Chapter 1:
It was an unusually warm day, no clouds in the sky and barely any wind to push the warm air around. The sun itself was hanging just above the horizon and was already starting to turn the sky a deep orange colour hours before sunset. The weather stood in stark contrast to the forecasts that had warned on a heavy rainstorm that was fast approaching from the Atlantic and had already swept over the west of the country.
For once Charlotte was happy that the weather forecasts had been wrong, even if they had simply ended up being early in their prediction. She had been walking the long uphill home and although she had a raincoat and umbrella at the ready, walking through heavy rain was never a fun experience.
Charlotte had been at the University library since the morning and instead of spending money on a bus or taxi, she had taken advantage of the weather and decided to walk instead. It wasn't unusual for her to make this walk, but she had kept making the mistake of thinking the walk would be easy. Instead of easy, she was exhausted from the near hour long experience of struggling along the streets that were all up hill.
The only relief she had was that she had just turned onto her street and could see the house she was aiming for at the other end. It was a detached, 3 bedroom house, where one side overlooked the crest of the town spanning hill, that she had been painfully walking up. It was by far the largest and most expensive house she had even spent time in.
When applying for university positions Charlotte had been searching through both the university accommodations as well as extremely small student flats in the area. This was until Victoria had found out that they were applying for the same university and she made the offer for Charlotte to stay with her instead. She had accepted her offer long before knowing where Victoria was even talking about, the chance to live with her being far too great an opportunity to pass up.
On seeing the house for the first time though, Charlotte interrogated Victoria, half convinced she had murdered its legal owners. As well as being of the mind that there was no way Victoria could have been living here, even less that she could offer space to Charlotte so easily. Yet, Victoria had assured her that it was a home that belonged to her family, but had sat empty for some time. And that Victoria had been given the house, at least for the duration of her being a student.
The walk up this last road reminded Charlotte of how quiet this part of the town could be. It had been a few minutes since she had heard a car engine and it had been longer since she had seen anyone walking about. It was a world of difference to the rest of way she had walked, with it getting busier and louder the further down the hill she was.
The quiet allowed Charlotte's mind to wander and get distracted by various trails of thought, so much so that it felt to Charlotte that she reached the end of the road much faster than she should have done. She stood outside the front garden gate and looked at the house in an awe that never seemed to diminish.
She pushed open the gate and walked up the small compacted dirt path to the front door, making sure to close and lock the gate behind her. Charlotte then reached for the house keys in the front pockets of her jeans and entered the house. None of the light were on and Charlotte couldn't hear noise coming from the TV or any other appliance, meaning that Victoria wasn't home.
Charlotte walked across the entrance hall, a reasonably open space with a wooden floor that connected to carpeted stairs. The stairs were close to the door on the left wall with an entranceway on the right wall for the living room. She dragged her backpack off her shoulders, onto the floor, and sat down heavily on the bottom step, creating a loud bump sound. From here she untied and pulled off her walking boots and chucked them forward towards the door. She picked the backpack back up and slowly walked up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs she was met with 5 doors. To the left was Victoria's room, in front of her was the bathroom, to her right and directly across from Victoria's door was the door to Charlotte's room. To the right of that was the door to a larger bedroom that the two of them only occasionally used, as well as a door to the rear of where Charlotte was stood on the stairs which was a mixture of a store room and a study.
Victoria's door was open slightly, but there was no lights or noise to suggest Victoria or anyone else was inside. Charlotte spun to her right and rushed forward through her door, she kept going until she reached her bed in the back right corner of the room, where she dumped her bag down and flopped down onto her bed.
The room had a dark red carpet and burgundy painted walls, making the room feel darker even with a large window at the back of the room, just above the bed. To the side of the bed was a wide 3 drawer dresser, made from black wooden panels, with an assortment of random books and papers resting on top along with a digital alarm clock.
In the back left of the room, bumping up against the dresser, was an L shaped table, made of the same material as the dresser, that was anchored directly to the wall. On the table was a mess of random items, so much so that not even Charlotte properly knew what was there. With the only clean space being a small rectangle that contained a PC monitor, Keyboard and mouse that had wires that trailed down to the tower below the desk.
In the middle of the room was a wheeled office chair with a thin pink blanket, used to cushion it slightly and protect the chair. Charlotte had pushed the chair out when she had last gotten out from it and hadn't pushed it back in. Lastly, just next to the door was a large oval shaped standing mirror made with a brass plated frame.
