Into the Gray

by Geanna Culbertson

  I turned to Harry. “When we first met, you told me about the holes that go to other worlds—I remember you mentioned Earth and Dreamland specifically.”

  “Black holes.” Harry nodded. “Earth and Dreamland are separate dimensions from the Wonderlands. Hence the different brand of portal needed to cross over. Black holes only appear in dangerous, hard-to-reach places.”

  “That checks out,” Daniel said. “The first one we took was in the deep ocean and the second behind enemy lines in Alderon.”

  “The problem goes beyond inconvenient locations though,” Harry remarked. “Other than a couple of recurring black wormholes I know of, every month, on average maybe a handful appear per realm.”

  “In all the time I’ve had my Hole Tracker, I’ve only ever seen a few black holes show up on the map,” I mused. “I always wondered why there are so few of them.”

  “The good news for you is that black holes to Dreamland specifically only open during the full moon, and there’s one coming up in twelve days. According to my White Rabbit Alert List, there are two scheduled black holes for Book that evening. We don’t guard black holes, but we keep track of them for study, especially given how many more wormholes have been appearing in recent years.”

  “There you go,” Sandman said. “You could enter Dreamland the night of the full moon, but you’d have to wait until the next full moon after that to cross back out. This may feel like hours in Dreamland, but close to a month will pass in your home realm.”

  I grimaced. Things could change drastically in a day; the idea of missing several weeks while we were in some wonky dream dimension was scary. But we had no choice. The only thing we’d have to decide was who from our group to send. It was important that some of our team remained in Book to thwart any potential antagonist calamity.

  I put on my confident face and put my hands on my hips. “Challenge accepted. Give us the sand to deal with Shadows, but please double the dosage so we can save two victims.”

  “Put it on the White Rabbit tab,” Harry said. He looked to us. “This one’s on me.”

  I gave him a grateful nod.

  Sandman went to a shelf and selected a couple of mason jars filled with golden glowing sand. “Lucky timing. You’re getting the only two doses I have at the moment.”

  He poured the contents into separate sacks, sealed them, and handed them to me. “Pour the full contents of each sack onto each victim’s face. That will extract the Shadow. But be warned, these measurements are exact; you cannot lose a single grain. If you don’t have the dosage in full, the Shadow won’t leave the victim. Then the only other way to remove the Shadow would be for someone else in Dreamland to absorb it.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Sandman yawned and muttered something that sounded like, “Jag behöver en tupplur.” He then reached for the shelf with metallic arm braces, strapped one on, and waved to us. “Come with me outside.”

  Our host adjusted the arm brace as we followed him to the front lawn. The device had a wrist strap and an elbow strap connected by a single strip of material that ran along the underside of Sandman’s forearm, then looped around his middle finger. A blue button with a rune was set into the strap at the center of his palm; another rune resided on the arm material just below the elbow strap.

  “Not many people know this, but I was conceived and born in Dreamland—hence my slow-aging genetics and my knack for sleep-related magic,” Sandman explained. “Having been to that realm many times, I would say that other than the risk of being manipulated by the dreams you encounter, and getting trapped there as a result, the biggest danger in Dreamland is counting sheep.”

  “Counting sheep?” Kai repeated. “That’s a bit . . . ironic. Aren’t they supposed to help you fall asleep peacefully?”

  “That concept is a charming evolution from the truth that inspired it,” Sandman said. “Shadows only exist in the Nightmare realm, but Dreamland has demons throughout all its realms. They take the form of sheep with numbers on their sides. If a sheep catches a slumbering person’s mind as it passes through Dreamland, that mind will instantly be transported to the darker parts of Dreamland and the victim will spend the rest of his or her sleep lost in anxiety or fear. But if a counting sheep catches you in your physical form, not just your subconscious form, it will eat your mind.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Geez.”

