"Are you telling me that it was the wrong gate?" Heathcliff asked.
Carl shook his head. "I don't know if it was the wrong gate or not. The gate led to above a griffin canyon and the only ones that we know about that lead to any griffon canyon should only be along the coast somewhere."
Heathcliff sighed. "With the limited knowledge we have, I guess it's only to be expected. What we need to do now is figure out where another gate is before anyone else does. With luck there will be another within a hundred miles from here that's just as secluded. Though, we may need to access the unicorn's forest in order to achieve what we need to do. Despite that being a little too public for our needs."
"Would the unicorn permit us to pass through?" Ronald asked.
"It's possible. That girl will likely return the Heart of the Forest back to the unicorn's forest, so that will remain an option, even if it takes longer to get the unicorn's permission than we may like," Heathcliff commented.
"Should we try to get the Heart of the Forest back?" Carl asked.
Heathcliff shook his head. "No, it should be fine being returned to the unicorn's forest. I'm not sure how long the forest can survive without its heart, but it should still be around long enough for the girl to return it. Once it's in the forest, we can then try to pass through. I'm not sure if it'll be a viable option, but it's more than we really have right now," Heathcliff answered, lacing his fingers in front of him on his desk.
"Do you plan on continuing this 'camp' now that the girl opened the gate?" Carl asked.
Heathcliff laughed. "We might as well. I doubt that these events will change much for how the camp will go, and who knows, it may be a good revenue stream to help keep us afloat until we can find another gate. Besides, what reason could we give now with all we've done so far?"
"I'm not sure that girl will remain for this next week," Ronald said.
"Why is that?" Heathcliff asked, his head turning to face Ronald.
Ronald cleared his throat under the close scrutiny of Heathcliff. "Well… maybe because she almost died when she walked through the gate after she opened it?" Ronald asked a little sheepishly.
"Hmmm," Heathcliff replied. "That could be a problem if she decides not to stay." Heathcliff looked at Carl. "What happened? Tell me the details."
"Well, we told her where we expected the gate to open to and to walk through it. When her hands dropped to the ground I thought she was being a teenager, so I didn't bother with it. Then when she was pulled back through the gate by Nick and Shirley, it was clear she was shaken. She then mentioned that it opened above a griffin canyon, I looked and saw what she said was accurate. So we discussed what we learned and returned. Everyone was quiet on the ride back," Carl replied in a manner of fact way.
"How was she as you returned? As in, how was her state of mind?" Heathcliff asked.
"I don't believe that I noticed her when we returned," Carl said, a look of horror crossing his face.
"You did at least see her get in the car before you left, didn't you?" Heathcliff asked, his tone indicating his rising ire.
"Ummm," Carl replied. "I'm not sure."
Heathcliff sighed. "I see," was all he said. He opened his mouth to say more after a minute of silence when there was a knock on the door.
Heathcliff looked at Carl and Ronald questioningly. "Was there another appointment that I forgot about?"
"Not that I'm aware of," Carl replied and Ronald merely shook his head.
"Well, let in whoever is here. This conversation is pretty much over anyway," Heathcliff stated.
_
Charlie stepped in Heathcliff's office as the door opened. She may still feel a little shaken by her near-death experience, but she was still determined to deal with Heathcliff right now instead of waiting to see if she could have learned more about him first. This moment might give her the most leverage than she might have in a day or two.
She's a little surprised at the surprise she saw on the faces of those already in Heathcliff's office. Though, given how it felt that they weren't paying attention to her when they were leaving, she wondered if it might be because they had forgotten about her altogether. Or maybe even thought they left her altogether.
"If this is a bad time, I can come back later," Charlie said, starting to doubt her decision to talk with Heathcliff right now.
"Don't worry about it," Heathcliff replied, his grandfatherly smile returning to his face. "We just didn't expect to see you at this time."
"Uh-huh," Charlie replied. "I just had something I wanted to talk with you about."
"Take a seat and we can discuss it," Heathcliff replied. "Carl, Ronald, you know what you need to do."
Carl and Ronald nodded and left.
When Carl and Ronald were gone, Charlie pulled up a chair in front of Heathcliff's desk and sat down. She fidgeted a little as she tried to get comfortable. Heathcliff waited patiently for her, which made her again wonder if she was making a mistake.
Finally, when she was as comfortable as she could get, she sighed. "When I stepped through that gate, I lost something important. Something that I need to get back, but I'm not sure how to get back there without going through that same gate," she stated, not seeing any reason to not lay all her cards on the table.
"What is this 'something' that you need to get back," Heathcliff asked.
"A crystal. It's about the size of the Heart of the Forest and weights about the same. However, it's not the same. It also glows various colors from time to time and I use it as a focus for my magic," she replied, trying to list everything she could think of without revealing what the crystal contained, as she had promised to not tell anyone about that, though she was starting to wonder if she might need to tell the rest of her friends so they'd at least know what she was already intending to do.
