The Unicorn's Forest

Heathcliff was pleased when he entered his office to find Nick, Shirley, and Cassie were waiting. He'd told them he'd like to see them this morning and saw that he wouldn't have to wait for all of them to get here. That would make this go smoother.

"Do any of you know why I asked you to meet with me today?" Heathcliff asked. Wondering if any of them might have an idea that would be close to what he was thinking about.

"My guess is that this has to do with that Rivers girl," Shirley said.

Heathcliff didn't respond. He merely waited to see if Nick or Cassie had a suggestion.

"My guess is that you have a plan about the expeditions through the gates," Cassie offered.

Nick remained silent for a minute longer. Finally he suggested, "maybe we'll be working on a way to get Charlie Rivers' friends on our side. Including the Rivers girl."

Heathcliff nodded. All of the thoughts had merit in and of themselves. Though, technically Shirley was the closest, he couldn't deny that Nick had part of his suggestion about the same as Shirley's.

"First, we will get to the expeditions, in a way, and Charlie Rivers' friends are a subject that we'll need to deal with, but right now my main focus is on Charlie Rivers," Heathcliff said. "In regards to her friends, it seems like she's either now or will eventually be the leader of that group. So, if we secure her loyalty now we then will secure the loyalty of her group of friends." Heathcliff paused to look at Shirley. "What I'll need you to do is find a way to seduce the girl."

"Wait, what?!" Shirley cried in surprise, and maybe alarm.

"From what I could tell, she has a crush on you. If you can seduce her, then her mind will be vulnerable for you to place an enchantment on her that will have her view us in a more favorable light, regardless of what we do or that she sees," Heathcliff answered. "Or in essence completey compliant with us."

"You realize that, one, this is very much like we've been telling that Emily girl is wrong to do and so is rather hypocritical. Two, I'm really not comfortable with doing this. Even if she was supposed to save the world or something ridiculous like that, and this was the only way to get her on board with that, I'd still find it reprehensible. Three, even if I do this, I'm not confident that I'll be able to follow through with it when it matters, that I might hesitate when I need to move quickly. Then, four, you realize what the cost of this will be if it doesn't work the way you want it to, right? Who knows what that girl or her friends might decide to do, even if it does work how you want it to." Shirley replied rather heatedly. "Five, this girl is just a kid. You know I don't like messing with little kids like that. And six, this plan is likely illegal. Even with magic to smooth things over, there's so many ways this can go south legally. If that does happen, I'm not going to be the only one going down.

"You have some valid points, but the decision has been made. Naturally, you have a choice in this, but at the same time, if you're not willing to do this, then that could limit what we might be able to trust you with down the road," Heathcliff calmly explained, not really concerned with any legal repercussions. "The result will be the same if you tip her off in any manner to sabotage this effort."

Shirley glared at him, clearly unhappy with the whole situation. "Fine," was all she would say in response.

Heathcliff turned to Nick. "I'll expect you to help her in any manner you can. Such as acting like you're still trying to get her in your bed, which will put her on edge and maybe push her towards Shirley. However all of you want to set it up so the plan can work is fine. Once that plan is in motion, I'll need you and Cassie to keep Charlie's friends from interfering. I'm confident that they will if they learn what Shirley will be doing. Also, Shirley will the one who will be in charge of this. So, she's the one who gets to take the lead. Once you've gotten that done, then we'll see what occurs then. Do whatever you can to make sure this plan succeeds," Heathcliff said.

"You say all this like they'll be hanging out with us soon," Cassie said. "What do you have in mind for that? I mean, it's not like we live by where they live, so it would be weird if we suddenly start hanging out with kids when we're not even from the same neighborhood."

Heathcliff nodded. It was good that details like that were detected before he had to explain that part. "I looked at the school schedule for this upcoming year and their school year is set to start on the seventeenth of August. So, I propose that you offer to bring them on a weekend hike in the mountains this next weekend. They're working at getting themselves ready for their own expedition, which includes getting used to walking. You can use the excuse that you were counselors at my math camp as to why you thought of inviting Charlie. You shouldn't mention her friends, other than offering to let her invite others on the trip. It also might help if you invite other friends of yours, so it'll seem more like a end of summer break trip than anything else," Heathcliff said.