  “So, I invented these,” Sandman said, gesturing to the arm brace. “Dream Catchers.” He pressed the button on his palm. The entire device lit up with blue glowing radiance and a small, cerulean holographic display emerged from the rune below his elbow strap. About the size of a tea saucer, it looked like the traditional net of a Dream Catcher mixed with some kind of targeting system. Different shimmering lines moved over the Dream Catcher as Sandman moved his arm, like the magic of the brace was trying to calculate a bullseye.

  “You simply take aim,” Sandman said, continuing to demonstrate how the targeting adjusted as he pointed at different sheep in his yard. “Then press the palm button twice to fire. It won’t work on these sheep because we’re in the physical world, but hopefully you get my point.”

  Holy bananas. This is a lot.

  “Pressing the button once will turn off the device again. Try not to shoot yourself with it; that’s not pleasant. Any questions?”

  Maybe later. For now, I stood by my initial reaction.

  This is a lot.

  “No?” Sandman said in response to our stunned silence. “Good.” He let out a jovial guffaw, which turned into a yawn halfway through. Sandman smacked his lips together. “How many of these arm braces would you like? I have plenty.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, and one more thing.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a compass. My eyes widened in surprise. I’d had a vision of this trinket in December. Instead of pointing to North, East, South, and West, the compass’s directions pointed to the words: Nightmare, Enigma, Sweet Dreams, and Wanderers’ Void.

  That long-ago dream of the future finally had an anchor in the present. This compass was going to help us navigate through Dreamland.

  w, planning—the most comically optimistic part of any adventure.

  Now that we knew how to save Mauvrey and Mark, we had to come to terms with several of us being absent from Book for nearly a month to complete the task.

  If we left during Book’s July full moon then it’d be exactly twenty-six days before the following full moon in August. That was a LONG time. I hated that. Adjustments had to be made accordingly.

  A solid group of us needed to keep an eye on Mauvrey’s physical body while remaining on guard for the looming threat of the antagonists in Book. Between the development of FGWs and the fact that they’d already tried to take the princess in Oz, we’d be foolish to hope they wouldn’t try something again.

  We also needed at least a handful of folks in Dreamland to properly defend ourselves against our enemies there. Besides Shadows and counting sheep, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ran into antagonists in that dimension. They wanted Paige’s memories, which they couldn’t get without waking Mauvrey, which meant journeying into Dreamland.

  If I had to guess, they were probably splitting their focus like we were—prepping some of their forces to go to Dreamland to free Mauvrey’s mind while other members of their team planned on recovering her physical body here so her memories would belong to them once she woke up.

  We’d asked Sandman for seven Dream Catchers, a generous guesstimate for how many we’d actually need. Harry had graciously put those contraptions on his tab as well. Once we got back to Clevaunt, we held a group meeting to decide who was going where. In the end, it was decided that SJ would stay in Book with Javier, as well as Gordon, Marie, and Divya, who would be arriving at Darling Castle this week. Girtha, Blue, Jason, Chance, Daniel, Kai, and I were headed to Dreamland on the night of the next full moon.

  The days following our strategizing decisions proceeded relatively normally. We bided time b
y hanging around Chance’s castle and the basecamp village, practicing combat, and flying Lucky. We tried anything we could think of to take our minds off the impending quest, and even took part in some touristy activities like watching a game of miniature narwhal polo in the local stadium.

  All these pastimes were cool and everything, but what distracted me and reduced my anxieties best was my genie service missions for Lenore. She’d really leaned into calling on me, and I found the tasks she assigned got my juices going. They were invigorating, liberating, and I loved using my power under my new mindset.

  Like seriously, insert epic magical combat montage here.

  Lenore’s leads on rebel activity combined with the information provided by her Fairy Godmother task force allowed me to take down three more rebel strongholds in a single week. I almost got obliterated a few times with FGWs, yes. But aside from that it was smooth sailing and I completed the missions every time.

