(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: anxiety, children in peril, people pressuring child to get over anxiety, family member reacting negatively to anxiety, depression-like thing)
**Isabelle**
Once on the coarse couch, I just crashed.
I stood in an empty street between two stretches of fields. The overhead lampposts glowed dimly in the gray fog. The mist wasn't thick, but it cast everything in a haze.
I walked slow steps down the road. Wind whistled through my ears. My feet were bare and crunched hard on the black asphalt of little jagged rocks, though I felt no pain. Something was off.
"Ranya!" I called. Where was she? Wasn't she supposed to be here? "North? Dad?"
The wind stopped. Nothing made a sound, not even my feet traveling across the road.
I sensed something behind me. I turned to see a wall of thick white mist pouring in my direction. Mouths with teeth as long as swords formed in the white, and they sang in jarring cords, "Isabelle!"
Heard pounding, I spun and dashed away as fast as I could. But my legs were stiff and would hardly move. I pushed them faster through the thick, sticky, grasping air. It wrapped around my arms, too. I pushed with all my power.
I tried to scream, but my voice wouldn't leave my throat. So no one came. Not Ranya, not my parents, not the Guardians.
The white mist surrounded and engulfed me. I could only watch as my toes dissolved into its tendrils, then my fingers, then my arms and back and legs and head, a burning, crawling sensation where my body had been.
Then I swayed in one of the twisted iron cages hanging from the ceiling of Pitch's lair. Below me, he stood with his hand on Zachary's shoulder. It was like my visions, and I could see every detail though it was far below. The Watcher appeared, each of his limbs forming from shadow as he stepped into the half-light. I could hardly bare to look at his wildly glowing eyes.
"You have the boy?" he said in a crackling voice. Zachary looked up at him in wonder, and I wanted to scream at him to run, but I couldn't force myself to draw the evil beings' attention to me.
"He's here," Pitch said. A Fear Angel appeared next to him, and he plucked off its boney hand. Then he plunged it into Zachary's chest and twisted, and the light in my brother's eyes went out.
"Your fault," Pitch said, leering up at me.
Then I stood in front of my house, the sun barely peeking over the horizon. The usual mist had settled over Windshallow. But the sky darkened as thousands of large shapes snuffed out the sun. Feathered wings beat the air as Fear Angels dove toward me, wicked blades of spines in their hands. Paralyzed bodies dropped to the ground like rain.
Ranya burst out the door with one of North's swords in her hand. "Pitch! I'm here to kill you!"
Then white mist bloomed at her back, and I screamed at her to run. But it was too late; it enclosed her. I heard her scream as each of her limbs was taken from her, just like mine.
I stared up at the shadowed, grooved ceiling of the living room. My mind spun, flashing through my nightmares: the white vanishing mist devouring me, the Watcher and Pitch killing Zachary, an army of thousands of Fear Angels descending on Windshallow. Then the white mist closing off my sister and taking her one limb at a time. The images flitted over and over again in my mind. I usually didn't remember my dreams.
I didn't want to go back to sleep. I wanted these thoughts out of my head.
Slipping off the couch, I avoided stepping on Ranya on the floor as I made my way to the dining table. Sandy, Tooth, and Jack had returned, and the Guardians watched all the shadowed corners of the living room, kitchen, and dining room, speckled about. Dad sat with his head in his hands at the table while Mom spoke to him in a hushed voice. He rubbed her back.
"You're awake," North said from the island, looking down at me. "We need to talk—without your sister."
"No we don't," I rushed, something spinning madly in my chest, and I yanked open my backpack from where I'd dropped it next to the table, looking through to see where I'd put my drawing things.
North grimaced. "Isabelle, your symbol is halfway complete. There's not a lot of time, and your brother's been kidnapped. We need to defeat Pitch and the Watcher."
The Guardians moved to surround me, closing off my exits.
"Isabelle, mate, you need to figure out your center," Bunny said with his arms crossed. "That's the key to defeating Pitch."
"You can't make me be your Guardian!" I said.
"See? She's still too scared," said Jack.
"We still have time to wait," Tooth added. She was on my side now, too?
"We don't have enough time," North said. "Isabelle, I'm sorry, but you need to get over your fear. The fate of the world and your life is at stake!"
"I can't just stop being afraid just because you tell me to!" I said.
Golden Dreamsand symbols flitted over Sandy's head.
"Sandy's right. You can begin working on it," said North.
My voice raised higher. Was I tired, or was this how I normally was? "Stop trying to force me!"
"Isabelle, all we're saying is you need to start," Bunny said. "You don't have to face Pitch now, but you need to—"
"No!" I slammed my hands on the table, and Ranya jerked upright in the living room. "I didn't ask to be a Guardian. Someone else can replace me." Ranya, looking half-dazed, lay back down. "I won't help you."
"Isabelle—" North tried.
"I won't." I ran and sat down at the cold edge of the empty kitchen facing away from them; I didn't dare go somewhere they weren't looking. The Watcher could kidnap me, too.
Surprisingly, the Guardians didn't follow me. Perhaps they had finally realized trying to talk just wouldn't work. Perhaps that had been a just-in-case-this-time effort.
As I sat there, my nightmares returned.
Then the guilt struck me at full force.
If I had just been able to push through my fear, Zachary wouldn't have been kidnapped. My mind flitted through the possibilities of what could be happening to him: being paralyzed, tortured, perhaps even dead. Pitch could be plaguing him with nightmare after nightmare, as vivid as reality. Though Zachary didn't fear monsters or the dark, he was scared of some things like shots and car crashes.