"What do you mean 'focus for your magic?'" Heathcliff pressed.
"Well, it's what I use to make more use of my magic," she replied. "I mean, I could use words as my focus, but I preferred using the crystal instead."
"Why can't you use another focus?" Heathcliff asked.
She shifted in her seat. "I have my reasons," she said, realizing she wasn't putting down all her cards on the table, just most, especially since she had her back-up focus with her. "I can't give all the reason, but I still need to get it back."
Heathcliff nodded. "Okay, I understand. However, we don't have another gate that we can open. Unless we have another way to travel to other worlds, we can't get to that griffin canyon. Unless you'd be willing to climb down a rope ladder to get it," Heathcliff suggested.
She felt the blood drain out of her face at the thought of that. "No thanks," she squeaked out. "I don't want the griffin parents to think I might be a threat to their young. Or a meal for their young."
Heathcliff's eyebrows rose. "Nesting griffins? Yes, that would make it more dangerous," he commented, sounding like he was talking more to himself than Charlie.
"I'm sure you'll be able to find another gate soon, I might even be able to help if you let me know what to look for," she suggested.
Heathcliff shook his head. "Even if we did, we'd need to open it and I'm pretty sure that you need to get the Heart of the Forest back to it's forest as a Friend of a Unicorn."
"How do you know about that?" she asked, unsure how much more he might know than she did about it.
"I have a journal of one who conversed with a Heart of the Forest, or at least what would constitute a journal today," Heathcliff replied. "In it, the person described how the conversation didn't take any time that they could tell, but that it almost was in an instant, despite having been a lengthy conversation."
"Ummm," she said, suddenly uncomfortable, but certain this might be the only chance for her to learn why she had been the way she was when she talked with the Heart of the Forest. "Did the person say anything else about the conversation with the Heart of the Forest?"
Heathcliff leaned back and looked upward, his eyes glazing over in thought. "I believe they said that it was like whatever their desires were in regards to the Heart of the Forest were acted on, regardless of their personal inhibitions. They also noticed that they could only feel the Heart of the Forest through the contact they had with it directly. The Heart of the Forest told them that what they saw was a reflection of the unicorn and themselves. Then, lastly, they indicated that anytime they held the Heart of the Forest and had questions come to mind about it, the Heart of the Forest would immediately pull them back to where they first spoke to it to converse about the question." As Heathcliff finished, he returned his gaze to Charlie and his eyes focused again.
Charlie was surprised. Some of what he had said were things she was already aware of, but others, like her desires almost acting on their own told her exactly why she'd acted in such a way. Although, she hadn't really considered what it was that had caused the Heart of the Forest to speak to her.
"Well, you also said that you'd need me to open any gate you find with the Heart of the Forest, right?" Charlie asked, wanting to get away from the memory of what some of her desires were when she talked with the Heart of the Forest. More out of embarrassment than anything else.
"Yes, since you unsealed that gate, you would need to unseal whatever gate we find. That or if you could get the Unicorn to help us, but we're not really expecting the unicorn to help us," Heathcliff replied.
"Well," Charlie said looking away from Heathcliff, starting to feel sheepish about this topic, "actually I opened all of the gates."
Heathcliff started at Charlie for what felt like an hour, but was probably closer to a minute or two. "Why did you open all of them?"
"Well, I didn't really trust you guys. The Heart asked me if I wanted to open just that one or all of them and I told it to open all of them," Charlie replied, suddenly unsure if she'd really made the right decision with that.
Heathcliff sighed. Then after a moment started to chuckle until he was fully laughing. Charlie merely sat, looking at him, confused.
After around a minute or two, he seemed to calm down. "Well, that does make things a little easier, but at the same time, I don't think you realize the complications you've made by opening all of the gates," Heathcliff said, his tone still full of amusement.
"Probably not," Charlie admitted, after all she wasn't given that much information to in the first place that she could work with.
"Well, lets just put it this way," Heathcliff said, his tone returning to its more serious tone. ""You now know unicorns and griffins aren't made-up creatures, right?"
Charlie nodded. She'd have to be accepting herself as a candidate for the funny farm if she admitted to what she saw and didn't believe it.
"Well, what else do you think might be out there that can now enter our world again now that all of the gates are open and very few are known to us?" Heathcliff asked.
"Ummm," Charlie hesitated. "I guess almost all of the creatures from the various mythologies?"
Heathcliff nodded. "Yes, and while they aren't all exactly like the mythologies make them, some are as bad or are worse. We can't say which ones are until we encounter them. Nor can we try to guard the gates, as some are so public that anything we do would be noticed right away."
"So, in essence, I screwed up, huh?" she asked, not feeling an ounce of guilt over that fact if so. After all, it was really their fault that they didn't let Charlie know all of this beforehand.
"I wouldn't put it that way," Heathcliff replied diplomatically.
But you think I did, Charlie said in her mind.
