Charlotte walked up to her door, shouting, "Willow? Are you here yet?"
"Who's Willow, darling?"
Charlotte nearly jumped a foot in the air at the sound of her mother's voice. "Mom! I thought you were on a business trip."
They hugged and Annette Watsford smiled. "Got home a day early. Who were you looking for?"
"Um, Willow. She's my..." Charlotte quickly searched her brain for a believable lie. "Tutor. She's my new tutor in... English."
Annette gasped in surprise. "Oh, Charlotte, I didn't know you were doing bad in English."
Of course she felt bad for lying to mother, but she had already lied about being a mermaid, why not continue to lie about being a vampire Slayer?
"No, I'm not doing bad, she's just tutoring me before I get bad," Charlotte laughed as convincingly as she could, passing it off as a joke.
Thankfully, her mother's ringing phone prevented any more questions, and Charlotte quickly ran to her room. She grabbed her phone and dialed Willow's number, but only got her voicemail.
"Hi, this is Willow, I'm sorry I'm missed your call, but if you leave your name and number I'll make sure to call you back."
"Willow, it's Charlotte. Where are you? I'm at home, I thought you'd be here too." She kept her voice low, but the urgency was very prominent. "Look, just call me when you get this-"
"Charlotte! Can you come down here, please?"
"Oh yeah, and my mom's home too," she quickly added, "She doesn't know about this whole 'Slayer' business and I'd rather she didn't."
XOXOXOXOXOX
On the shores of Mako Island, Willow's phone rang out unanswered in her abandoned boat. In the Moon Pool, however, she was still gaping at the sight before her.
She had seen a lot of things in the nearly ten years she had spent with Buffy and the Scooby Gang. Trolls, vengenance demons, gods from other dimensions, heck, the very first evil. But it never crossed her mind that mermaids might be real. She certainly did not expect that the three girls that Charlotte had pointed out just that moning to have long, orange fish tails.
"Okay, guys," one began, Rikki, Willow remembered. "Are we going to Charlotte's house tomorrow, yes or no?"
"I think we should," Emma said, "Lewis said that she had something to tell us."
"Yeah, I don't see why not," Cleo added.
Was Charlotte going to tell them about her being a Slayer? Did Charlotte know about these three being mermaids? She had asked if they were real, and she had said that the three in front of her were friends. Willow slowly crept back, careful not to make a noise so she wouldn't draw attention to herself. This had gotten way too bizarre. Willow had only planned on telling Charlotte about her Slayer birthright and convincing her mother to let Charlotte come back with her. But now there was magic islands and mermaids that Willow knew had had legs that morning.
She whispered a quick spell at the bottom of the tunnel where she had fallen in, and quickly found herself at the top, on the rocks. She started running to the beach, anxious to get back to Charlotte's house.