Chapter 19: The Choice of Shadows

The smell intensified, creeping through the Heartwood’s open windows and threading between the hanging herbs. Smoke sliced through the intoxicating fragrance of resin and old paper like a blade through silk. Sulfur. Rot. An oily, suffocating stench that smothered everything else. 

Allison tasted it and thought it tasted like a copper penny dipped in rancid oil. Her face twisted with disgust and panic. She pressed a finger beneath her nose as her stomach lurched in warning. “Holy cat on a cracker with cheese, that’s... I might actually be sick. Ugh. It smells awful.” Her voice trembled, nearly cracking.

She pushed back from the desk, the chair legs squeaking against the wooden floor. The sound made her flinch as she rose, still cradling Felipe in the crook of her arm. She turned toward the library’s tall windows—and saw it.

Allison’s blood ran cold.

With a shaking hand, she pointed toward the vapor snaking around the open front door. Its tendrils probed the threshold, testing whatever magic the Heartwood used to keep those inside safe.

“What is that thing?” she whispered.

No matter how it writhed and pressed, the smoke could not cross the threshold. The sight should have reassured her. It didn’t.

“It can’t get inside. The tree’s keeping us safe.” She instinctively reached out and pressed her palm against the nearest stretch of trunk in thanks. “Thank the cats,” she murmured into Felipe’s ear, nuzzling her cheek against his fur.

She stumbled backward, terror prickling across her skin, and collided with Sol. They caught her with steady, warm hands. Their touch anchored her with a silent promise: I will not let you fall. We are in this together. Startled to find them behind her, Allison quickly surrendered to their support.

Sol’s golden eyes widened farther than Allison had ever seen them, their apertures expanding as their light flared to full intensity. They stepped in front of her and spread their arms, placing themself between Allison and whatever was approaching. In that instant, Sol’s primary protocol shifted to protection.

Felipe went rigid in Allison’s arms. His rainbow shell faded to cloudy gray, its shimmer draining away in seconds. His tiny claws dug into her sleeve as he curled deeper into the crook of her elbow, eyes squeezed shut.

“I knew it wasn’t going to be good,” he whispered, his voice trembling almost as badly as his body. “I knew it. I could feel it in my gut, and my gut is never wrong about these things. It said everything was going to get bad, and it has. Very, very bad.”

Thimble hopped down from the desk, using the chair as a ladder, and crossed to Sol’s side. She looked up at the android. Something passed between them—a silent understanding of what was at stake.

“Keep her inside the tree,” Sol said, their voice low and urgent. “Don’t let her through those doors. Keep her safe.”

They strode toward the hallway, fast and purposeful. Smoke swirled in the breeze they stirred. Their eyes burned like twin searchlights, cutting through the darkness as they scanned the corridor.

“Sol, be careful!” Thimble called after them.

Then she turned to Allison. Her dark eyes blazed with fear and determination. This was not the patient, gentle Thimble from the creek. Allison had never seen this version of her before—jaw clenched, shoulders squared, her body trembling but steady. Battle-ready. Afraid, but far beyond the point where fear could stop her.

“Allison, listen to me. That thing out there—whatever it is—it’s seeping through the cracks. Those cracks exist because the Dreamspace has been weakened. But the reason it’s growing, the reason it’s here, at our door…”

She paused, choosing her words with painful care.

“It’s been bathing in the negativity you’ve fed yourself. And all this time, you’ve been feeding it, too. Now we know what happens when the negativity becomes too much for the fireflies—and eventually the Dreamspace itself—to contain.” Her gaze flicked toward the door. “Oh boy, do we know.”

“I…” Allison’s voice was barely a whisper. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anything this horrible was happening. I didn’t even know the Dreamspace existed beyond what I could imagine. I’m so sorry about the fireflies, the ooze—all of it. I just…”

“Not just the fireflies,” Thimble interrupted. “You. Every time you say you’re not enough, every time you reject the spark, every time you whisper that you’re nobody special, it festers. It listens. Every word feeds it, and it grows.”

She stepped closer.

“You can feel it now, can’t you?”

As if answering for Allison, a sound rose from outside—a wet, gloppy sucking, like boots struggling through deep mud. The ooze crept higher along the portal’s frame. Wood groaned beneath its weight. Then Allison heard something else beneath the squelching. A whisper, barely audible. It crackled, like an old radio in the next room, its volume turned almost all the way down.

A voice... Her voice. At least, she thought it was hers. It was distorted and layered, a murmuring chorus of every terrible thing she had ever believed about herself.

I’m nobody special.

I can’t fix anything.

I’m not a good enough writer.

I should stop trying.

