"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 into 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 back at Berthoud Pass.
"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 reasons, 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 regard 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 go on 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 to, 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.