I blinked. This was me one year ago. Back when everything was horrible and I hadn’t found the Wishing World yet.
And as soon as I thought it, I wasn’t looking at the girl. I was the girl. I was standing in front of my house. I pinched myself, and it hurt. I looked up, trying to see the surface of the Reflection Pool far above, but there was only the rainy night sky, just like it had been that night. Like I was really here.
A chill ran up my back. I looked down at my body, at my hands. They were smaller. I was a year younger.
Calm down. This is a dream. This is what the Reflection Pool wants you to see.
But I thought of Mr. Schmindly. What if my entire life over the last year—The Wishing World, finding Theron and my parents—was the delusion, and here I was, back at the place I never wanted to go again?
I climbed the fence and scaled the roof just like I had done before, except without the sliding off and almost dying part. Inside, everything was painfully the same. The total absence of my family was a dead silence hanging over my head. It was so real that my heart started racing. I went over and punched the wall and nearly broke my hand.
“Let me out,” I said. The Metaphorical Forest brought all of your thoughts, including your nightmares, to life. What if the Reflection Pool trapped you in your worst nightmare? What if it was all some kind of trick? What if Jimmy had somehow made that vision of Vella and trapped me here?
Stop it.
I stepped away from the wall, shaking my hand. That wasn’t it. I had seen Vella on my way here; I had seen her at the Eternal Sea. Vella wouldn’t have sent me to my worst nightmare.
I stopped pacing. Yes, she would. Vella said to find myself. Where better than here? As much as I hated it, without this moment, I would never have come to the Wishing World, and I wouldn’t be who I was now.
Thunder boomed and lightning flashed outside, and suddenly Gruffy was in the room. I saw him right away this time because I was watching for him.
“Doolivanti,” Gruffy said.
“Hi, Gruffy,” I said. He really was a lot smaller then.
He looked curiously at me. “My name is—”
“Gruffilandimus. I know. I’m going to call you Gruffy,” I said. Whatever I needed to get out of this, I wanted to get it and get back to talking with Vella. I didn’t want to be this girl. I didn’t want to be scared all over again.
“As you wish, Doolivanti.” He cleared his throat. “I would be honored for you to do so.”
I felt like a fraud standing here talking with this memory of Gruffy. It wasn’t the real him. This Gruffy didn’t know all of the things we’d been through together. He thought he was meeting me for the first time.
He began to speak, but I cut him off.
“You can’t stay here,” I interrupted him. “You need to get back to your friends.”
“I . . . yes, Doolivanti. You are wise. Please send me back.”
“Hang tight.” I raised my hand and wrote on the air.
Gruffy flew back to his friends.
There were no extra tries this time. The portal opened, and there it was: the tunnel that led to Urath the Grimrok, Pip and Squeak.
“Well done, Doolivanti,” Gruffy said, and he leapt into the picture.
And here was my big moment. This was the moment Vella wanted me to relive. This was the time I first ripped the Wishing World.
Was she hoping this time I would stay out? Not rip the Wishing World? Was that how I healed it forever?
And then what? The Wishing World could probably mess with time. It could mess with everything else. What if I really had returned to this moment? Panic rose in my chest.
I’d be stuck back here with nothing. I’d be stuck forever. No Theron to stand by me. No hugs from Mom and Dad.
No way.
I followed Gruffy, I wrote. I found my family.
I ran at the painting on the wall and threw myself into it.