(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: anxiety, mentions of family member reacting negatively to anxiety, serious self-blaming because of anxiety, children in peril)

**Isabelle**

I stomped upstairs with Ranya and Dakota, following the Guardians. When I reached the dining room, where bones were piled in the center of the floor, I glanced out the windows to make certain the Fear Angels were gone. A few of their bones littered the snowy outdoors, but no living ones rattled around.

Ranya glanced at my left palm, and I forced myself to look at its surface, too. The whole top hook had appeared; now it was three-fourths completed. I tried to glare, but my heart began to pound with a different feeling.

Dakota followed our look.

"She had to protect us with a shield," Ranya explained. Dakota's hard, stony gaze turned to the Guardians behind us.

"We didn't know about Pitch's threat before the Man in the Moon gave her the symbol," Jack stammered. "The soothing woman… made sure of that."

"Can you take it off?" Dakota said.

The Guardians shook their heads.

Dakota stuck a hand on her hip, her face now more like sharp metal than rock, but then she turned to me. "Do you have a phone?"

"No," I replied.

"If you have a problem and need my help, tell your sister, okay?"

"All right."

Dakota faced Ranya. "I'll email you my number so you can get ahold of me more easily next time."

Ranya nodded, and Dakota strode out the front door, fists clenched at her sides.

I opened my mouth to speak, but shrieking wind interrupted my would-be words. That was right…

"Could someone please go outside with me?" I asked. Bunny and Jack stepped forward. Jack's gaze was piercing. Did he blame my actions for people's deaths and paralysis like the rest of the Guardians? He'd seemed so kind and understanding before…

I slid on my coat from a hook in the hallway and opened the back door barefooted. Bunny and Jack followed me outside, our footsteps crunching in the melting gray slush that jabbed at my feet. I stepped over fallen bones and as many slush patches as I could until I'd made it to the corner of the yard, near where I thought I'd thrown the letter. The wind stung my face.

Peering through the slush and digging into snow piles with my bare fingers, I tried to find the note and cookies. I sought to remember exactly where they had landed last night, but it had been so dark. I hoped melting slush hadn't distorted the words.

My feet grew numb and prickly. Bunny and Jack trailed behind as I dug around the yard, and I stopped when I reached the thick, tangled forest, then stepped under branches as I went in and scooped around. Almost none of the leaves were green anymore, all brown and curled. So many dead things were in my neighborhood.

I still couldn't find the note and cookies. Had Mother Nature taken what I'd left, or had the wind just carried it far away, and snow buried it? Was I safe? Would she protect me from Pitch, and the Watcher, and everything else? If she had taken the note, did she agree? All my thoughts desperately searched for clues that she would come. Was the wind shrieking an affirmative message? Were there suspiciously large patches of green?

But I couldn't tell for certain if I was safe. I had to know.

Bunny and Jack a step behind me, I walked back inside.

Ranya ascended the stairs to the basement with stiff movements, her phone in one hand as if she'd been about to make a call.

"He's gone," she mumbled. "The Watcher."

My chest twisted and warped within, and tears coursed down my face. What was happening to Dad?

Plus, without him, Ranya was without a plan. And had less protection from the white mist.

My tears stopped, replaced by a heavier, emptier feeling. I sat in a pale chair at the dining table. Ranya marched up the stairs, and North and Tooth followed her. The other Guardians stood around me.

If only I could make myself fight Pitch. If I had only been brave enough, and defeated him before this all began, my family and Cathey would be safe, and people would still be alive. I wouldn't be a failure of a daughter to a mom who just wanted me to face my fears and rip her suffering out of her life.

I trod upstairs to my room, the three Guardians following, and pulled a tissue paper flower-making kit from the blue craft drawers next to my desk. The kit was extra large, with plenty of supplies. Sitting, I began to tremble. I opened my mouth, then clamped it shut. Opened it again. Still, I could not force the words out. I pressed my lips together.

Tears burned my eyes again. Even now, I couldn't force myself through my fear. If I made the Guardians leave the room, the Watcher could kidnap me. I glanced down at my palm.

Wiping tears away, I pulled colored paper and scissors from the cabinets, too, and opened the flower kit's pink box. I drew out the materials and unfurled the instructions. Slowly, following along with the latter's pictures and words, I folded some tissue paper into an accordion and trimmed it as best I could. When I finished, I twisted the pipe cleaner around the center, making certain it was tight enough, and spread the tissue into petals. I drew a butterfly on a blue piece of colored paper and cut it out. Then, fumbling a glue bottle out of the cabinet, I pasted the insect to the flower and set it aside.

