Page 95 of Barbie: Dreamscape

She’s gone when I blink, and I get moving.

I open the gossamer bag to find it filled to the brim with enchanted baubles of all shapes and sizes, like the ones in the Treasure Trove in Dreamland. I can feel the hum of magic inside, my mother’s magic, infused into everything she left for me. I still don’t know what they do, but I tie the bag to the strap on my shield. I tuck my compact beneath my armor like a talisman.

“Let’s do this,” I say, swallowing down my doubt and fear.

I have done hard things. I have tested the limits of my strength and found that there are none.

I can do this.

I run full speed ahead, right toward the door without a handle. The entrance—and exit—to my prison.

At the last moment, I lift my shield. And with a surge of magic, it breaks the wood into splinters that spit onto the floor.

When I turn, there is an almost perfect me-shaped hole in the door.

It worked.

Thanks, Mom, I think again, as screeches echo through the corridors, the birds clearly having heard the commotion. They’re coming.

I grip the heart-shaped handle of my mother’s sword—then I stride forward toward the danger.

I race down the hall, turning each corner I know like the back of my hand, racing toward the dormitories. Squawking echoes everywhere. They’re on my tail. I can’t do this alone.

Luckily, I’m not.

The armor and sword and shield are heavy, but my muscles and bones are full of purpose. I sprint down every corridor, running as fast as I ever have, and the beasts aren’t far behind. Their caws reach a fever pitch, answered by the snarl of the storm. The walls tremble. But I don’t stop.

I turn the corner, and—

There.

Callie’s old dorm room. I reach the door, and I don’t hesitate. I crash right through the sealed entrance, as I did in my own room.

And there are Callie and Paige, just as I saw them in the compact. They both stand in shocked silence.

Until finally, Paige says, “What is she doing here?”

“She’s saving us,” Callie exclaims, her smile wide. Then her arms are around me. “Barbie! I was so worried about you! Sunny and I came to see if Headmistress had heard anything from you, and she… well…” Callie waves her hand around the dorm room turned prison cell. She steps back and takes me in. “Loving the outfit, by the way.”

I squeeze my best friend against me again, throat thick with emotion. How I’ve missed her.

“And I came here looking for Callie once she didn’t come back, and Headmistress trapped me in here, too,” Paige said, her voice barely leashing her irritation. “I’ve missed, like, eighteen depositions for this. Thanks a lot, Barbie.”

I roll my eyes. Paige will be Paige, even when the walls are literally closing in on us.

“Come on, both of you.” I can hear Robin’s massive monster-birds crashing against the door, trying to squeeze through the me-shape punched through the wood. It won’t be long until they find a way through.

“Come on where?” Paige says. “The door is blocked!”

“So we’ll have to make a new one,” I say. Then I duck my head, lift my shield in front of my face, and crash through the right-side wall (that coincidentally happened to have all of Paige’s old report cards pinned up).

“Hey!” she says, but I don’t look back.

I just keep going. And going. Crashing through empty dorm rooms, wood splintering, my shield and armor holding, like my mother’s magic is coursing through its metal.

She’s here, even when she isn’t, I think.

She’s in the example of bravery from the legends. She’s in the clothes she made for my future. She’s in my heart like an eternal summer, a spot of sunlight that never dims. I feel it.