Cathey wouldn't have been paralyzed, either, if I could only fight my anxiety. Now, here I was, responsible for both their perils.
But my tense, bursting fear still cried out to me, screamed that I wasn't safe, and needed protection.
I glanced back toward Ranya unconscious on the couch. I couldn't see her from my position, but I remembered how she had memorized both the Guardians' books and the movie. If anyone knew anything about contacting Mother Nature, it would be her. Yet, she hadn't made it sound like there was a way unless Mother Nature was already watching.
Was it possible Ranya was forgetting a detail, though? I clung to this hope.
"Mom, can I please borrow your old laptop?" I asked.
She looked up from the table and turned to me. "Of course. North, could you get it? It's in the closet in my bedroom, and should be right on your left when you go in."
"All right," North said, and he disappeared up the stairs. I stared out the window at the Windshallow darkness. My chest squeezed. Demons, ghosts, Fear Angels…
Soon, North came back down and handed me the dusty (I hardly had to use it) device. I plugged the cord into a socket above the white countertop, then set the laptop on the floor with a clack and wiped off the grime using a paper towel. I logged into my account.
My worries whispered to me: What if I didn't find anything? What if I had to count on Mother Nature being nearby and would see a note or hear me speak? What if she wasn't around?
I typed "Mother Nature RotG" into the search bar and clicked on the first website available. The taps of my fingers on the keys and mouse sounded empty and ominous in this quiet place.
The fandom wiki loaded. I closed a large ad at the top and slowly read the article's first line under the title and character quote. My heart beat a little quicker: "Emily Jane, also known as Mother Nature, is a powerful and mysterious being, as well as the daughter of the Nightmare King, Pitch."
I'd forgotten she was Pitch's daughter. She wasn't evil like he was, but it was still a little startling. And the fact that this website said she was "mysterious" didn't help my hope for trying to figure out how to contact her. But there had to be a way, right? Right?
I slowly read each section several times over, even the ones I thought wouldn't help me: "Physical Appearance" (I knew she was tall and had long black hair like mine), "Personality" (temperamental, Jack had told me), and "Background" (like Pitch, I now remembered, she had come from another planet).
However, the next section bore the label "Powers and Abilities." Perhaps I could contact her through something like that? I skipped over a part that basically said she could control nature and the weather. Then I rushed through a sentence that said her mere presence could cause wind, snow, or even storms. Then it confirmed that Tooth and Jack could sense her when she tried to watch unnoticed.
Finally, I read the last line of the wiki: "Emily Jane is able to communicate with nature and she's able to get reports from different natural phenomena."
So it could work? I could get some sort of message to her? How could I get nature to give it, though? This must be why Ranya had never mentioned it—she didn't think I could. And she was smart. If she didn't think this information was important…
The skies grew bright again before immediately beginning to darken with real, palpable night as I searched the Internet for more information. I even asked for Ranya's Guardians of Childhood books from upstairs. Ranya herself awoke and read one of her other books on the couch. I found nothing else useful. A sense of doom gripped the muscles beneath my skin. What if I couldn't get Mother Nature's help?
After more research that led nowhere, I paced over to Tooth and called her name. She turned from whispering with Jack to me.
"What is it?" She gave me a worried smile. "Are you all right?"
"Have you sensed Mother Nature lately?"
"I haven't sensed her for years. After Pitch came back to life, she mostly stayed hidden. I believe she's become calmer than she used to be."
I looked to Jack, and he shook his head. "I haven't sensed her for a while, either."
"Are you certain?"
"Yeah."
Tooth nodded.
Night was coming, and then I'd have to go to bed and not be able to research anymore. Besides, my symbol was already halfway complete. Who knew how much time I had?
"Isabelle," Ranya called from the dining table. Her shoulders were slumped, her body caved in on itself. Her green eyes were dim. "Come over here."
I paced over to Ranya, and she tilted her phone so I could just barely see the screen.
"need help?" she had typed, no capital letters. She tilted her phone further, and I was able to respond. I spilled my situation to her. She said, "meet me downstairs at 10, and i'll watch you put a note outside to see if she responds. do you still have some dreamsand?"
I nodded, but my chest tightened. "I need more time to research," I typed, "since she's not even around."
"i'm working on killing pitch. i'll probably be finished by the time your symbol completes. and there really isn't another way to contact her"
My heart began to race. Biting down hard on my lip, I typed, "But what if you don't? I need protection."
Ranya sighed. "we really don't have another choice isabelle. a new option won't appear out of thin air just cause you want it to"
"Please, I just need more time!"
"you won't find anything"
I grabbed her arm and typed, "Please, can't you help me?"
"i am helping you. and i need time to figure out how to lure pitch to windshallow"
"But what if I die?"
"you won't"
"Please, I'm really scared!"
Ranya groaned and stood. I only caught a flash of her screen, which read, "i'd help you more if i could, but there really isn't another way"
I tried my hardest to snatch her phone and reply, but she kept it out of my reach, and soon I had no choice but to continue my research on my own.
(A/N: Please favorite, review, and follow if you're enjoying this! And you can still join my Discord server-come and see what it's about! Join to talk and make friends with other RotG fans, including myself, share your own and others' RotG fanworks, talk about mine, and even, if you choose, get notified every time I post from the Discord app and not FFN! Go to my profile for the link, as FFN won't let me post it here.)