I was going to do this out in the open, where the Guardians could see me, wasn't I? I opened my mouth again to try to tell them to leave, but the words died deep in my stomach.

So I closed my lips again and tried to focus my thoughts. If I wanted to live, I had to do this.

I began folding the next tissue paper blossom, then halted mid-motion. No, my mind told me, you can't think about the being of the white mist. It would put you in danger. Either you'd need to tell Ranya what you found, and she would love you more, or you'd have to face the mist being yourself. You can't do this.

All my thoughts fled from the image of the being of the white mist as if a single half-consideration would provoke the being's wrath. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself that forcing a vision wouldn't do anything in and of itself, my irrational fears locked that possibility up and swallowed the key.

I tried to cut the petals of the tissue paper flower. Yet, I couldn't even do that.

I would try to protect myself, then. Like figuring out the origin of my powers. That was safe; I wouldn't have to reveal it to anyone to help.

So as I was able to resume folding and cutting tissue paper blossoms, the three Guardians watching silently at my back, I tried my hardest to think about my powers.

Where had they come from? How could I get rid of them? Who was the first person to have even one?

I folded the blue tissue paper.

But my thoughts refocused on the dangers: What if Mother Nature didn't come? What if my symbol completed, and Pitch killed me? What was he doing to the people I loved?

I shook my head. No, no, no. I had to focus.

I began again: Why didn't anyone else in my family have powers? Why did Dakota have some? Were ours related? Was that why the Watcher stalked our families? Would he—

The hours ticked away slowly, all too soon.

As I sensed the sky growing dark in the window beside my bed after my late dinner break, my skin prickled and chilled. When would I get so tired I'd need to stop?

Tears pricked my eyes and fogged my sight. Why had the Man in the Moon chosen me to be a Guardian of all children? I couldn't even protect my sister. I couldn't even protect myself.

I ran out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners, and pulled out some that I had lying in my craft drawers. Then I ran out of tissue paper, and began using the white tissues from the bathroom.

Pushing my growing fear away, I tried to focus my thoughts, the harder and more focused one I'd been trying since a few hours ago: My powers. My powers. My powers.

I was running out of time. My heart thudded hard. What usually kept me from worrying about dangerous supernatural things that might happen the next day was failing tonight.

Slowly, I cut out a green butterfly. Then I closed my eyes and thought painfully hard: My powers. My powers. My powers.

I could sense the shadows outside growing darker. My chest tightened as I opened my eyes. What if I couldn't stop the danger?

I closed my eyes again and focused: My powers. My powers. My powers.

What if the Watcher came? Would Ranya even be able to defeat him and Pitch without Dad?

I pressed my eyelids tighter into my face. My powers. My powers.

What if my symbol completed before Ranya defeated everyone? What if I died? Would it be slow, painful?

I fought harder. My powers. My powers. My powers.

Just before my thoughts slipped this time, the feeling of the chair and desk beneath me vanished. I gasped. Then it reappeared. My eyes flew open. I wasn't having a vision.

I shut my eyes again. My powers. My powers. My powers.

Could the Watcher track me based on them? Was he watching right now, waiting for an opportunity to take Ranya or me? If Dakota couldn't sense him, the Guardians likely couldn't beat—

I tried to reign my thoughts in again. But Ranya didn't have much of an idea for defeating any of the four people after us. How could she come up with a good plan with only her and Dakota? What would happen if she didn't and I couldn't get rid of my powers or get the help of Mother Nature?

My—

The world around me silenced, and I could no longer feel anything, not even my clothes.

Prickles of stars blinked to life above. A pine forest so thick the trees nearly choked out one another formed a circle around me. I stood at the edge of a clearing. Warm air gusted through my hair. Footsteps crunched in the distance as branches rustled, and rough grass scratched at my toes. Smoke filled my nostrils. I glimpsed fire blazing in the distance to my left, but through the thick pine needles, I couldn't see what burned.

Sights clouded every few seconds, sounds went in and out of fuzziness, and I could feel my mind trying to slip back to the present. Was the vision unstable? Was it because I had caused it intentionally, and now I had to keep it going myself? This was my first forced vision. But what would it even be about—what would happen if I couldn't defeat my problems? Something that had happened before, and might happen again? Or had I been so close to thinking of my powers that it would be about them?

Two pairs of footsteps grew steadily closer, and voices shouted from far off. Every other phrase ebbed out for a moment:

"Their parents must still be out!"

"I don't care if they're children!"

"We must locate them!"