"However, I'm sure mistakes were made all around," Heathcliff continued. "My guess is that if you knew all this before you opened the gates, you probably wouldn't have opened all of them."
Doubt it, she said in her mind, after all she still doesn't really trust them and probably would have doubted what they told her even if it made sense. "Maybe," she said out loud, "but that's not something I wanted to talk to you about."
"So, what did you want to talk with me about?" Heathcliff asked.
Charlie was about to reply when she realized she'd completely forgotten what she had planned on saying in the first place. Great time for a brain fart, she told herself, trying to remember what she had wanted to talk to Heathcliff about.
Suddenly she remembered the crystal. "I was wondering if you might know what gates would lead back to that world. I don't care if it's a long way, as long as I can get back to the crystal," she said.
Heathcliff looked at her levelly. "To be honest, I'm not sure the documents I have about the gates are as accurate as I first thought. If they are as accurate, then I made a mistake somewhere and don't know them as well as I thought or there's more information that they don't have than I realized. If they aren't as accurate, then I can't trust them as much and so can't say what gates might lead where," Heathcliff replied.
She digested this information. "Well, what if I travel through gates going from world to world to try and find the world?" she suggested.
"How would you know if you arrive at the world that has that crystal that you lost?" Heathcliff asked. "You could arrive on that world completely on the other side of where your crystal is."
Charlie realized she'd need to give more information than she had originally planned about what she knew about focuses. "Well, I can sense where the focus is through my magic," she answered. "The farther I am from it, the weaker it is, just as the longer I use it as my focus, the easier it is to sense it."
Heathcliff nodded thoughtfully. "I see. So, you will need to be the one to determine if you're on the world where your crystal is," Heathcliff commented.
"I guess," she replied, "but I need to get it back anyway."
Heathcliff leaned back in his chair. "So, how should we do this? I can send others through the unicorn's forest, if she'll allow us, and travel to other worlds and find other gates that way and try to get a map of various worlds as well as gates in them," Heathcliff said.
Charlie thought about that. "How would you get them there with whatever stuff they'd need for that?"'
Heathcliff nodded. "That is a problem. With it so close to where you live, it would be noticed. We would need a way to get them there without taking that route, but we don't have any ideas as of yet," Heathcliff commented thoughtfully.
A thought suddenly occurred to Charlie. "You said when we first met that your company digs for gold, right?" she asked, not caring that she was essentially changing the subject.
Heathcliff nodded, a confused expression on his face. "Yes, but what does this have to do with the unicorn's forest?"
"Nothing really, just a question that came to mind," Charlie answered. "Anyway, if you can use magic, why do you need to dig for gold?"
Heathcliff laughed. "I see, it's that kind of question," he said, then paused for a moment. "Well, I dig for gold because I need something that the government would accept as a method to earn money. Otherwise they'd be keeping an eye on me much more closely and I'd rather avoid that. I certainly don't have the interest in trying to use magic to regularly get the government idiots to move along when they'd come asking questions that I'd rather not answer."
"So, do you use magic to find the gold?" Charlie asked.
"Not really," Heathcliff said. "I use my magic to create gold. Which also is a reason I need to work with the illusion of digging it up, otherwise it could cause gold values to plummet if others learned that I could create gold. Just like when the Spanish brought back the gold from the American continents after they learned of them, they brought back so much that the value of gold actually started to go down. Just like anything that happens when there's a known increase of that particular item with no reduction or increase in demand. In essence, it falls down to supply and demand. If there's more supply than demand, the price goes down, but if there's the perception of an unlimited supply, prices can potentially plummet to where it's essentially worthless."
Charlie digested that information. Some of it she really didn't understand, mostly because she wasn't familiar with the subject, but the rest did make sense to her. "So, why is it that you need to have an open gate?" she asked after she was quiet for a few minutes.
"I'm actually running out of places I can dig for gold with very few questions being asked with how I'm able to find gold that others couldn't find. So, if I can open a gate, I can see if I can find another medium in which to earn a living on, or at least give the appearance of it. Magic isn't something that the government idiots would accept as to how I'm able to be self-sufficient. Although, there's also the issue with property taxes, but that's another matter altogether," he replied.
"What would you be able to show me about using magic?" she asked. "I mean, if I agreed to work with you."
"I can't really be sure," Heathcliff admitted. "I don't really know what you do, but as I understand it, you know a number of ways of using your magic that we consider rather advanced, so we might be able to show you a few tricks, but otherwise not much."
Charlie nodded, not sure what else to say. She felt like she should ask him a few other things, but couldn't think of what they were.
"Oh," Heathcliff said suddenly.
"What?"
"I just realized that if you can sense your focus on the world it is, I bet that I might be able to come up with something that can help us find that world. Much like how we locate the gates, we can drop something else in that griffin canyon that we can detect as long as we show up on that world," Heathcliff suggested.
Charlie leaned forward in interest. "You can detect the gates? How?"
