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 was approaching 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 able to 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. "Not sure how to explain a few of the finer details, though."
"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?