Page 21 of The Unseelie War
Mrs. Crumplebottom paused in her tea preparations, a look of confusion crossing her features. “I’m sorry, dear, but I don't understand. 'Made me'? I've lived in this neighborhood for forty years. I remember you coming into my shop just yesterday, during all that terrible noise and commotion.”
The existential implications hit Ava like a truck. A dream had unconsciously created another dream—a thinking, feeling individual with memories and a history and a sense of self—simply because she'd needed comfort. And now that person was standing right there, unaware of the nature of her own existence.
“Mrs. Crumplebottom,” Ava said carefully, “what do you remember about Boston…before yesterday?”
The older woman set down her teacup, her expression growing thoughtful. "Well, let's see. I remember opening the shop every morning, helping customers find just the right book. I remember my late husband, how he used to bring me coffee and complain that I cared more about fictional characters than real people.” She chuckled. “I remember my daughter calling every Sunday to check on me.”
“What do you remember about the city, though? About what’s outside those walls?”
“Yes, well.” She paused. Slowly, her expression grew troubled. “Now that you mention it, I can't quite recall...” She touched her temple, confused. “That's odd. I feel like I should remember more clearly what the city is like. Are my memories gone?”
“The memories are there,” Serrik said gently, stepping forward. His voice was softer than Ava had ever heard it, with none of his usual calculating edge. “You are all right, Mrs. Crumplebottom. Your memories are real.”
“But nothistoricallyreal," Bitty said miserably. “I made them up. I madeherup. She never actually lived those forty years or loved that husband or raised that daughter.” She looked up at Ava withdesperate eyes. “Does that make her less real? Does that make my feelings for her less real? Does that makemeless real?”
It was the question Ava had been dreading, the philosophical minefield she'd known they'd have to navigate eventually. In the merged world she'd created, the line between “real” and “constructed” had become meaningless—but that didn't make the emotional weight of the question any less crushing.
Never mind the problem of recursive dreams. What would happen if Mrs. Crumplebottom dreamed up a family? What if her family dreamed up a family?
“I don't know,” Ava finally admitted to Bitty. “I honestly don't know what ‘real’ even means anymore.”
Mrs. Crumplebottom had been listening to this exchange with growing alarm. “I’m sorry, I do hate to interrupt, but are you saying that I’m…not real? That my memoriesarefalse?” Her voice was shaking now. “But I can feel them. I can remember the taste of my wedding cake, the sound of my husband's laugh. I remember holding my daughter when she was born.”
“Those feelings are real,” Ava said firmly. “The love you feel, the grief, the joy—all of that is completely real. The question is whether it matters if the events that created those feelings actually happened in linear time now? Or if they were…created whole cloth, out of fiction.” She gestured at the books around her.
“I exist.” There was a surprising amount of steel in Mrs. Crumplebottom’s voice, now. “I think, I feel, I care about people, thereforeI am.I have preferences and opinions and fears, thereforeI am. If that's not real, then what is?”
“Precisely.” Serrik almost smiled. “Reality is not about the manner of your creation, Mrs. Crumplebottom. It is about consciousness you possess.”
Bitty looked between them all, tears still streaming down her face. “But what if I stop believing in her? What if I forget about her? Will she just—will she just disappear?”
“I…I don’t know. And for now, I don’t think we should worry about that.” Ava sighed. “I have no idea how to fix any of this. For now, dreams are the same thing as reality.”
“And if that moment comes? If dreams go back to being just dreams?” Mrs. Crumplebottom frowned. “What becomes of me? A dream of a dream?”
“I don’tknow,okay?” Ava put her head in her hands. “I don’t know what I’m doing! I didn’t expect—” She didn’t want to get angry at Bitty. It wasn’t Bitty’s fault. She was just acting out of panic and desperation. Just as Ava had, making Bitty. If anything, it was just a recursive action. And if this went on much longer, Mrs. Crumplebottom was going to make someone out ofherfear and loneliness.
Fuck, learning to be a demigod was annoying.
Somebody really needed to have printed a manual.
“I need a vacation.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “I’m sorry. I’m just sorry for all of this. I don’t know what’ll happen. But you have to agree that the chaos outside is wrong. People are dying. More people are going to get hurt when Valroy starts his war in earnest. This has to stop. Things have to go back to normal.”
“Even if it means that people like myself and Miss Bitty here go away.” Mrs. Crumplebottom looked off for a moment then nodded. “Sensible. Yes. I agree.”
Ava blinked. “You…do?”
“Well. There’s no point crying over spilt milk, is there?” She smoothed out the fabric of her dress. “I am what I am, I didn’t ask for it, but it is what it is. And if I get to keep existing, then that’s quite grand. But if I don’t, well, it was wonderful that I got to help Miss Bitty here in her moment of need. And I can go out knowing that, for whatever it mattered, I mattered.” Mrs. Crumplebottom straightened her shoulders. “But if I do have a choice, I for one choose to keep existing. I choose to keep caring for lost souls who find their way into my shop. And I choose to believe that the love I feel for the life I remember is real, regardless of how those memories came to be.”
Bitty let out a sob that was half grief, half relief. She launched herself from the chair, flying directly into Ava's arms. “I was just soscared you wouldn't come back," she whispered. “I was scared I'd be alone with all these questions and no one to help me understand what Ireally am.So I madeherand I’m so sorry andI’m so sorry?—”
Ava hugged the tiny fae tightly, feeling the solid warmth of her small body, the rapid flutter of her heart. Whatever else might be true about Bitty's nature, her fear and relief were absolutely genuine. “I’m sorry…I'm sorry it took us so long to find you. I'm sorry you had to go through this alone. It’s not your fault.”
“I wasn't alone,” Bitty pulled back to look at Mrs. Crumplebottom with obvious affection. “She took care of me. Made me tea and let me cry and told me stories about all the brave characters in her books who faced impossible situations and still found the way through.”
Mrs. Crumplebottom smiled, the gesture transforming her entire face. “That's what books are for, dear. To remind us that no matter how dark things get, there's always a story about someone who found their way through something similar.”
Serrik had been watching this exchange with an expression that was difficult to read. “Mrs. Crumplebottom,” he said finally, “do you remember being afraid? When you first…woke up?”