"I have an item that when magic is pushed through it, we can detect gates within a radius that depends on how strong the person's magic is. It's also very draining on whoever uses it and it won't detect a unicorn's forest," Heathcliff answered.
Charlie nodded, she wanted to ask how he learned about Petals' forest, but didn't want to accidentally give any information about Petals and her forest. "Do you have something like that right now?"
Heathcliff shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I don't. I'll work on it, but it might take a bit of time."
She sighed. "I guess I'll need to do some exploring then."
"Might be good anyway, it could help you get used to other worlds and you might find something that will help us with our objectives."
Suddenly Charlie remembered something that she had promised to ask Heathcliff about. "Well, aside from that, do you have any room for my sister this week in your camp? I promised my dad I'd ask, she seemed pretty upset that she wasn't able to go."
Heathcliff sighed again. "I wish I could. Unless someone doesn't show up, I don't have room for anyone else, and if they don't show up, it'd be too late really to try and fill the vacancy. I also had hoped that there would be more interest in this camp, but I'm almost expecting this to become a complete disaster. Given how little I could think of to do with this camp."
Charlie was stunned at this admission. While she hadn't really understood the idea of the camp to begin with, she had at least assumed that Heathcliff had at least an idea, if not a vision, about how it would go.
She shook her head after thinking about it for a moment, she didn't really care to delve into the details of this and would rather move on. Although, as she had thought of her father, it tickled part of her mind that she couldn't figure out right away. As she shook her head, she realized the other item she'd wanted to discuss with Heathcliff.
"Sorry to change the subject again, but did you decide to go with my dad's security company?" she asked.
Heathcliff shook his head. "No, for what I need, your father's company doesn't have the resources to deal with what would be needed, even if I paid double their bid," he answered. "I had to go with another company that was able to meet the needs I had for that project."
Charlie nodded, not that surprised, there were a lot of things about her father's company that she didn't understand. "How about this. You find a project that you can hire my dad's company for and keep it on a permanent basis. If you do that, I'll share whatever I learn about other worlds with you. As well as if I learn about a gate that we might be able to use," Charlie said. She wasn't sure where this was coming from, but as she said it, it felt like it was the right thing to do. She just couldn't explain how or why.
Heathcliff nodded thoughtfully. "I think I might be able to work something out. Though, I'll need time to figure out a project that your father's company will be able to do. So, unless you're willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, we won't be able to work with each other for at least a few months. As after I come up with the project, I'll need to get things set up before I would be able to hire his company."
Charlie nodded. She was under no illusions that he'd be able to snap his fingers and it would happen right then. "I'll work with you as long as it doesn't take too long," she stated. "If I think you're not going to keep your word, I'll stop working with you."
Heathcliff nodded. "That's all I can really ask," he said.
Charlie nodded in response. She couldn't think of anything else to say, so she started to get up.
"I take it you don't have anything else to talk to me about?" Heathcliff asked, causing her to stop and hover above the chair for a minute.
"No, I can't think of anything else," she admitted.
"Well, there is one that I would still like to talk about with you," Heathcliff said.
Charlie sat back down fully, a little put out about the matter. "What is it?" she asked, not really interested in staying longer, but feeling obligated to with what she'd just agreed to.
"Since you had your magic unsealed before you came here, I take it that you were aware of what Emily tried to do to you," Heathcliff said, leaning on his arms against his desk.
"I was after she was interrupted," Charlie admitted. Even though she knew she still should feel violated by what happened, she still couldn't bring herself to that. She wasn't sure if it had to do with the magic that Emily used or if there was something wrong with herself.
"I assumed you probably didn't have your defenses up, but anyway, I was wondering what punishment you might suggest for her actions against you," Heathcliff asked.
Charlie was surprised. She hadn't expected to be asked for her input on this matter, but suddenly a thought occurred to her that could work out in her favor. "How about you let me deal with her," she suggested. "After all, I was her target to do with whatever she wanted to, so why not make it so I could do whatever I want with her?"
Heathcliff leaned back, looking at her thoughtfully. "It would be a kind of poetic justice, but unless you tell me what you have in mind, I don't think I'll be able to agree to it."
Charlie shook her head. "Nothing bad, more like having her run errands for me and stuff. Nothing like what she wanted to do with me or that would get her hurt," she said. "I just think that having her do something like this might make her think twice about doing it again to someone else in the future."
"Maybe, but I'm still not sure if I should do this," Heathcliff said.
"You can do it if you want, but that's what my suggestion is. Besides, you know she's done this before, so whatever you've done before hasn't worked, right?" she asked.
"She may have tried this before, but that doesn't mean what I do won't be effective. It just will take a while," Heathcliff replied, a little cryptically in Charlie's opinion.
