The Unicorn's Forest

Charlie wasn't sure what to expect of her first 'class' with Heathcliff. She entered the room they had been given, partly giddy with trepidation of what she might be able to learn about her magic.

Heathcliff was already in the room when Charlie entered, so she sat at the table across from him, setting her backpack on the floor next to her chair, not sure what else to do.

"So, tell me what you know about the basics of magic," Heathcliff said.

"I thought we agreed that we wouldn't tell you what we know about magic. That you would teach us everything there is, whether we know about it or not," Charlie answered.

Heathcliff sighed. "Very well, if you want this to take longer, so be it," he said, sounding rather annoyed. "So, magic is an energy that everything and everyone has to some extent. Not everyone is capable of connecting with their magic while others connect with it so well, that it's almost like another limb for them that they can use without really thinking about it," Heathcliff said, Charlie suddenly finding herself bored. She knew enough of this already and started to regret not working with Heathcliff when he asked her to tell him what she already knew about the basics of magic.

"Now, if you look inside yourself and allow yourself to feel your body working, you'll hear your heart beating rhythmically, your lung filling and deflating as you breath, but there will be an energy somewhere that you should be able to pick up on. It will be different from anything else you can feel about yourself," Heathcliff continued. "What I want you to do is to identify that energy and pull on it. Like you're trying to pull open a drawer to a desk or cupboard and focus on something simple you want to happen with that. It doesn't have to be big. Small might be better at this stage anyway."

Charlie was sure that Heathcliff was patronizing her, just because of her refusal to tell him anything they already knew about magic. As it is, her mind was already starting to wander.

"Okay, now I want you to first identify your magic, then pull on it while focusing on a simple image in your mind. It doesn't matter what it is, just focus on it," Heathcliff said.

Charlie sighed and immediately held out her hand, already bringing to life her blue flower made up of flames.

"Very good," Heathcliff praised, which sounded rather patronizing to Charlie. "Now, the next step you'll need to take…"

Charlie couldn't help but let her attention wander. He was going over material that she'd already gotten down. Although, to be fair, she had insisted that he start with the basics. She just hadn't realized how boring it would be.

What came to mind for Charlie, however, was the night before when she'd been making out with Alex. She wondered if maybe she should limit times where they make out, otherwise whatever had been happening then might occur later and Charlie wasn't sure if she'd be able to stop then. All she knew was that her body was suddenly craving that while her mind was still unsure about whether or not she should do that.

She thought maybe she should talk with Alex about it soon. She'd contemplated some of this during the day, like during her English class, but overall, she hadn't been able to make any decisions about what she should or shouldn't do up to now. So, talking with Alex about it seemed like a good way to go.

Besides, she wasn't sure how much Alex had planned all of that happening or if she'd actually gone over to talk with her then with other plans in mind. Especially since she mentioned about the movie 'Beaches,' which had seemed out of place. She wasn't sure, but she had a feeling that if she didn't talk with Alex about what they did, it would happen again and the next time Charlie was probably going to end up incredibly uncomfortable by whatever would happen after all that.

"Excuse me," Heathcliff said, jolting Charlie back to the present. "Am I boring you?"

Charlie so badly wanted to say 'Yeah, you are.' However, she recognized she was still in school, and that sounded like something Ralph would say to a teacher a moment before they gave him detention

Instead, she went with a different approach. "No, it's not," Charlie replied, hoping that she wouldn't press on the matter.

"Really?" Heathcliff asked. "I'd have hoped that would have been the case, since I went over a lot of things I'm pretty sure you already know."

Charlie sighed. Apparently his being boring had been intentional Maybe it was his way of getting back at her or something. Either way, she wondered how much he believed her when she said it wasn't boring.

"It's always good to have a refresher," Charlie replied, making sure to be as innocent as she could with her answer. Right now she didn't want another headache to occur with all she was already dealing with.

"Well, that's good then," Heathcliff said. "Please demonstrate what I just asked you to do then."

