At the thought of meeting her mother — an absent element of her dream existence, where she’d been tragically orphaned, then raised by gnomes — she sets down the bouquet, climbs out of her ornate box, and plants her feet on the earth. Her knees creak as she lands. This, at least, is nothing new. She’d grown old bones in the dreamworld, too. 

They are surrounded by an evergreen forest. A castle peeks over the emerald treeline to the north. She heads in that direction, her retired prince trailing behind. There is much commotion when she returns. Bakers, jesters, and florists rush about to celebrate her awakening, belated as it may be. For a supposed reunion, though, so much is missing: where are the fir trees that sing sweet like sugar-milk? The shadow-folks that flit across towering clouds? When she asks around the courtyard, people offer only pitying looks. She tries to get answers from her mother, once they’ve had their fill of hugs and laughter and disbelief. 

“So when the violet seabirds brought me to you as a babe, I was already asleep?” she asks her mother. 

“Oh dear,” her mother says, and sits her down on the satin duvet to explain this world’s birds and bees and growing bellies. Violet seabirds would be so much simpler, she thinks. 

“So when I was flushed from your insides in a stream of blood and waste, I was already asleep?” 

“No. Your eyes were wide open. You took in the world, cried out, and closed them again so tightly. So intently.” Her mother’s words curdle with hurt. “And you never woke up.” “I’m awake now.” 

“Yes,” her mother says, giving her own arm a soft pinch. 

She tries to belong in this deadened world, though she aches for her wife and their children and grandfatherly gnomes and moss-swaddled pond in the backyard of her dreams. She goes fishing with her mother. The bluegills they catch are all silent. No riddles or fine jewels fall from their yawning mouths. Why would anyone bother to fish at all? she adds to the list of disappointments she cannot voice aloud. She visits the retired prince in his neighboring kingdom. His wife, the queen, wades frantically amongst their royal children and grandchildren. She wants to tell the queen how much headache could be spared if they all slept deeply enough. Instead, she lets them throw her a birthday party. The streamers do not come alive. The cake tastes like vanilla instead of a thousand stormy seaside days. 

One evening, she wanders around the village. She stops to ask a townsman on his stoop how he deals with the disillusionment of such a cold, dull world. “Well, I wouldn’t trust magic anyhow,” he replies. “Only the devil can follow behind such a good thing.” Then he offers her a bowl of his wife’s stew, which does not spontaneously refill once emptied. As night takes hold, she heads back home, pausing briefly to watch two children whoop and holler as they scurry past into an alley. One hops into an empty barrel. The other hides behind it, giggling. In the guise of play, she realizes, they are searching the shadows for the same dreamworld. They remember, too. Once at the castle, she goes to her bedroom balcony and takes in the kingdom below: the drained skies, muted animals, and mostly dreamless people. Questions keep crawling up her throat. Why was there so little wonder here, and so much ache? Worse yet, why did so few seem bothered by it? It was as if the whole world had resigned itself to the lackluster of their lives and pitied her for desiring something more. She could not let her dreams slowly drain out of her. If escape was the coward’s path, a tonic for the weak-willed, so be it. She heads back inside, crawls into her queen-sized bed, and pulls the duvet up to her chin. With a sigh, she closes her eyes. Tightly. Intently.