"Well, if you won't accept my offer, I'll stand by that nothing happened. What Shirley saw was just a misunderstanding. After all, she can't be in trouble if she didn't do anything wrong," Charlie challenged, not caring if this jeopardizes her efforts in getting her father a client for his company. She had a feeling that what she gets Heathcliff to accept in regards to this would be important. Not that Charlie had any idea how or when.
"I see," Heathcliff chuckled. "I'll leave her in your hands and as long as it isn't anything that is over the top. I'll keep an eye on you to make sure you don't."
"Don't worry, I'm sure Shirley won't find anything she'd object to," Charlie replied, smiling in as an innocent manner as she can, hoping that it doesn't as look as forced as she feels it is.
_
Charlie climbed up on her bunk. The days events were really coming down on her. Hard. The sun had set long ago, even when they got back from Berthoud Pass, the sun was setting against the mountains, though it still took a few hours after that before it fully set. When Charlie and Heathcliff had finished working out a few details of their agreement, she found just how late it was. Which took a lot longer than she had expected it to take.
Heathcliff had some food brought to them, so she at least had something to eat. Though, it hardly felt like she had eaten anything. She wrote it off as her just being that tired rather than her body wanting more food. It also felt like she should still be more of a wreck from nearly dying like she had. It was like her mind had gone back to how she was as if it hadn't happened, which part of her thought shouldn't be the case.
She was satisfied that she'd been given authority over what to do about Emily, which Charlie wondered how Emily would respond to learning that. Not that she had anything sinister in mind. It was more that she'd like to know how to work her magic the way Emily did with that enchantment. Which Charlie wasn't sure how eager Emily would be to share that knowledge.
She felt herself start to drift off to sleep when she felt someone shaking her awake. Then as she opened her eyes to see who it was and maybe what it was about, she saw it was Emily.
"What do you want?" Charlie asked, her voice reflecting how tired she was.
"What were you doing at Heathcliff's house?" Emily asked, her voice a whisper.
"I convinced him to let me deal with what you tried to do to me with that enchantment," Charlie replied, figuring Emily didn't need to know what else they'd talked about and that she'd find out soon enough about the agreement Charlie and Heathcliff had made that concerned her.
Emily stared at Charlie for a minute, during which she let her eyes start to close again. "What do you mean by that?" Emily replied in a harsh whisper.
"I meant what I said. Can we talk about this in the morning?" Charlie asked. "I'd like to just get to sleep."
Emily didn't respond right away, so Charlie started closing her eyes again. "Fine," Emily relented. "But we will discuss what you meant by that."
Charlie mentally shrugged as she closed her eyes and went to sleep. She was starting to think about trying to find a way to let Beth and the others know about her having been able to get the Heart of the Forest back when she felt herself drift off to sleep.
Somehow Charlie knew she was asleep as she found herself in a vast emptiness. It wasn't a pitch black emptiness, only kind of like a void that she seemed to be in. Her surroundings changed color from black to white to blue then to pink just by her thinking it.
She created a floor for her to stand on and walk on just by thinking it, not that it mattered, somehow she could tell that the emptiness she was in extended infinitely in any direction and at the same time she could leave the emptiness any time she wanted. There was so much she somehow knew without ever being told that she was getting a little uneasy at it. It was almost like she was able to instinctively learn things like she'd never before been able. In a way, it was almost like…
Charlie suddenly realized this emptiness was almost identical to where she'd spoken with the Heart of the Forest. Which if that was in the part of her where her desires were, then that might mean that she was still inside her mind, which would explain how she 'knew' all that she could do there.
She willed herself to where her magic was and was suddenly by what looked to her like a liquid fire, colors ranging from white to blue to yellow. It burned as hot as she was aware magma could burn, but at the same time she could touch it without burning herself.
She cupped her hands together and dipped them in the liquid fire. As she withdrew her hands, she closed her eyes and thought about talking with Beth. She didn't actually expect anything to happen, but she opened her eyes as it suddenly felt like she was moving. She saw the liquid fire in her hands draining at her fingertips, while at the same time filling up by the heels of her hands.
She couldn't say she knew exactly what was happening, but had a hard time moving in any manner. Even blinking seemed to take a prolonged period of time. Almost like she was moving in slow motion herself.
Then as suddenly as she had started moving without moving, she suddenly found herself face-to-face with Beth. They were standing in front of a bench by where she could tell was Beth's house, not that Beth had a bench at her house in that spot, but she wasn't going to try and analyze any of it. As she knew she was still asleep, she figured this was merely a weird dream.
"What're you doing here, Charlie?" Beth asked first.
"I just had to tell you that I get the Heart of the Forest back," she replied, starting to feel awkward that she was just telling this to a dream version of Beth.
Beth blinked. "How?"
"Well, they wanted me to open a gate with it, so I did, but I opened all of them and after that, I wouldn't give them the Heart of the Forest back, which they weren't happy about," Charlie said before explaining all that had occurred when she was required to step through the gate.