Charlie felt a momentary surge of panic. He'd asked her to do something? She had no idea what it was, but couldn't say she didn't catch it, otherwise it would be obvious she hadn't been paying attention.

However, as the panic subsided, she realized exactly what excuse she could use to get out of the predicament she was in at the moment.

"Sorry, but I forgot what you wanted me to demonstrate," Charlie said, maintaining her 'innocent' expression. "When you asked me if I found what you were saying boring, it slipped my mind as we started talking about that."

Heathcliff sighed. "If you need to, then take notes. That way you can reference them if this happens again," he told her. Then under his breath, he added, "This is why I didn't go into teaching in the first place."

Charlie rummaged through her backpack to get some paper out. While she had hoped her excuse would get her off the hook, it seems that it was a one-time use excuse with Heathcliff. Which meant she probably wasn't going to be able to use much of this time to sort out her personal problems.

"So, what was the demonstration again?" Charlie asked, once she had her paper and a pencil ready.

"I wanted you to show me with your magic what it feels like to you. The appearance your magic takes in your mind will tell us if there's any elements or areas of magic that you have an affinity for," Heathcliff replied.

Charlie sighed. While she was pretty sure what magic came naturally to her, she actually hadn't gone over this part of her magic. So, she thought that there might be some parts of the basics that would indeed be useful to know.

So, she thought about how it had looked when she first had her magic unsealed as well as when she drew on it for her dream conferences, and using her magic, she sent that image to Heathcliff.

Heathcliff, however sighed and shook his head. "I meant for you to use your magic to create the image in front of us," he explained. "I can't easily point out what parts mean what if I can't show you where it is."

"Oh, okay," Charlie said, pulling on her magic with the image in her mind, going for an image of it in the air in front of them.

"You forgot your incantation," Heathcliff reproved Charlie.

"No I didn't," Charlie replied, letting the image dissipate. "I used my focus for it." Charlie lifted up the butterfly necklace briefly as she mentioned her focus.

Heathcliff sighed. "And I told you that you need to get used to using incantations to use your magic. Those are needed for unlocking the greater parts of magic and will be necessary for large, elaborate spells that take a while to build the necessary energy for."

"Fine," Charlie said, feeling like she should be charitable with Heathcliff's demand.

However, she merely made up some nonsense statement as she worked with her focus to generate the image again. Heathcliff seemed pleased with Charlie's 'incantation' even though Charlie didn't try to hide her annoyance.

"So, as we look at it, here's what we're looking for…" Heathcliff explained as Charlie followed where he indicated and what likely meant what.

_

As Charlie closed her locker, she was a little surprised to see Beth approaching her with an apologetic expression on her face.

"What's wrong?" Charlie asked.

"I have to bail on you today," Beth replied. "Something came up and it looks like we won't be able to hang out after school anymore, outside of our hiking club meetings."

"Well, thanks. Maybe we can hang out afterwards," Charlie suggested.

"Maybe," Beth said. "See ya."

"Bye," Charlie said, feeling a little strange. She was alone again, yet she suddenly felt scared. She couldn't think of why, yet the feelings were still there.

–What came up today was the rest of us got notified from various people about how they'll be teaching us to work with our magic.– Beth said with her magic as she was walking away. –Like how you got Heathcliff to teach you during the school day.–

–Who're you meeting with?– Charlie asked.

–Shirley. Not sure who chose who would teach us, but I think it's probably going to be pretty much a daily thing. Or at least until we start our expedition.– Beth answered.

–Okay, well let me know when you're done. Maybe we can at least just talk about it after.– Charlie said, not understanding why it was that she suddenly felt so vulnerable. Though, she continued on making her way out of the school, heading home, for some reason starting to feel like she was in a horror or slasher movie when she could be the first one killed.

In fact, she jumped when her phone suddenly rang as she was going out of sight of the school. As soon as she realized it was her phone, she quickly pulled it out and found it was Alex calling.

"Hello?" Charlie said as she answered her phone.