"Any requirements of what friends we ask to join us?" Nick asked.

"So long as they know not to interfere with Shirley doing what she needs to do to Charlie Rivers, I have no requirements," Heathcliff answered. "You could even bring those who don't have magic if they know not to interfere."

The discussion moved on to finer details of what they'd be doing. Through the discussion, Heathcliff kept glancing at Shirley. He knew his niece wasn't happy about her task, but he was confident that she'd do what she needed to do, regardless of her own personal feelings. Then by the time they broke for lunch, he was confident that all three would do what they need to do to get this done.

_

Charlie was a little shocked at how quickly the week went by. It hardly felt like time had gone by. The biggest problems she had with staying at Beth's was how Beth pulled her into helping her with Katie and Lisa. Partly Charlie helped keep them occupied in the evenings before they went to bed and partly she was shanghaied into giving them baths. Beth used the excuse that Charlie would be able to have some experience with wrangling children if she even decided to have kids of her own or even if she decided to try and get extra money through babysitting.

Charlie was uncomfortable with being around Katie and Lisa when they were naked, but they were four and five, so that fact helped relieve a little of that discomfort for her. If it was Stacie or Beth herself, then Charlie would have really had problems with it. Though, it did bring to mind for Charlie what would she do if she did really start dating someone. The person she thought most of in regards to that was Alex. How would she react if she and Alex started to have sex or anything leading up to that. Even thinking about it made Charlie's face heat up in utter embarrassment in addition to feeling extremely uncomfortable with the thoughts.

"You know you could do your laundry here," Beth said again as Charlie put her dirty clothing in her bag after having changed to be ready for the day in the morning.

"Yeah, but I still would rather do it at home," Charlie replied.

"So your mom can do it?" Beth asked.

"No, I do it myself, but I also know the quirks of the washer and dryer, so I know what to expect on how long it'll take."

"Even if you don't know how long it'll take exactly, it would still save time," Beth commented offhandedly. "Especially since I thought you said you planned on going home around noon."

"I'm fine with my way," Charlie replied.

"Well, if that's the case, ready to go take our daily walk?" Beth asked.

"Of course."

During the past week, after they were done with their breakfast and getting dressed for the day, both had started walking around the block Beth's house was technically on, which usually took a couple hours due to just how big the 'block' was in the rural area. Mostly it was a way to begin getting ready to be used to walking long distances for days on end when they were ready to begin their expedition to get the crystal back.

While they walked, they usually talked about topics that were relevant for both of them or walked in companionable silence. This day, they had started out in silence, enjoying the crisp air left after the thunderstorm the night before, but then they encountered Amelia when they were around halfway done with their walk.

"What're you doing here?" Beth asked as Amelia came up on them, riding her bike.

"Just going for a ride," Amelia said, getting off of her bike to walk with them. "Though, I recently found a new use of my magic when I was playing with the twins."

"Didn't we agree not to use magic around our families so they won't find out about it?" Beth asked.

"Don't worry, I did it as if it was part of the game we were playing," Amelia said. "I used my hands to scan them. The game was that I was the security check-point and had to scan them. While I did that, I used my magic to check their bodies to learn what I could about them."

"What use would that be?" Charlie asked, a little confused.

"It's very useful. I could tell that Derek had a stomach ache from having had too much cereal that morning, but was doing good to not let it show. Then Theresa was eating maybe a little too much yogurt. I wouldn't be surprised if Derek was giving her his. And lastly, Kristin was still overdoing it with her daily exercises."

Beth nodded. "Not bad. Certainly could be useful while were going from world to world," Beth mused. "You never know what diseases we might get exposed to."

Charlie still hadn't met Kristin, but wasn't that bothered by it. While Amelia spent a lot of time with them, despite how much she seemed to have missed her older sister while she was away at college, there seemed to be an understanding between the two sisters that they'd spend time together when they did. That they didn't need to hang out all the time, though Charlie had the feeling that Kristin preferred not hanging around her sister's friends.

