A sense of ownership settled over me as I grazed my thumb across the locket. After a moment’s hesitation, I put it on and tucked it under my dress for safekeeping. If I really was a Dreamer, then this locket belonged to me.
She flew closer and squinted at the papers strewn across Mother’s desk, as if they possessed an overlooked clue that would allow us to decipher the riddles surrounding us. When that yielded no results, she flipped through the top notebook from a rather large stack. I lay on my stomach on Stardust and leaned down for a closer look at Mother’s drawings, some of which I now recognized as plants Mother grew in her garden.
Stardust jostled beneath me, and I looked down in time to see her tuck something away. “Let’s check out that bookshelf,” she said.
The selection of volumes was massive. Every magic book I could think of as possibly existing was crammed inside Mother’s bookcase, stacked at haphazard angles and weighing down the shelves so much they looked about to collapse. I caressed the spine of Developing Your Dream Weaving Abilities, traced the gold embossed letters of Enhance Your Weaving in Ten Easy Steps, and flipped through Cultivating Chronicles. I’d spent my entire life trying to track down even a sliver of information about magic, and this entire time Mother had a vast magical library concealed in her study.
“Look at these.” Stardust flew us to the top shelf to goggle at Growing Vivid Senses and Hybrids: The Complete Guide to Cultivating New Flower Breeds. “This settles it: your mother is definitely a Cultivator from the Dream World.”
Lightheaded, I tightened my hold on Stardust. I stared unseeing at the same spot in the bookshelf and noticed something odd. Snuggled between Incinerating Insomnia: Captivating Techniques to Keep Your Mortal Asleep and Weaving for Wusses was a thick, black book, whose title had worn off its breaking spine; I didn’t need Stardust’s detective skills to conclude Mother consulted it frequently. I tugged it from the shelf and flipped it over to read the nearly-faded title written in curly silver scrawl: The Power of Nightmares.
I started and almost dropped the book, as if the title itself burned me. What was a book like this doing amongst Mother’s volumes about cultivating and weaving? I started to return it to its shelf, but some unseen force made me pause. I wasn’t planning on opening it, but I was drawn to its pages by a burning curiosity that filled me with an unquenchable need to discover answers to questions I didn’t know I had.
I hypnotically traced the title, my unnatural curiosity about anything nightmare-related eclipsing my earlier abhorrence. Just what sorts of powers did nightmares possess? Were they more powerful than dreams? What secrets did this book contain, and what was Mother’s interest?
I slowly eased the book open in my lap, the cracking of its already broken spine slicing the silence as it fell naturally to Chapter 14, “Harnessing Nightmares’ Powers.” I just had time to notice a piece of yellowing parchment bearing Mother’s scribbles bookmarking the page when Stardust’s sharp gasp caused me to hastily shut the book.
“Unicorns!” She zipped towards the top of the bookcase, sending me and the book tumbling to the ground with a painful thud.
“Stardust, don’t,” I hissed, but it was too late. Deaf to my pleas, she yanked The Magical Properties of Unicorn Thread from the bottom of a teetering stack.
Crash! Books toppled on top of me, bruising me like pelting hail. The noise was deafening, as was the taut silence that followed.
Mother’s footsteps pounded as she came running towards the study. The lock clicked menacingly and the door swung open to reveal Mother glaring at me from the doorway.
Chapter 8
Time seemed to have stopped as Mother and I stared at one another before she slowly surveyed her study, her mouth agape. Desk drawers hung half-open, the tumbled books lay in a heap, and I crouched in the middle of the paper-carpeted floor, surrounded by her exposed secrets. Dread filled my heart for the impending confrontation. Stardust had disappeared, abandoning ship at the first sign of trouble. Traitor.
“What are you doing here?” Mother hissed through clenched teeth. “How did you get past the lock? It had a powerful…” She trailed off and pressed her hands against her hips. “Well?”
A cloud-shaped bumblebee darted briefly from behind the bookcase, an assurance Stardust hadn’t completely abandoned me to Mother’s wrath after all. Her presence strengthened my resolve.
“Do you have an explanation for these magic books?”
Mother pursed her lips. “That’s none of your concern.”
“Of course it’s my concern. You’ve spent my entire life claiming magic doesn’t exist, when all this time—” I blinked back tears. “I deserve to know the truth: do you have magic?”
Mother fidgeted for a moment before, ever so slightly, she nodded. Betrayal, sharp and prickling, washed over me. After all these years of trying to hide my own powers, the fact Mother had them too…
My lip trembled. “How could you keep it from me?”
She sighed. “It was necessary, but please believe that it pained me to do it.” Her tone was calmer and her eyes had lost their sizzle. “The truth is complicated. There’s much more going on than you realize; unfortunately there are some things which can’t be shared.”
“But I’m your daughter!”
“I was planning on telling you when you were eighteen, or sooner if you had shown any signs of having inherited my gift; I even had a locket filled with magic, ready to give you when you were ready. However, after observing you carefully over the years, I was convinced you didn’t possess any magic of your own. It wasn’t until last night when you declared with such certainty that I didn’t dream that I began to wonder…”
Unbelievable. For a moment I was rendered speechless. Mother monitored my expression, her own twisted in distress.
“I didn’t want you getting hurt.” She stepped closer, hand outstretched