Two barefooted people pushed through the trees into the clearing. The girl looked around eight. Pale green eyes were set high on her light-skinned face, and shiny black hair fell down her back in frenzied waves. She wore an old-fashioned cream nightgown that went down to a little higher than the middle of her thin calves. A child who looked a couple of years older than I pulled her along. They wore a dress nearly the same as the girl's, though it ended a little lower, and pinned to the chest was a they/them pin with the nonbinary flag. It looked strange amidst the old-fashioned clothing. They began humming a tune to the girl that sounded vaguely familiar.

I didn't recognize the child at first, for they were younger and less androgynous-looking than I was used to seeing them, and free of scars, but then—

"Lotus!" I nearly gasped as the words flew from my mouth audible and not stuck in my throat. I could speak in this vision?

Lotus turned in my direction and stopped, and the girl gasped as she collided with them.

"We must keep going!" she said. When Lotus opened their mouth to speak, her eyes widened and she interrupted, "Do you see another one?"

I glanced behind myself but saw nothing that looked important. Then I realized—I'd just moved in a vision. My mind threatened to slip away. I tried to concentrate on the feel of the rough grass under my feet. It wasn't easy.

The girl's gaze moved rather close to my location, though not quite there.

I found my voice. "Can you… You can see me? Lotus?"

Lotus smiled. "Of course. I can see all past-travelers. Clearly we must have met before since you know my name, but apparently not in a vision?" They frowned. "You're trembling. Are you all right?"

I looked down at my shaking arms. My chest tightened at showing such obvious panic to a stranger. What must they be thinking of me? "I'm all right." The vision threatened to depart again, and I bent down and ran my hands through the long blades of grass. I had to get the answers to my questions before this slipped away! "Lotus, in my time, you try to warn me of things that will happen. You contact me from the future in a Time Rift, but you never quite get your message out before it disappears. Lotus… Do you know what you were going to say?"

"A Time Rift?" Lotus furrowed their eyebrows lightly. "How…?" But then they refocused on me and gave me a warm look. "What are you trying to have a vision about now?"

Before I could speak, the girl, twisting a strand of her dark hair and biting her lip, spoke up to her companion, "Lotus, I've noticed that past-travelers only appear when something important is going to happen. Do you think… the men will kill Mother and Father?" Her voice had faded to near silence in my vision's disturbance, and I ran my hand along prickly pine branches. Her gaze returned to around my location. She couldn't see me, but she must be good at guessing where I was.

Lotus rubbed her arm. "Astute observation. But our parents will be all right. We'll meet them where they told us to."

The girl twisted her hair harder, even tighter than its natural wild curls.

"We'll keep going." Lotus turned to me. "Follow us, Isabelle. What did you come to see?"

"I… I need help. I want to get rid of my powers. A powerful being named Pitch wants to kill me because he thinks I'll become a Guardian, and perhaps if I don't have powers, he won't because I wouldn't be a threat."

Lotus stepped forward and patted my arm in a gentle, maternal way, like they had done the girl. "Is this what I've been warning you about?"

"You've been warning me about a lot of things. But Pitch is one of the main villains in this war… You said you've seen other past-travelers. Have you talked to them?"

"Yes. I myself am one. You've… never seen any before?"

"Not except for you." Was that a problem? "Do you know anything about past-travelers? Like… where our powers come from?"

Lotus smiled. "Yes."

But this time the vision went entirely dark, and their voice faded. I grasped for the tree branches again, but felt nothing except obscurity.

My eyes flew open. I was back at my desk in the present. The clock ticked to my rear left on the wall, and the Guardians stood behind me. I nearly screamed as tears fell down my face. Could I wait until Lotus tried to warn me again to ask how to get rid of my powers? If I didn't find the answer… Would my family die? Had Lotus and their sister's parents really been killed? Had the girl been killed?

I forced myself to fold more tissue paper with shaking fingers. I couldn't let the Guardians know I'd had a vision, or my symbol would grow, and then I might turn into a spirit. Pitch would come.

How many other people like me, other past-travelers, were there? Why hadn't I seen any before, like Lotus thought I should have? Could I find them and they could help me? Or were they… no longer around?

But squinting my eyes shut every few seconds, I pushed and pushed for a vision of them. It soon grew pitch black outside.

I couldn't sleep, for fear kept me awake. So instead, I stayed at the desk, all my pipe cleaners used up, and I drew and tried to concentrate on Lotus.

Eventually, Sandy frowned particularly low, and a golden image of a bed formed above him. He sent a stream of Dreamsand to my forehead, and I passed out.

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