Epilogue: Back Again

“I’m Sydney!”

Her eyes flew open as she woke with a start, breathing hard. Sunlight was pouring in the window, and the alarm was going off. The luminous red numbers told her it was a little after six in the morning.

She sat up, looked around blearily, rubbed her eyes, stretched. So it had been a dream after all.

She couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, however. Okay, a lot disappointed. Now how would she ever figure out what happened to Parken, and Tabitha, and the creepy lady with the eye salve, and the fuzzy thing that could still be hanging by its ankles?

How would she ever know what happened to herself and the Darkness?

She sighed, making a mental note to write all this down later. Perhaps in history class, which she still hadn’t done the notes for.

She slid off her bed, and headed for her closet, rifling around for something to wear. As she pulled a pair of jeans off the hanger, she thought it odd that she had gone to bed in the clothes she’d worn yesterday…

Then it hit her.

I fell asleep at my desk. Not in my bed.

She walked towards her desk in a daze. There was her cursed history book, her math book, her grammar book, all right where she had left them.

Where was the other one?

The strange book, the one that had said “Instant Adventure!” on it; that book was missing.

She took a few deep breaths before searching all over her room for it. She remembered now; she’d been reading it to stay awake, but she obviously fell asleep instead.

She was about to give up the search when she looked over at her backpack, sitting at the foot of her bed. On impulse, she decided to check inside.

She found the book.

Curious, she cracked it open to the first page and read aloud in a shaky voice:

I knew, from before I had even opened my eyes, that something strange had happened. Of course, this awareness might have stemmed from the fact that there were two fairies standing on my chest, fighting over the charm on my necklace.

Slamming it shut and flinging the thing onto her bed, she said, “Oh, that is just way too freaky…”

Digging through her pockets to make sure nothing was left in there before they got thrown into the wash, her fingers encountered something, and she pulled it out to look at it.

There, sitting in the palm of her hand, was the shell she had picked up while she and Parken had been sitting on the edge of the Heart of Aridella in her dream.

Without a second thought, Sydney placed the pointy piece of shell on the dresser next to the picture of her father, looked again at the book sitting on her bed, and got ready for school.

She’d have to make an extra trip to the library today.