What if I fail?

Would anyone even miss me if I didn’t wake up tomorrow?

The words drifted through the library and settled in her mind, sinking into the hollow of her chest—right where they had lived for years. Familiar. Comfortable. Safe. It was the voice of a terrible roommate she had never invited in but had never learned how to evict.

Her knees buckled.

Guilt flooded through her: guilt for the turmoil inside her, guilt for every cruel thing she had ever believed about herself, guilt that those beliefs were now hurting people she loved. Her parents had not raised her to hate herself. How had she allowed that hatred to grow so deep? How could something hidden inside her have caused so much harm?

It was too much to bear.

The Quill’s gentle hum faded in her hand, leaving a hollow ache in her palm. Shame and fear surged through her, and every breath became heavier than the last.

“You hear it, don’t you?” Thimble asked. It was not truly a question. She already knew.

“It sounds like me,” Allison whispered. She nodded, her head bowed. “It sounds exactly like me.”

“It is you,” Thimble said. “The worst parts. The lies you believed. The things you told yourself in the dark when you thought nobody was listening.”

She gestured toward the heaving mass outside.

“The fireflies heard every word. They carried those thoughts and made them into the disgusting thing you see before us. That’s what they do. They’re harbingers of thoughts and ideas. They consume whatever they’re given, and from it, they create.”

Thimble’s gaze locked with Allison’s. “That’s what this is. A monster born from everything cruel you have ever said and felt about yourself.”

The portal groaned again.

“And now it’s real.”

Sol returned from their scouting mission, walking quickly down the wall, eyes dimmed with dread.

“The portal,” Sol said. “It’s being consumed by some sticky tar stuff that’s covering it about halfway right now. If it closes completely, Allison won’t be able to get back home.”

The words slammed into Allison’s heart like a brick, and her knees nearly gave out. Her arms tensed around Felipe, fingers trembling, and he let out a choked little squeak. She looked down at the adorable armadillo and, with a jolt, realized she might be crushing him by accident. She loosened her grip and stroked his head in apology.

“How long?” Thimble asked.

“Minutes, an hour? I don’t know. I was never programmed for this.”

Thimble turned to Allison. “You have to really choose. Right now,” she said. “If you’re going to leave, it has to be NOW. Back to your bed, your couch, your dog. Back to your coffee, your deadlines, and your normal life. Spud will be fine. You’ll be fine. You’ll wake up; everything will be business as usual.”

She paused and let Thimble’s words marinate—the safety, the normalcy, the warm, uncomplicated simplicity of being a freelance writer in Gettysburg who never met a talking raccoon—until they hung in the air like an offered hand.

“But,” Thimble continued, and her voice cracked, “if you leave, Dreamspace dies. Everything in it. The carnival. The boardwalk. The Heartwood. The library. The tome. Memory of your grandfather’s letter and your father’s voice.” She swallowed. “You will have no recollection of anything about Dreamspace; about us. All of that… gone.”

The library was absolutely silent; you could hear a mouse fart. Even the ooze’s squelching seemed to pause, as if the darkness itself wanted to hear her answer.

Allison stood in the middle of Heartwood’s library, turned to gaze down the long hallway, and looked at the portal through Heartwood’s open door. The light was almost gone. The tar had covered nearly half of the only way home. The frame’s glow struggled to stay lit, shrinking by the second.

Enough of the portal remained for her to squeeze through. She could run, drop the book, drop the pen, push past Sol, and dive through the gap before it closed. She’d land on her living room floor. Spud would be on the couch. The kettle would still be on. She’d take a shower, make fresh coffee, and pretend this was all a stress dream from too many deadlines and not enough sleep. She could do that. Absolutely.

She pictured it: her house. The mustard-yellow sofa she spent months searching for. The kitchen window overlooked her small garden. The morning light. Spud’s snoring was soft and familiar. The safe, small, manageable life she’d built—a life where nothing was extraordinary and nothing asked more of her than she could give. The appeal was enormous. It pulled at her like gravity, heavy and achingly real.

Then she looked at Felipe, still curled in her arms. His dark eyes peeked out from his carapace. Flour dust lingered on his paws, as always. He trembled—not for himself, but for her, for all of Dreamspace—his grasp on any hope was tenuous at best, resting on the choice she was about to make.

She looked over at Thimble. At the tips of her fur, still singed from crossing the portal. At the paws that she had held in her hand. At the voice that had hummed Summertime while Allison wept on a glowing lantern mosaic. Thimble was the creature who had pushed through a breaking portal and appeared at her creek, her café, and her front door. She had never given up on Allison, even when Allison gave up on herself.

