes and breathe deeply, the way Lune taught me. I feel that seed of magic stirring within my heart.

I’m not sure if this will work. Robin suggested it would when she was trying to get me to go back right before I reached Dreamland, but I can’t trust anything she says anymore.

Still, I put all of myself into trying. I picture my friends. I remember every moment growing up in Swancrest. I even think of Robin. Until all the charms merge, then bleed into one blinding light. A bridge back home.

In a flash, I vanish.