Page 93 of Barbie: Dreamscape

The words explode out of me. “What happened to her?”

“Her magic happened to her!” Robin finally exclaims in a low growl, darkness seeping from her, the shadows lengthening, the storm outside raging. “She didn’t put limits on how she used her magic or where. She didn’t listen to the warnings. She went off and did what she wanted, wantonly, recklessly, without thought to the consequences… and it was her end. When enemy forces were upon us, she threw herself headfirst into the danger and they… they…”

A tear slips down her cheek and she shakes her head, clears her throat. Her expression turns back to stone.

“I vowed I would never let the same happen to you. I suspected you had the same magic in you as your mother: boundless—but dangerous. So I put rules in place, safeguards, in hopes you would never discover it. To protect you from yourself, Barbie.”

I blink.

“To protect me?” I look around at the stone covering the windows, at the door without a handle. “Is this protecting me?”

For a moment, her expression almost looks sad. “It is. You don’t see it, but it is. I’m helping you. Just as I helped you by suppressing your magic, until your disdain for it proved enough of a choke hold all on its own.”

My eyes burn.

Not in sadness… but in fury.

“You tried to… extinguish me,” I say, my words thick with emotion.

Robin shakes her head. “No, I—”

“You smothered me. You snuffed me out. You stifled me. I had magic all this time… and you choked it.”

“I controlled it so it wouldn’t smother you,” she says, her voice sharp as a blade’s edge.

A trace of pain flitters through her expression. It’s gone a moment later.

Robin straightens, her face smoothing. “But it seems I gave you too many liberties. I won’t make that mistake again.” She looks around my room. “Like this, you’ll be safe,” she says almost to herself, motioning to my makeshift prison.

Then she vanishes.

“No!” I say, running toward where she was.

But every hint of her is gone, and I’m plunged back into darkness.

Friends and Making Amends

Rain and hail rattle against the school walls. The building groans beneath the strain of the storm I now suspect is an outgrowth of Robin’s emotions.

My friends.

This is far worse than I ever imagined. I thought maybe I could come here and talk Robin down, but she’s transformed. If anything, revealing to her what I know has only made everything worse.

My room gives a sudden jostle as the walls seem to eat up part of the floor, and I crash to my knees. I press my hands against the cold floor, feeling the vibrations of Swancrest twisting and contracting around me, shaping into an even more closed-off fortress, hallways tightening, rooms getting smaller and smaller.

In a twisted way, Robin might actually believe she’s keeping everyone safe… but her emotions are now reigning her magic. It’s turned fell, just like those creatures her mists protected us from.

How much longer until the school falls apart? Until it collapses all around us under the strain of her magic?

I have to stop her. But to do that, I have to figure out how to get out of this room.

I can barely see a thing in this darkness without the glow of Robin’s apparition. It takes a few moments of crawling to reach my nightstand, and I root around in my drawers until I find the stub of a candle and a book of matches. I strike a match and use it to light the candle.

Then, finally, I look around, studying everything, and even though I can’t have been gone for more than a few weeks… it all looks completely different. As if I’ve outgrown my old life entirely.

I’m not the same person I was when I left. I’ve had to learn to survive. I’ve been on my own. I’ve tested myself, and failed, and grown, and changed.

There is an iron will within me I never knew existed, and I know, if I try, I can use it to save my home and my friends from Robin.