Finally, she looked down the hall at Sol, who had turned to quickly scan the library for life signs. She met their golden eyes that always noticed every detail and rarely shared their thoughts. She saw the warm mechanical hands that had caught her each time she stumbled. Now, Sol stood in the doorway, arms spread, shielding her from darkness. This was who they were and what they did, and they would do it until their gears stopped turning.

She looked at the tome on the desk. Her grandfather’s words, written in his own hand before she was born. Her father’s voice, clear in her mind, said, ‘You’ve always had what it takes.’ The blank pages waited for her words.

Her head dropped as she gazed at the Spark Quill in her hand—still warm, still humming, still refusing to let her give in.

Suddenly, with a jolt that made her hands tremble, she realized that, for the first time in her life, she wasn’t considering running, and that was terrifying. What would happen if she stayed? Could she help her new friends in this new place? Could she help repair the harm she had inadvertently done? Could she really become the Sparkkeeper that they saw in her?

Believing in herself meant no more excuses. Sometimes it meant the failure was hers, and hers alone to take responsibility for. It meant she couldn’t hide behind “I never had a chance” or “I was never good enough.” It meant standing in the light and being seen, fully, without armor, without masks, without the protective shell of self-deprecation that had kept her safe for all her forty-five years. It may have been the most terrifying thing she could do in her life, but not believing in herself—that’s what created the thing eating the portal—and calling it quits was no longer an option, she decided.

Allison set Felipe down gently on the library floor. He reluctantly scampered off and hid in a tightly curled ball behind a nearby table leg. She walked to the desk, picked up the tome, and pressed it against her chest. Then she felt its heartbeat—tha-thump, tha-thump—matching her own, the two rhythms syncing as they had before, her pulse and the book’s becoming one steady, shared beat. Then she gripped the Spark Quill in her other hand. It blazed hotter than ever. She could feel it pulling toward the portal. Toward the ooze. Toward the fight of her life.

She took a breath. She closed her eyes. Found her father’s voice in the quiet place inside her: You’ve got the spark, kiddo.

Yes, Daddy, she thought. I do have the spark. You were right. I know now. Thanks, Dad. I love you. I’ll make you proud. I promise.

She opened her eyes, bright with fear and determination.  She turned to face her friends, who watched her with bated breath. Their entire existence depended on what she said next.

“I’m not leaving you,” she said. Her voice was steady, but not quite confident—she wasn’t there yet, might never fully be there, and that was okay. Steady was enough. Steady was everything. “I’m frightened. I’m not sure what I’m doing. But I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving this place. And I’m not leaving myself behind again. We’re going to figure this out together.”

Allison looked down the hallway again just as Sol rushed back in and made a beeline for the library.  She felt the darkness creep in as the tar rose higher, consuming every sliver of the portal’s beauty and the frame around it. Before long, not even a glint of gilding remained. They needed to act fast.

“Okay,” she said, as the word came out like a door opening. “So what’s next? Where do we start? Where do we go from here?”

The ground quaked, the Heartwood moaned, creaked, and shook; its leaves quivering in the breezeless atmosphere with a shh that was nearly deafening in the quiet that drowned out any other sound in Dreamspace as the ooze devoured the last of the portal; any light emanating from it had gone out. And just like that, it was gone, as was Allison’s way home—gone.

With a thick, gloppy slurp that reverberated through the Heartwood, the tarry mass covered the last of the light. The golden glow from the hub vanished. For one breathless, terrible second, all the lights across Dreamspace went out. The only light in the entire tree was the glow of Sol’s golden eyes, the faint shimmer of the fireflies overhead, and the warm, steady pulse of the Spark Quill in Allison’s hand.

The Heartwood doors slammed shut, their thunderous groan echoing down the hall. It startled the crap out of everyone inside. They just froze, looking at each other as the atmosphere around them vibrated with the reverberation.

Then, slowly, the candles reignited. One by one, whoosh by whoosh, the Heartwood’s brass-bracketed lanterns along the walls caught and flickered, all too happy to push back the darkness. The fireflies above stirred from their frozen hover and began to orbit again — tentatively, uncertainly, but moving. The tome against Allison’s chest pulsed brighter.

The Dreamspace was still here. Damaged, besieged, sealed off from the Overworld, but still here. Still breathing and still waiting for its Sparkkeeper to make herself at home.

Thimble looked up at Allison. Her whiskers trembled, but she smiled, a relieved, proud smile of someone who had bet everything on the lowest-ranked horse in a race and watched it win by a nose.

“We start with the book,” Thimble said, taking a deep breath to buck herself up and straighten her spine. “We start with words, your words. And we start right now.”