Beth shook her head. "You know, I have no idea how I know what you mean when you say things like 'gate' or how scared you were hanging over that canyon. But that aside, are you doing okay?" Beth looked at her as if it was the real Beth and not just a dream in Charlie's own mind.
"Of course I am," she replied, taking a seat on the bench. "I didn't get hurt, so why wouldn't I be?"
Beth sighed, sitting next to her on her left, taking her left hand in both of hers. "Just because you didn't get hurt doesn't mean that you're okay," she said. "Most people would find what you went through rather traumatic."
"Don't worry about it," she said, getting rather uncomfortable with the subject.
"I can't help but worry, Charlie," Beth interrupted, her grip tightening on her hand. "Have you talked to your mom or dad about it?"
Charlie shook her head. "No, I felt a little out of it on the drive back to the camp, but I talked to Heathcliff and then went to bed. I'm really fine, Beth," she said.
Beth sighed. "Well, I can't say how I know this, but it's almost like I can hear your thoughts sometimes and they're almost quivering in your mind," Beth said. "Whatever you're telling yourself, you're not fine. I think what happened might hit you without you realizing it soon."
"Why soon?" she asked. "I mean, if it did affect me like you said, why wouldn't it already be affecting me?"
"Maybe it's because you haven't fully processed it or maybe it's because you're not letting yourself feel it fully yet," Beth contemplated. "As you know, my dad was a therapist and sometimes talked to me about trauma."
Charlie shook her head. "Seriously, it wasn't traumatic. All it was, was just-"
Beth looked her in the eye and interrupted her. "Stop it, Charlie. Any near death experience can be traumatic and I don't know how I know this, but you were crying after yours. I'm certain you were traumatized by it. Even if it doesn't affect you right now, it will affect you sometime down the road."
Charlie felt herself begin to tremble. Why, she couldn't explain. All she knew was that the calm she'd had gotten during the car ride was crumbling. In the end, she found herself holding Beth tightly as she felt her tears pour out again. Beth held her, making soft comforting noises, none that Charlie could really describe, just that she heard noises from Beth that just felt comforting.
She couldn't say how long she cried, just that when she was finally done, Beth's pajama top was soaked by her tears on her right shoulder and she had a minor case of the hiccups.
"Feeling better?" Beth asked, her hands on her shoulders.
Charlie shrugged. She wasn't really sure exactly where that emotional outburst came from, but wasn't sure if she should admit that or not. "I guess," she said, her voice a little hoarse.
"Well, remember, my dad told me that trauma occurs when you feel trapped in a situation and can't easily get out. Sometimes it doesn't lead to being traumatized, like with getting in trouble with your parents, but I could be remembering what he said wrong," Beth said, then giggled. "I mean, some of what he said is clear but others I can't exactly remember."
Charlie wasn't sure what to say in response. Beth's father had died from a heart attack around five or six years before and whenever he was brought up, Beth tended to go off topic from what they had been talking about and usually got rather emotional about it. Charlie could even see Beth's eyes begin to glisten with unshed tears. Charlie also never knew how to proceed when that occurred.
"Anyway, remember, talk with your parents, okay?" Beth said, surprising Charlie at how quickly she got back on topic. Beth then opened her mouth to say something else, but instead disappeared.
Charlie wasn't sure what to make of it, nor how her surroundings seemed to fade away, until she was back in the emptiness that she'd started from in the first place. Charlie couldn't help but wonder what kind of dream this was. Was it, like some she'd occasionally overhear at school, part of her subconscious telling her something or was it just a weird coincidence like so much she had seen in her own dreams.
Regardless of which it was, Charlie suddenly found herself laying in her bunk, the morning sun shining through the windows, a few of the girls starting to get ready for the day while others slept in.
Charlie sighed, wondering if that dream really meant something or not. Normally she didn't think that much about her dreams, but this one was different. Not only was it still rather prevalent in her mind but it just felt different. She couldn't put her finger on why, but knew the feeling was there.
She sighed as she started to get up. They'd be heading to Winter Park soon, if what Heathcliff had said at the start of the week was true. She certainly didn't want to be in her nightgown when that happened. Aside from her other morning hygiene routine as well.
_
Charlie was relieved when she finished packing the little she had brought with her. The week of camp was over. While she enjoyed helping get everything set up and the weekend at Winter Park with the team building exercises, the week with the campers was nothing less than an unmitigated disaster.
The problem with the camp was more that it was largely children, the oldest was around 12. The activity was to design and construct a catapult. Then to use the catapult attack their 'opponents' area. There were two teams of boys and two teams of girls. While there was one team that had started to construct a catapult, most were having a hard enough time working together enough to get the design complete. The team that had gotten theirs started to be constructed had an older camper draw it up and then start building it himself, not even trying to make it a 'team effort' like the other teams. Although, Charlie suspected that the designs were drawn up by one of the counselors, which she couldn't really blame them if so. So much of the week was just painful to observe.
In all, even Heathcliff had to admit he'd caused this disaster. Charlie was just glad it was over.