"Hey, Charlie," Alex said. "Beth said that something came up and that you weren't going to hang out with her today."

"Yeah, I'm by myself," Charlie said, more than a little conscious of how loud the wind was blowing right then.

"Would you like to visit my house?" Alex asked. "We could hang out in my room there."

"Just us?" Charlie asked, unsure if she should, given what had almost happened the night before.

"Well, my grandma will be in the house, but I'm sure she'll be okay with you visiting," Alex said.

"Okay, where should I go?" Charlie asked, mostly agreeing so she wouldn't feel so scared at the moment.

"Meet me in the parking lot," Alex said. "My grandma said she'd pick me up today. She had a board meeting that let out early, so she should be by in a few."

"Okay," Charlie said, starting to walk back to the school, feeling a little better about heading back to the school, where there were other people.

She wasn't sure if Beth had thought Charlie needed to be with someone right then, but she was happy about this change. The only thing she needed to worry about was if Alex was going to try and get under her skirt again.

Charlie sighed as she saw Alex at the parking lot, feeling rather relieved at seeing her. Part of her mind had been wondering if she was either imagining it or it was some plot by the 'killer' to get her here where she would be killed, either from an 'accident' or through some gruesome means.

She briefly wondered if she should talk to Ralph about his choice in movies. She was pretty sure those were having an effect on her when she's unexpectedly by herself. Even if they were old and you could see through the special effects they had then, given how advanced special effects had improved since then.

Shaking her head, trying to get rid of those thoughts from her head, she approached Alex. When she was around thirty feet away, Alex saw Charlie and waved at her.

Charlie wave back as she smile, feeling relieved she was around another person. She wasn't sure exactly how long it had been since she'd walked home by herself, but was happy that it wasn't going to end today at least. Especially since she hadn't had any time to mentally prepare for it.

"Glad you could make it," Alex said.

"Well, you invited me," Charlie replied. "Why wouldn't I be able to make it?"

Alex started scratching the back of her head, looking rather nervous suddenly. "Well, my grandma isn't exactly the most patient person around. If you weren't here by the time she showed up, she wasn't likely to wait for you."

"I guess it is a good thing I got here before her then," Charlie said, unsure how she would have felt if Alex had already gotten picked up and left before she got there.

"Don't worry, she's about five minutes out still," Alex assured Charlie. "I just wasn't sure if you had detention or a class you had to stay late for."

"Come on!" Charlie said as she poked Alex's side. "You should know that I don't have any of that today." Charlie took a deep breath before continuing. "We have the last class together, so you know I'd have let you know if anything like that had happened. Even though we're seated in opposite sides of the room, we'd still have a brief minute before and after the class to talk about it. Then we have homeroom again after that. So, why wouldn't I have been able to tell you then?"

"Okay, okay," Alex replied. "I get the point. Though, that's not to say something couldn't have come up after. Then there's also the fact that you might not have thought about it or forgotten about it yourself."

Charlie chuckled. "Yeah, I guess, though I probably would have mentioned it when you called, regardless."

"Maybe, but it still was a worry in my mind," Alex said.

Charlie nodded enjoyed being next to her girlfriend while they waited, both of them enjoying a comfortable silence. The only thing that would have made it better for Charlie was if it had been planned earlier rather than having this all occur last minute, giving her the uneasy feeling of possibly being in a horror movie.

"There she is!" Alex suddenly said, pointing at a maroon SUV that was just entering the parking lot. "Don't worry about how she'll react to you. I'll do the talking, okay?"

"Uh, okay?" Charlie asked, not sure if she should be nervous from that statement alone or not.

As the SUV pulls up in front of Alex and Charlie, Alex opens the passenger door and leans in. "Grandma, would it be alright if I had a friend over? She's the one I took to the homecoming dance with."

Charlie waited patiently, though she could really hear the response. Although, based on Alex's reaction, it looked like permission was granted.

"Thanks!" Alex said excitedly before turning to Charlie. "She said that it was okay. So, get in!"