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“I’m most disappointed in you,” Mother said, her tone like ice. “Most disappointed. You possess the unique ability to see, enter, and capture dreams, and what do you do with such a remarkable gift?Nothing. That Nightmare has obviously corrupted you.”
“Darius has nothing to do with it,” I said.
Mother narrowed her eyes and I did my best not to flinch. She suddenly severed her gaze and took in the room, her focus going to the notebook still on my bedside table where I’d sleepily put it last night after my late brainstorming, open to the page where Darius’s name was scrawled on the top, which only confirmed Mother’s suspicion that Darius hadeverythingto do with it.
My breath hooked, but before I could even begin to figure out a way to escape the impending confrontation, she seized the notebook and hungrily read the notes I’d scribbled last night. Taut silence followed, tension before the storm.
She slowly looked up. “What is this?” she demanded.
I had no explanation, no way to hide the evidence of my involvement with the one Nightmare Mother wanted to keep me away from. So I said nothing, which only deepened Mother’s anger.
Expression dark, she snapped my notebook shut. “A confession is unnecessary, not when your silence is damning. You deliberately disobeyed my warnings and are entangling yourself with the enemy.”
He’s my Pair. The truth filled my heart. As if Mother had discovered this conviction in my gaze, her frown deepened.
“These delusions you harbor towards this Nightmare need to stop. He’s a distraction.”
He was my lifeline, and I could no sooner sever myself from him now than I could rid myself of my magical powers. This defiance must have also seeped through my stoic mask, for Mother tossed aside my notebook and leaned closer.
“Listen to me, Eden: you will not associate with this Nightmare. I forbid it. If I discover you’ve once again disobeyed me, there will be...consequences.”
Though my determination remained, I still withered at the thought of what theseconsequencescould be. But I refused to push Darius away. I couldn’t. I needed him; he not only brought me happiness but helped me be the person I longed to be. I wouldn’t lose him.
Although I still said nothing, Mother read the defiance in my eyes, for her own flashed dangerously. “You will not defy me, dear; you know you can’t afford to lose me.” Then as if realizing how harsh her words sounded, she forced a smile. “It’s been a while since we’ve spent time together. How about you join me in the garden?” She reached out to stroke my hair but I flinched away. Her smile tightened. “Eden?”
“I don’t want to help.” I wanted nothing to do with her illegal plants that created negative effects for Mortals. Mother’s fragile hold on her patience slipped and she seized my chin, her gaze sharp and her fingernails digging into my skin.
“You will anyway. Don’t forget that without me you wouldn’t belong anywhere; you wouldn’t evenexist. As such, it’s your duty to do what I tell you, or else you may find yourself in quite an unpleasant situation. Have I made myself clear?” She released me, leaving my cheeks throbbing. I felt blood from her cuts but didn’t bother to use my magic to heal them.
Whatever bravery I’d managed to conjure in order to fight back died as fear once more clenched my heart. I gave up on this particular battle, trying to assure myself that my surrender would give me the strength for the one that meant more to me: finding myself again and keeping Darius.
So I obediently trudged after Mother to her garden, hating myself with each step I took but knowing that in this particular instance I was trapped.
* * *
Mother might have forcedme to join her in her gardening, but she couldn’t make me a willing participant in creating plants that did all sorts of unnatural things to Mortals, nor could she stifle the beauty of my most recent interaction with Darius nor my resolution to find a way to give back to him after everything he’d done for me.
Tension filled the space between us as we cultivated together. Mother cast me many impatient glares at my stubborn silence, but eventually these twisted into a look almost like desperation, more pronounced the longer I ignored her, as if she longed for me to want her as much as I longed for her to keep me.
The hours dragged by with my hands burrowed in dirt as I tended weed-like plants whose purposes I didn’t know. The only one I recognized was the reality rose I’d taken from Mother’s garden back on Earth, whose effects I knew to be dangerous. Its presence and how unnatural the others looked compared to what grew in the Nightmare Fields caused apprehension to knot my stomach for what Mother was creating.
The moment I finished, I returned to my room, where Stardust waited for me, freshly returned from the “top-secret undercover work“ she’d been conducting since she’d dropped me off after my Weaving. Exhaustion from my early morning wake up and the long, tedious hours of gardening caused a headache to pulse my temples, making it difficult to endure her usual sleuthing ramblings. I lay down and was trying to drown out Stardust’s voice so I could get some sleep when a knock echoed throughout the room.
Stardust immediately ceased her jabber and morphed into a mosquito to hide. I groaned; my mysterious visitor better not be Mother. “Come in,” I called reluctantly.
The door swung open to reveal not Mother in the doorway but Trinity. My brow furrowed, not just at her presence but at the exaggerated look of concern filling her face. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your, uh,sleeping time. I only want to talk to you. May I come in?”
I stared blankly at her. She’d never visited me before, and I had no doubt she had a sinister motive for doing so now. I hastily tried to lock away the light I’d recently rediscovered, anything to keep Trinity from seeing it. She couldn’t know of my new desires, for she’d undoubtedly tell Mother, who would stop at nothing to crush them before they could bud.
She took my silence as an invitation and crossed the threshold, closing the door behind her. As she crossed the room, she paused in front of my shelves laden with nightmares I’d stolen from Darius.
Her eyes glistened. “Are these what I think they are?”
I nodded. “They’re nightmares.”
She smirked. “Were they all taken fromthatNightmare?”
She undoubtedly meant Darius. How I wished I could claim they’d come from anyone else. Shame and remorse clenched my heart that I’d stolen so much magic from the one who meant the most to me, all due to my stubborn pride and fierce jealousy. And yet he miraculously still cared for me. It was more than I deserved.
