“What is it that you need?” the largest gull asked.
“I need to find Veila, to make sure she is okay, and I need to find Judgement and The Politician, to stop them from hurting anyone else.”
“We will help you,” the largest gull squarked and crouched down so that I could climb up onto his back again.
I clutched the mirror and held on tight as we flew up, higher and higher, over the Dreamrealm. The gulls spread out, scouting for Veila and my attackers.
The view from up there was sensational as always. If I hadn’t been so worried and looking out down below, I would’ve been able to enjoy it.
It felt like we had been searching for hours, gliding over the Dreamrealm, but it had probably only been minutes. Every second counted.
I heard the ‘caw’ sound as one of the gulls turned and flew back towards us, continuing to call out.
“We’ve found her,” said the biggest gull. “Your friend Veila is tied to the Priestess Tree…”
After a moment, he added: “it’s likely to be a trap.”
“I know,” I replied, “but I need to help her anyway.”
The gulls flocked together again, and we all swooped down towards the Priestess Tree. I could see something around the tree, but I was too far away to make out what it was. As we neared it, a peculiar thing happened. There was a clinking noise as a gull in front of us bounced off something.
“What was that?” I asked. A couple more gulls reached the same place and also bounced back as if they’d collided with an invisible barrier.
We landed close-by and scouted it out.
A giant glass dome became visible, surrounding the Priestess Tree.
The gulls tapped on it and tried to crack it, but it remained in place.
“Only the Dreamweaver may enter,” said a voice. It sounded like Judgement, but she was nowhere in sight.
“This is certainly a trap, Dreamweaver,” said the largest gull.
“I know,” I said, in a tremble of terror.
They are so powerful… and no one will be able to help me this time.
I wanted to wake up, to get away from this whole mess, but I knew I had to go on.
I approached the giant glass dome, carrying the mirror.
“Put down your weapon,” Judgement’s voice sounded all around me, “…and you may enter.”
“This?” I said, looking down. “Oh, this is not a weapon. This is a gift for you.”
“A… gift?” the voice said.
“Yes,” I continued, my heart pounding so hard in my chest that I thought it might jump right out. “It’s a gift because… I’ve realised you are right.”
“What?”
“Yes… you are right; some things do need to change around here… I’m… umm… really looking forward to all the ballrooms and stuff... I didn’t realise it before, but then I thought about it, and I saw that you were only trying to do what is in everyone’s best interests, so… so… I brought you a gift.”
There was a pause. I didn’t think she was buying it. I continued to stand there in front of the glass dome.
“What is your gift?” Judgement asked; her voice was suspicious. I still couldn’t see where she was, just the glass dome and the tree in the distance.
“It’s a mirror,” I said. “So that you can see how wonderful you are.”
I tried to smile.
After another pause, I heard her clear her throat. “A mirr-roar?”
“Of course,” the Politician’s voice said. “I know all about those… very state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line, great technology.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Very well…” she said. A door appeared on the side of the dome. “Leave it by the entrance and come empty-handed to the tree.”
Better than nothing.
I walked towards the door, and it opened, letting me inside, then quickly closed behind me. I put the mirror on the ground, leaning it up against the side of the enormous glass dome. Its lavender frame glimmered in the light and the surface of the mirror seemed to swirl.
I turned and sped up towards the tree. Dark indigo ropes were wrapped around it, and around Veila. Her light was fading in and out, growing dim; she looked up at me.
“Awa,” she said, her voice quiet and croaky. “It’s a trap.”
“I know.”
“You have to leave,” said Veila.
“No, not without you… and not without the Priestess Tree being safe.”
“Ha haha ha…” laughter echoed all around the dome; Judgement’s voice, mingled with the Politician’s and the sound of others… cackling laughter.
“Of course, it’s a trap,” said Judgement, stepping out from behind the Priestess Tree. “And now we have you.”
I scrambled, trying to untie Veila from the indigo ropes. I looked up just as Judgement hurled a giant ball of energy at me. I was knocked to the ground.
“Quick!” Judgement Cried. “Get her while she’s weak!”
The fragments appeared, so many of them I could hardly count. I recognised the tiny ‘special’ one and the hoarder who could hardly move under a waddle of precious possessions. There were others too, with strange faces, blank eyes… they held me down.
“No!” I said. “You… I see through all of you!”
My mind was racing so fast that my words couldn’t catch up.
“You’re shadow particles.”
“The Shadow!” said Judgement, beaming. “We are very close, yes.”
“The Shadow is marvellous!” said the Politician. “So so so powerful…”
“Oh yes!” said Judgement. “The Shadow is the antidote to all this horrific mess!” She gestured out to the Dreamrealm as she spun around.
“This time…” said the Politician, “you won’t be able to get away.”
He began to wheel that awful machine out again. “And no gulls will save you… no amount of presents will be able to convince us to set you free.”