"How long do you really think we might be gone?" Amelia asked, her tone distant.

"I really hope it's not long, but I really can't say," Charlie replied. "I'm sure you don't want to be away from your family for long and I don't want to be away from mine either, but if you don't want to go with me, then I'll understand."

"Charlie stop," Beth told Charlie flatly. "We know it's going to be difficult for all of us, but we've already committed ourselves to it. You might want to do this on your own, but you need to realize that you can't do everything that comes up in your life by yourself. I'm sure humans are social creatures for a reason. That we need each other to help when our own abilities fall short."

"I understand that," Charlie protested. "But I still want to make sure that everyone knows that if they want to change their mind, they can. I'm not going to hold them to that promise if they start wanting out."

"Don't worry, they know," Beth assured Charlie, putting her arm over Charlie's shoulders.

"What you should be worried about is what supplies we should bring. Not only will the more people we bring allow us to carry more stuff, but we'll also need more food to keep us going. Not only will we need to figure out how much food to bring, but how will we replace the food we eat and with what," Amelia commented.

"I'm sure I'll figure something out," Charlie said.

Beth sighed. "There you go again planning on going by yourself through this."

"You should know that we're not going to let you go by yourself. After all, you're our friend. We wouldn't be very good friends if we let you do this on your own," Amelia said. "And that's not counting how Petals is our friend too, if we let you take helping her on all by yourself, then you're taking from us the chance to be a friend to her as well."

Charlie stopped talking, as it was clear that no matter what she said, it wasn't going to be allowed to go anywhere. She could tell that at this point, she was pretty much trapped and didn't have a choice on whether her friends accompanied her or not. She wasn't wanting them to join her because of the danger that she expected, but each time they made it clear that they were joining her, it did make her feel better, though she was still annoyed that they weren't letting her work on setting out on her own.

After she came to that conclusion, she sighed. "Fine, I'll let you guys join me. Just keep in mind that I'm still not happy about it."

Beth and Amelia laughed. "Don't worry," Beth said. "We can read you like a book. If you try to sneak off, we'll know. Besides, I don't think you realize just how well we communicate with each other when it comes to what we think you might do."

Charlie couldn't decide if she should be mad or happy that they were doing that. Part of her was telling her that she should be upset, while another was telling her that she should be happy. It was a complicated situation and Charlie wasn't sure she liked being in it.

"By the way, Charlie," Beth said after they'd continued walking for a minute in silence. "We're going to have to talk about what clothes you shouldn't bring on such an expedition."

Charlie was surprised. It was a change in topic that felt like it came from left field. "What do you mean? I only pack what I'd need," Charlie couldn't think of what would be wrong with any other clothing she'd pack.

"Seriously Charlie," Amelia added. "Even Hannah agrees with this. We've seen that you prefer wearing skirts and those wouldn't be practical on what we've talked about doing. If you don't want to wear jeans or capris that's fine, but you can at least wear shorts."

"What's wrong with skirts?" Charlie protested.

"Nothing in and of themselves," Beth replied. "It's when you're walking long distances, shorts will be easier to move in if you need to suddenly run and, I'm sure you'll appreciate this point more than the rest of us but if you do have to run or jump down from a ledge, what's to stop your skirt from blowing up, letting everyone see what's underneath?"

Charlie thought about that point for a minute and felt her face begin to heat up as she realized the exact implications of the statement.

"Fine," Charlie relented. "I'll leave the skirts, even ones I planned on wearing when we'd take a break from traveling to do laundry." She sighed in defeat, but after a moment she added, "But I'm still bringing my nightgown. I don't like regular pajamas, so I won't budge on that."

"I guess we can work with that," Beth replied.

"Yeah, we can compromise on that, since who knows what kind of lighting there will be at night on any of the other worlds we go to?" Amelia commented.

Charlie got the feeling they were amused at her insistence of a nightgown, but couldn't think of anything to respond further with, so let it go.