  In the process, we reclaimed a dozen magic weapons and I reduced my mental death toll to sixteen by continuing to take the lives of the faceless miscellaneous enemies who deserved it. Anyone who tried to kill one of my allies or used an FGW forged from a murdered Fairy Godmother felt like fair game to me. I’d been hesitant about this more ruthless perspective initially, but now the moral math sat well with my conscience.

  Living in the gray area of my magic was surprisingly fulfilling. Choosing with calm control—not the fury of Magic Instinct—to remove life from killers and violent criminals felt like I was avenging Jacqueline and Emma and other victims again and again. It felt like I was repeatedly avenging myself too. The victimized girl I used to be was not taking it anymore. She was not playing defense; she was moving on offense. And that was such a glorious step forward that I felt silly for ever believing that this kind of action was dark or that utilizing the full potential of my magic was a bad idea. It was a good idea that inferior people tried to make me afraid of so that I wouldn’t feel so strong, powerful, and independent.

  “Hit the deck!” I shouted to a couple Fairy Godmothers as a raspberry red beam fired out from the shattered window of a restaurant.

  I was on my fourth mission, which involved handling an ongoing commons rebellion attack in a poor district of Tunderly. Several Fairy Godmothers had been called in to quash it, but Lenore sent for me when the job was dragging on too long. There were only five rebels, but we didn’t know the terrain and they did. They kept popping in and out of all the low-roofed buildings and scurrying out of reach like vermin.

  The Godmothers had moved the civilians to safety, but I also wanted to prevent the rebels from damaging more of the shops. These were people’s businesses and livelihoods.

  The latest red blast created a crater in the street. Luckily, the Godmothers I’d warned had gotten out of the way. There was a broken chair lying in the road nearby. I brought it to life and turned it into an awkward stick monster that took off, arms swinging, in the direction the shot had come from. The chair got blown away a moment later by an FWG, but the distraction allowed me to skid around the side of a building and get into a better position.

  I was about to make my next move when in a broken window fragment I saw the reflection of an FWG-toting rebel sneaking up on a Godmother. He wasn’t the guy I’d been targeting—that was an elderly man with glasses and shoulder-length gray hair—but this situation was more pressing.

  Shield.

  My wand transformed. I jumped out and flung my weapon—indestructible and immune to magic attacks—at the enemy as he powered up his FGW. The blast bounced off my shield and exploded into the roof of another building. I was in front of the rebel a moment later, but he had his weapon aimed at my head before I could take him out.

  “You sure about that?” I asked. “I could show mercy if you give me a reason to.”

  He pressed his trigger and red light glowed in his FGW barrel. I dropped and rolled as the blast blew a hole in the wall behind me. Then I rose and sucked the energy from him, killing him before he could kill me. He dropped dead, face down, and I ran to get my shield.

  Fifteen.

  I was about to charge back into action when the tether in my gut evaporated. Lenore had commanded me to neutralize the situation, but I’d only taken down one guy. How was my mission finished?

  “We captured two of the rebels,” Debbie said, trotting over to me. She glanced down at the dead body and didn’t even blink. “With your man that makes three.”

  Debbie’s dress was like a summer sunset—mostly navy on top with a shrinking wash of orange, blood red, and gold on the skirt that minimized as the seconds ticked by. Her magic specialties were weather manipulation and fashion design, so she always had the craziest outfits. In this case, her dress was transforming to match the ongoing sunset in Book—getting closer to a night palette by the minute.

  “But there were five,” I said.

  “A couple of them escaped through the sewers,” Debbie replied, tucking a loose tendril of red hair behind her ear. “I ordered my Godmothers to stand down. The threat is neutralized up here, so the citizens are safe. Sending my team down there blindly while the enemies still have FGWs isn’t a smart move.”

  “But they’re just going to regroup and hurt other people some other time,” I protested.

  “Crisa, Lenore entrusted me to run this FGW task force now that Bernie is gone,” Debbie said. “I understand what you’re saying, but I have to protect my people too. We’ll run into those rebels at a later date.”

  That’s what I’m afraid of.