Cherie might be entertained at how bad it was, Charlie thought as she closed her bags. She had considered calling her parents after her dream, but decided it would be simpler to talk with her parents when they came to pick her up. Though, she had decided to play the situation off as not threatening at all. Rather than what actually happened, she'd tell them that a ladder she was on fell and she'd caught herself and thought she was going to die, despite being inches above the ground. She hoped it would be close enough to the truth that she'd be able to satisfy the part of herself that created that 'dream Beth' without having it come up in a different dream. If it did.
It also didn't help her when she realized as she was packing that she'd promised her father to call him about if Cherie would be able to go or not after asking about it. Charlie could only shake her head and berate herself over the subject. She always hated when she forgot about a promise. Especially when she forgot and subsequently failed at doing what she'd promised to do.
She was so focused on her packing that she almost didn't realize Emily approach her. After Heathcliff had confirmed to her that Charlie was in charge of her, Emily did what Charlie had wanted her to do. Although Charlie had a sense there were things that Emily was hoping Charlie would tell her to do, but Charlie didn't have any interest in going in that direction. She only had Emily explain how the way she had enchanted Charlie. While Charlie didn't like the idea of making others do things that they wouldn't otherwise do themselves, she had a feeling that knowing how to do that might help her undo it if she encountered anything like that when she went to find the crystal. Though, on the other hand, she had no idea of what to expect when she traveled other worlds, so it wouldn't hurt to have more tools than she'd need while on the road.
Emily had not only done what Charlie had told her, but even allowed Charlie to practice on Emily herself. Charlie thought she had the hang of it, which had surprised her at how easily it came to her, when controlling hearing the thoughts of others had taken her longer to begin to get control of.
When Emily was right behind her, she stood up and turned around. "Thanks for helping me, Emily," she said, smiling at the older girl.
Emily returned the smile. "No problem," she replied. "I just wanted to let you know my older brother is here to pick me up. Maybe I'll see you another time."
"Maybe, but I thought I'd give you a reward for helping me so much," she said, inwardly laughing at the uneasy expression Emily gave her in response.
She merely kissed Emily on the cheek and had to turn back to packing to keep Emily from seeing her amused expression at how deeply Emily blushed.
"U-uh… so… bye," Emily stammered right before she turned and walked quickly away.
Charlie picked her stuff up as she finished her packing, not that there had been much to begin with. She started walking out to where the vehicles were picking up campers, some counselors, or junior counselors. She wasn't surprised to not see her parents, they usually tended to be more on the late side. Though, she didn't expect to have enough time for another dip in the swimming pool. She'd been able to get a few times for a small swim during the camp, but those were rather infrequent.
She walked over to Heathcliff's house and entered, walking over to where Heathcliff's office was. The door was closed when Charlie arrived, so she knocked and waited. She doubted that anyone who might be in there with Heathcliff would just be relaxing. She could have used her magic to see what was going on in there, but felt that it would set a bad tone for the start of the partnership she had entered into with Heathcliff. Though, she would rather walk right in and sit down than to just wait out in the hall. Charlie didn't have to wait long. The door opened and she saw Shirley coming out. "…that, uncle? I should have some free time around Christmas break," Shirley was saying as she was leaving the office. She was looking inward, so she hadn't seen Charlie, making her move out of the way as Shirley walked backwards.
"That'll be fine. Just be sure to not let anything come up. I'll help you work out the details so it won't affect you as much," Charlie heard Heathcliff say.
As Shirley walked away, not taking any notice of Charlie, Charlie entered Heathcliff's office. "Hi, I just wanted to check to see if you'd gotten any more information about how I might get the crystal back," she said, before Heathcliff could ask why she was there.
Heathcliff was seated at his desk, closing a notebook. "I was just going over with Shirley about getting an expedition set up to start searching for the world that the crystal you dropped is," Heathcliff replied. "Would you like to know more of the details?"
Charlie nodded. "I might as well," she said. "If I know what the details are, then I might be able to help if a chance occurs."
Heathcliff put the notebook in his desk and stood up. "Then come with me, I'll show you the room where I'll be stockpiling supplies."
She began following Heathcliff as he started walking through his house. "By the way, did you know that there are more gates than we have records about?" He commented as they walked past where Charlie knew his dining room was.
"What do you mean?" she asked, confused at the sudden topic change.
"Well, since you opened all the gates, we've found more gates than we could have anticipated in just the last week," Heathcliff said. "And that's all in just the past week."
"Is that a good thing?" Charlie asked. She wasn't sure where this was going to go.
"Oh, it's perfectly alright," Heathcliff replied, a little more jovially than Charlie expected. "It might give us more opportunity than I thought at the start of all this."
"That's good," Charlie said unenthusiastically, she wasn't sure if she should be happy about it or not. This line of conversation wasn't telling her enough to know which way she should go. Dealing with Heathcliff wasn't something that she was as sure about her position as she was with her friends, even though she still felt out of place around them.
