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“Don’t be ridiculous,” Stardust scoffed. “There’s no one around, and even if there were, I already told you: only magical beings would be able to see or hear me. Pity, really.”
Even if that were true, someone stumbling on me talking to a seemingly invisible cloud was the last thing I needed. “Perhaps we could go somewhere a bit more private?”
Stardust’s eyes narrowed into thin orange slits. “Oh, you want to go somewheremore private, do you?”
I shifted beneath her accusatory glare. “Is that alright?”
She harrumphed. “How very suspicious. Here I’ve come to investigate an unusual magical occurrence, and before I’ve even started, you attempt to lure me away from the scene of the crime. Are you hiding something?”
“No,” I said, a bit more hastily than I intended.
“Oh really?” Her eyes glistened. “Then what’s a magical possessor like you doing on Earth long after Weavings are over? You know the rules: Weavers aren’t allowed to linger after weaving.”
What in the world was she talking about? “I wasn’t weaving. I don’t even know what that is.”
She snorted. “Your lies are no match for me. All Dreamers and Nightmares weave, and if you’re on Earthnotweaving, then you must be up to something—most definitely something illegal—and I’m here to get to the bottom of it.”
“I have no idea what suspicious magical event you’re talking about, but I know I had nothing to do with it.”
“Don’t play stupid,” she said. “I know you felt the large burst of magic that occurred here eight minutes and forty-two seconds ago. That doesn’t give me much time; the dream dust will fade away soon if I don’t contain it.”
My heart pounded. Could she be talking about Alice’s shattered dream? “What kind of magical burst?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out. Whether you’re innocent or not remains to be decided, but there’s no question you were around here when it happened, and it’s the duty of every detective to follow all possible leads. If you’re really ‘innocent’—although I use that term loosely—you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions, would you?” She smirked, as if daring me to reject her proposal.
“I have nothing to hide.”
She shook her head doubtfully. “We shall see. Now, did you see anything unusual here approximately nine minutes and sixteen seconds ago?”
I fidgeted. “What do you mean by unusual?”
“Something magical, of course,” she said. “If you were really around when it happened, it should have been obvious.”
I shifted a pebble back and forth with my foot, debating whether or not to cooperate. “I may have felt something over there.” I pointed in the opposite direction of the oak I’d perched in only minutes before, several yards from where Alice’s dream had shattered.
With apopStardust changed her frothy cloud-like shape into a cloud magnifying glass. “Time for Detective Stardust’s investigation skills.”
She began examining the entire area, studying every bit of fauna, each blade of grass, and around the base of every tree that cradled the forest’s border. Occasionally, she morphed into a notebook and scribbled inside herself with a crayon, muttering to nobody in particular.
She paused to squint at something and gasped excitedly. “Eden, come quickly! I’ve found something.” She hovered at the base of an evergreen, goggling at specks of olive-green dust. She looked expectantly up at me for acknowledgment of her finding.
“What is it?”
“My first clue.” She practically glowed. “A Nightmare has been here recently, and by this evidence we know he or she performed magic.”
My attention perked. There were others like myself who could do magic? Unease seeped over me as my gaze darted to the trees where I’d seen that mysterious person watching me. “A Nightmare?” I asked hesitantly.
“Don’t you know what a Nightmare is?” She ignored my blank stare and sniffed the dust. “Still fresh. I’d wager it’s approximately ten minutes and twelve seconds old, which fits the timeframe for the crime in question, although it seems a trivial amount for such a large burst of magic.” She morphed back into a notebook and scribbled frantically. “Dream dust is like a fingerprint, so with a little research and a sneak peek at the Council’s classified files, I should be able to figure out precisely to whom this belongs. It’s unlike magical beings to be so careless with their power, but if it’s a Nightmare we’re dealing with, then they’re probably really dense.”
“Why would a Nightmare come here?” I asked, too proud to ask what exactly a Nightmare was. My excitement at finally having someone to discuss magic with—perhaps now I’d finally get some of the answers that had eluded me for so long—warred with my foreboding. If this cloud was investigating my magic…were my powers forbidden wherever she’d come from?
Stardust thoughtfully tapped her lips with her purple crayon. “Who knows how their slimy minds work. The only reason they have for visiting Earth is if they’re creating a nightmare, but it’s too late for Weavers to still be here, which means he was here for another reason.” Her shifty gaze settled on me. “You didn’t happen to see anyone eleven minutes and twenty-eight seconds ago, did you?”
My heart hammered. That was about when I’d noticed those green eyes watching me from within the forest. “Someone may have been hiding in the trees…”
“Ooh, an eyewitness account.” She poised to take notes. “What did they look like?”
“I didn’t get a good look; all I could see was green eyes.”