  The Godmother Supreme magically landed in the middle of the street a moment later and strode over to the Godmothers who had the captured rebels cuffed and on the ground. She exchanged a few words with them then approached Debbie and me. Lenore’s dress was not magic like Debbie’s, but it sure did pack a punch. It took a confident woman to wear a red, form-fitting business dress that spicy with matching heels for extra flourish.

  “Crisanta. Debbie. It’s time.”

  “Time for what?” I asked.

  “Your magical powers and Debbie’s leadership over this task force in the last week have unleashed swift, effective justice. If we continue on this path, I feel confident that we can completely wipe out this rebellion soon. I also feel like we are now in a position to make a bigger move. It’s time to take on Gallant.”

  We stared at her. “That kingdom has been under rebel control for months,” Debbie replied. “You ordered us to stand down until there was a viable way to rescue the hostages inside.”

  “The situation has changed because you have changed, Debbie. And Crisanta has changed as well. True to her pledge to keep more honesty between us, she has spoken to me about taking time off from genie service to fulfill a mission in Dreamland to wake Princess Mauvrey and Prince Mark. In the interests of the realm, and to show my gratitude for her work, I have given her my blessing to go, knowing full well that the magic of the bottle I bound her to cannot extend to other dimensions.”

  Debbie nodded approvingly.

  “Given that, it is my intention for us to reclaim Gallant before she departs in five days,” Lenore continued. “Specifically, we’ll do it four days from now. I’ll call on you both the day prior to that to plan; we don’t want too much lead time as surprise attacks have worked so well for us recently. If all goes smoothly, Crisanta can go on her next quest the evening after the siege knowing she has helped us save an entire kingdom. And when the dust settles, the balance of power in Book will have been reasserted.”

  Debbie and I exchanged a serious look and nodded. It was time. The threat of the commons rebellion had gone on long enough and with it vanquished, we could rally the attention of the Godmothers and all the realm’s higher-ups to focus on the antagonists.

  The orange and gold had almost totally evaporated on Debbie’s dress, providing me with a reminder of the hour. My friends and I had plans tonight and I needed to get back to the castle and change. With a goodbye nod, Lenore returned me to Clevaunt.


  I still wasn’t used to traveling by magic, but I was recovering faster from the post-flight nausea. I landed in my guest room at the castle. Night was coming quickly, so after a second of reorienting myself, I hurried to get ready. My SRTracker got the explosion soot off me, but my hair was kind of a mess and my leggings and dress were ripped slightly. While my friends knew that I was performing genie services for Lenore, I had underplayed the danger of the assignments and didn’t need them asking questions about the beating my outfit took.

  The best part about working with Lenore was being magical without being judged. I wasn’t sure my friends were ready for the full details of what I’d been up to, but I knew straight up telling them without framing the information properly was a bad idea. Perhaps taking back Gallant would be the right opportunity to introduce them to that aspect of my evolving persona, a chance to show them the good that living in the gray generated. My friends could celebrate that victory like the Godmothers would a few days from now, and then they’d understand the new perspective I’d developed regarding darkness and the morality of taking life.

  I glanced at the clock. Dang, I was running so late! The last of our out-of-town friends had arrived last night to be present for this evening’s festivities, and yet I—who’d been in Clevaunt for ten days—was the tardy one. I hastily changed into a short marigold-colored dress and hurried out of the castle, down the lift, and to Stella, the village tavern where my friends and I had arranged to meet.

  Stella was packed with the normal Saturday night crowd in addition to our own crew of twelve and a handful of Chance’s older siblings who had invited themselves along for the festivities. I spotted my friends right away—congregated at a table under a big banner that read, “Happy Birthday, Jason!”

  “We were wondering when you’d show up,” Gordon said above the vibrant live music as I trotted up.

  “I had to finish a genie service mission with Lenore. We’re doing really well neutralizing the commons rebellion,” I replied loudly. “I’ll tell you guys about it later. Where’s the birthday boy?”