"It is indeed," Heathcliff replied, not appearing to have noticed her lack of enthusiasm. "Although, it will complicate matters a little, given that we can't be completely sure which worlds any of the gates connect to. Mapping them will be a challenge in and of itself, but the only way to rectify that will be to start working at it."
"Have you found a way that will let you know if a gate leads to the same world as a different gate?" Charlie asked, wondering if there was going to be a way that would be simpler than moving from world to world and hoping to arrive at the world she needed.
"I think we might," Heathcliff replied. "We're testing a theory out right now, but it might be a while before we can tell if it pans out or not."
Charlie didn't say anything else as they descended a flight of stairs, heading into the basement. At the bottom, Heathcliff opened a door. Inside was a bare room, nothing was remarkable about it as far as she could tell. The floor was concrete and the walls were bare and only painted white. There weren't any outlets that she could see from the doorway and there was only a single lightbulb to light the entire room. It certainly had the look of a storeroom.
"This is the room I'll be storing supplies in," Heathcliff said. "This way if there's a way that we can assist you in your efforts, we'll have supplies that you can access if we're able to find a way that won't raise suspicion."
"No ideas about that yet, either, huh?" she asked, mostly to herself.
"Not yet, but I'm sure we'll be able to come up with something eventually," Heathcliff replied.
She nodded. "What do you have in mind to have your business do since you said you're out of places to create gold for it?" she asked, the thought just entering her mind.
"I'm not sure, but once the world becomes aware of these gates, I could always work at being in charge of mapping of the gates. Probably wouldn't be too difficult to use my magic to cut through the usual backdoor deals and political maneuvering. Then anyone who would look closely, would be find that I was already aware of the gates and had already setting to get that done. Although, its hard to say if the government might try to do other things with it, given how frequently stupid decisions get made for political reasons," Heathcliff said, sounding like he was getting ready to go on a tangent on a topic that really annoyed him.
"Well, that's good, I guess," she interrupted, "but I was thinking of checking to see if my parents were here yet." She didn't think they were, but she doubted that Heathcliff would be aware of that.
"Alright," Heathcliff responded. "Not like there's much else we can do right now," Heathcliff closed the door and let her lead the way back up the stairs.
_
Charlie was relieved to get back home, just like she always had when she'd been at camps in the past. She wasn't surprised to see Cherie watching TV with her best friend when she entered the house.
She had barely started up the stairs when Cherie called out, "Mom, Dad, Charlie! You gotta see this!"
Charlie set her bags at the foot of the stairs and walked over to where Cherie was watching the TV. She didn't know what to expect, but given Cherie hadn't called out to everyone before like that, she was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she had a reason.
As soon as she reached an angle she could see what was on the screen, she stopped cold. The scene was in the middle of the parks between Broadway and Lincoln St. in front of the state capitol in Denver. It wasn't clear to her how this happened, but what it looked like was a young centaur as surprised as those in the crowd around it.
The centaur didn't wear any clothing, but had a bow slung over its left shoulder and a quiver or arrows over the right. Along its back was what appeared birds of some kind, maybe pheasants or quail, that weren't moving. Charlie assumed that the centaur was a hunter or huntress and had shot those birds with the arrows it carried.
As Charlie's mother and father came over to look at the TV, the centaur began to walk backwards slowly, but bolted forwards when police called out for it to stay where it was. Then centaur ran around various people as it tried to get away from the police who were chasing it. The view shifted to an aerial view, so they couldn't see as many details, but had an easier time seeing where it ran.
As the centaur reached Broadway, it turned towards Colfax avenue and dodged cars while it tried to escape the police. When it reached Colfax, it turned towards Lincoln street and continued running, but stopped when it was clear the police had headed it off.
The centaur turned around in a full circle twice before leaping over a car as it started to head back towards the park, but had to stop as a bus moved in its way, where it had to run around the bus. The police were trying to surround it, but were clearly failing, given there were only a handful that had arrived in the area at the moment.
The centaur was making a beeline for the center of the park. More police were arriving and seemed to be trying to surround the park, looking like they were going to try and keep the centaur in the park. However, the centaur disappeared so suddenly that even Charlie almost didn't catch what happened.
The centaur disappeared almost like it had ran through a curtain, which Charlie had seen before when watching others enter Petals' forest, which meant that there was a gate in the middle of the park in front of the state capitol building of Colorado.
She wasn't worried about anyone thinking that she might know more about this than they did, but she was worried about what it might mean. If knowledge of the gates became common, she couldn't say how that might affect her efforts to retrieve the crystal that held Petals' memories.
If she wasn't able to get the crystal back, what would that mean for Petals? She wasn't sure she wanted to contemplate that thought for any length. She could only hope that no one would find a way to locate any and all gates. If they did, would they stop her from going through, even if she learned of a path to the world where that crystal was? Would they also be able to find Petals' forest?