I struggled under the weight of the fragments; they pushed and pulled and lifted me up into a chair.
Not this again.
I tried to push against them with all my strength, but it was too hard – much harder than trying to move through jelly.
No, no, no…
It was too much. I could hardly see through all the fragments surrounding me, holding me down, blocking me off from everything else.
There was nothing I could do. I slumped forward in defeat.
They’re going to put that horrible mask on me, and it will all be over…
Just then, I heard Veila’s voice sound in the back of my head. Don’t give up; you have more power than you know.
“This time, you will give us your power, and we will put it to good use,” the Politician said.
“I want to help you,” I lied again. It was the only thing I could think of that might change the situation.
Judgement looked at me and narrowed her eyes.
“Why would you want to do that?” she asked.
“I told you,” I said. “You have good ideas. I agree with you – you’re right!”
I was basically just saying anything I could think of.
“We are right,” said the Politician. “That’s very true.”
“She’s playing with us!” Judgement said, slapping the side of his head. His mask bounced off, revealing the red eyes and green skin of the snake below. I shivered as they both approached me. The snake hissed and slithered forward, out of the Politician’s head.
“No,” I said, “really – just look at the magnificent gift I gave you. It will help you – it will give you superior powers… the best powers… abilities you can only imagine.”
A look came over Judgement’s face. The Politician, who had knelt down to retrieve his mask, froze.
“Powers?” he said. “I’ll just go and… err… examine it.”
“Get back, you fool! It’s mine!” Judgment yelled and began running in the direction of the mirror.
“No!” called the Politi
cian, slapping his mask back on and running after her. “I saw it first!”
“Hold her!” Judgement commanded the fragments surrounding me, but it was too late. They had forgotten about me. They were staring, their eyes locked on the mirror.
“Mine!” said the hoarder.
“No! No! It’s mine! I’m special, all the special things belong to me!”
They pushed and shoved, tumbling over each other on the way down towards the mirror.
I would have laughed if it hadn’t been such a stressful situation, but I was already up, back at the tree, loosening the ties around Veila.
“Veila!” I said.
“No – save yourself,” she whispered.
The ropes finally fell away. She floated up, her light returning.
“But…” I turned around, expecting to see the fragments approaching again, expecting they would be bored with the mirror by now, that they would have worked out it was a trick.
Strangely, they were still clustered around it.
“I think my idea worked,” I said.
“What idea?”
“I read about this guy in school called Narcissus, who got trapped by his own reflection… and the fragments are all so self-obsessed, I thought it might work for them too, so Honu helped me find a mirror…”
She looked at me with pure wonder.
“Amazing!” she said, and threw her little arms around me, making my neck tingle.
“Is the Priestess Tree alright?” I asked. I put my hand up against her smooth bark and listened.
I am older than the sea, her voice echoed in my mind, and I am fine.
“Okay, good,” I said. We looked over to the fragments. “But what do we do about them?” I asked. “And this dome...?”
Veila shrugged.
“We could leave it up,” I said, “…to protect her.”
I do not need your protection, Dreamweaver, and I am not prepared to become a caged creature.
“Okay,” I responded, “but how can we get rid of it?”
“You are truly more powerful than you know,” Veila said. “Come!”
She led me down to the edge of the dome, careful not to get too close to the fragments in case we distracted them from the mirror.
I could hear them arguing.
“It most certainly is mine!”
“No, it’s mine!”
I expected to see them holding the mirror – pulling and pushing and fighting over it, but they were all just standing, a few feet away, staring at it as if hypnotised by their own images.
“Look at how perfect I am!” Judgement said. “Stunning, immaculate, absolutely spectacular!”
“But look at how charming and handsome I am!” said the Politician.
“Let’s leave them to it,” Veila said.
We got to the side of the dome, a few meters away from where I had come in, and near where the fragments still stood.
“The door is gone,” I said. “We’re trapped!”
My gut tightened as my mind raced with terrible thoughts.
“Don’t be silly!” said Veila. “Whatever power they used to put up this dome – it came from you.”
“From me?”
“Yes,” Veila said. “They must have extracted it from you using that machine thing. They don’t have this kind of power on their own.”
“But how...?” I looked up at the massive glass dome. How could this have come from me… and how the hell can I get rid of it?
“Try putting your hand on it,” Veila said.
I put the palm of my hand up against the dome. A dull sound rang out around us, like a giant glass being tapped softly.
The dome felt cool under my hand, but I still had no idea what to do. I looked at Veila.
“Okay,” she said. “Close your eyes, and listen.”
I did what she told me to.
“What am I listening for?” I asked.
“Your intuition – what you know deep down to be true.”
“All I know is… that I don’t know anything!” I said.
“Shush,” Veila said. “Listen.”
I could hear the fragments squabbling a few meters away from us, the sound of gulls in the distance; underneath that was a humming sound which could have been coming from inside or from outside.
Behind all this, I heard a tiny whisper of thought inside my head.
Shrink it.
“Shrink it,” I said to Veila. “That’s what I heard.”
“Shrink the dome?” Veila asked.
“But how?” I wondered. “It’s huge!”
I opened my eyes again and looked up at the enormous glass ceiling above us, trying to think of a way to shrink it…
Nothing.
“Try imagining it shrinking in your mind – but centre yourself first, like you learned to do when you figured out how to come into the Grove.”
I closed my eyes again and felt the surface of the dome under my hand. I pictured it, as it was, in my mind, and then I imagined it shrinking, shrinking in a way that it dissolved around the edges of the things that it touched so that nothing was hurt as it got smaller and smaller…
“Wow,” Veila said softly, beside me.
I opened my eyes to see the edges of the dome glowing with violet light as it became smaller and smaller, leaving everything in its path untouched. I watched the Priestess Tree emerge, free on the other side of the glass. I watched the dome shrink until it was just a fraction of the size, and only surrounded us and the fragments.
I looked over at them.
“Do you think we should… leave them in here?” I asked Veila.
“It wouldn’t hurt,” she said, “…until you have worked out how to alchemize them.”
“Won’t they need to eat?”
“Oh no, they just need sunlight and exercise,” Veila said. “And they will get plenty of that just by standing out here, fighting over your mirror.”
Veila smiled at me, and I smiled back.
“But now… we need to get out,” she said.
I don’t know how I knew to do this, I just did; I drew a door in the side of the dome, large enough for us. My finger left a glowing line as it ran around the glass. The line opened into a perfect little glass door, and we walked out into the fresh air.
I closed the door behind us, put my hand on the dome again, and imagined it shrinking, just a little more, so that it surrounded the fragments, giving them enough room to struggle over the mirror without taking up too much space.
“That was… weird,” I said, and immediately woke up.
Chapter Twenty-One
I was feeling amazing, lying in my bed, looking up at the ordinary, waking-world colours around me… so proud that I had figured out how to trap the fragments and shrink the dome. That was until I remembered everything that had happened at school. I was not looking forward to facing all of that. I wanted to hide under a rock, or maybe a giant dome… but Mum said I had to go.
“You know that saying, ‘get back on the horse’?” Mum asked.
“No,” I said. I looked at my soggy rice bubbles, squishing some to the side of the bowl with my spoon.
“Well, it’s a common saying, and it means that when you fall off – or something goes wrong, you have to get back up and keep going, or it only gets harder.”
“Not possible,” I said. “It can’t possibly get any harder.”
“Oh honey,” Mum said, putting her arms around my shoulders and squeezing. “I know it was a lot to take – and I know I put you on the spot. I’m sorry for that.”
I didn’t respond. I was still too angry.
“Are you going to eat those, or just play with them?” Mum asked.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Awa, come on,” Mum said. “You’re going to thank me one day.”
“I doubt that,” I said. “After making me go up there in front of the whole school? Don’t you know I have anxiety issues?!”
“I’m actually really proud of you.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“You stood your ground, honey, and you told me what happened, and that’s what’s important – if no one speaks up, then the racism will just continue.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Awa,” Mum leaned down until she was at eye-level with me. “Racism is not just what you can see – it hurts us – it hurts lots of people, and it’s everywhere. Whenever we see it, we have to do whatever we can to stop it.”
“Whatever,” I said, even though something in Mum’s words sounded annoyingly like the truth.
I did let Mum drop me off to school, even though I was trying not to talk to her. I just didn’t have the energy to walk.
As soon as I got to the gates and into the courtyard, I could tell something had changed. Everything felt different.
As I walked through, kids looked at me, but not in the judgmental way they did when I first arrived, or when they were teasing me; it was totally different. They were looking at me as if I was a superhero or something.
“Hey Awa,” some of them said; some smiled, some waved.
I was starting to feel a bit suspicious that I was actually stuck in a dream in the Rooms of Mind because everything was so weird!
I got to class just as the bell rang. Ella smiled at me from across the room, but we had a maths test and didn’t get a chance to talk until the morning break when I sat down with Ella and Evan at our usual table.
“Oh my goodness!” Ella said. “Everyone is talking about how cool you are.”
“What?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Evan. “Yesterday, with Felicity and Ms N. That was extreme! I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I sighed. “It was my Mum’s fault.”
“Fault?” Ella said. “It was incredible. I’ve never seen Felicity apologise to anyone – ever!”
“I guess,” I said, peeling my mandarin, and trying not to blush. “But why is everyone treating me like I’m some kind of god now?”
“The thing is,” Evan said. “Felicity has ruled this school since we first started. She’s found a way to bully everyone…”
“Or make them her friend,” Ella said.
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