Charlotte spent a good few minutes face down in her pillow, letting the aching pain in her legs and shoulders slowly subside. As her body began to relax she was hit with a feeling of great tiredness, that was inviting her to stay on the comfort of her bed. She resisted this by rolling onto her side to look at the time on her bedside digital clock.
The clock read 16:24. Two things ran through Charlotte's mind at seeing the time. Firstly that it was way too early for her to go to sleep yet. She in theory had tasked herself with at least 2 hours worth of work when at home, as well as trying to keep her sleep schedule in check. Not that she had ever been able to keep to these self imposed restrictions. And secondly that Victoria would be back soon and Charlotte was pretty sure that it was her turn on the schedule to cook food.
With some effort and mental anguish, Charlotte pushed herself up into a sitting position and stood up from her bed. She reached over to the dresser to her side and pulled out a basic black skirt and a reasonably thick pink buttoned shirt from the top drawer. She fell backwards onto her bed again and began changing out of her worn clothes.
She started by unzipping the grey hoodie she was wearing and pulling out her right arm and then to her left. Although when she pulled on her left arm she closed her eyes and turned her head to her right. She kept her eyes closed as she pulled off her t-shirt, throwing it to the side roughly with the hoodie. She reached for the new shirt and slowly managed to put her left arm through the sleeve hole, where she opened her eyes again but refused to look down at her left side.
She continued with putting her other arm in the shirt and buttoning it up, followed by replacing her jeans with the skirt. Charlotte took a quick look at the ever growing pile of worn clothes at the end of her bed before pushing herself back up off the bed and walking over to the mirror by her door.
Charlotte paused for a few minutes inspecting her reflection. Her blonde hair was still up in the quick ponytail she had made earlier in the morning, even though it had become a fuzzy mess with loose hairs escaping the hair band. She stared for a second at her familiar brown eyes, now surrounded by signs of exhaustion and lack of sleep.
The shirt managed to cover most of her body from below her neck, with only her hands exposed. But there was a clear blue light, in the middle of her chest, that was glowing through the pink fabric. Charlotte undid the top button of her shirt and pulled on the golden chain that was around her neck, letting the gemstone fall on top of her shirt and on display.
A blue gemstone encased inside a golden cage, with shimmering white lights inside, that had stayed around her neck for some years now. Yet her eyes were drawn only to a small puff of blackness that was swirling at speed inside the gemstone, consuming the shimmering lights as it went. It hadn't grown big enough to worry Charlotte yet, but it was only a matter of time.
Below her skirt her legs were a mixture of black and yellow bruising and reddened skin. In recent months it had seemed as if she had gaining a collection of bruises that were refusing to fade away, even if the pain was mostly gone. Victoria had suggested using some kind of magic to clear the skin up, but Charlotte had refused. She wanted to know that her body could heal on in its own way. Her body was starting to prove that the opposite was true.
Charlotte sighed, she had hoped that the reflection would have shown some improvement and it was saddening that that had not been the case. She lingered at the mirror long enough for her mind to go blank of thoughts or action. It took her vision staring to go dark and blurry for Charlotte to pull herself away from the mirror and to start breathing again.
Without a look back at the mirror or the room, Charlotte rushed out the door of her room and sped down the staircase. With two steps left till the bottom she jumped forward, grabbed tight against the bannister just before the floor and swung herself around so that she was facing the door to the living room.
She kept up the speedy pace when entering the living room. It was the biggest room in the house and they had managed to keep the spacious feel with minimal furniture and clutter. At the front of the room was a large layout of windows that spanned that entire wall, with one window angled to look at the entrance pathway. Although currently the beige coloured curtains remained drawn across, blocking out most of the sun's light.
In the room they had a 3 person sofa with two cushioned armchairs that flanked either side of it. The sofa was roughly in the middle of the room, back facing towards the door, forward facing towards a carved stone mantelpiece that framed an empty fireplace. Between the sofa and the fireplace was a knee height wooden table, made from two shelves connected to four corner posts, with place mats for drinks on the top shelf. Attached to the wall above the mantelpiece was a TV that was just smaller than the width of the fireplace.
On the wall opposite the fireplace, left of the doorway, were two cabinets that were just too tall for Charlotte to reach the top of. The cabinets had glass doors on their top half, with shelves that were displaying a small collection of ceramic ornaments alongside multiple painted plastic figurines. Whilst the bottom halves were normal wooden doors with brass metal knobs on the front.
Further in the room was a dining table with 4 padded dining chairs pushed neatly under it. The table itself was clear other than a pot of salt and a bottle of ketchup that had been left in the middle. On the left of the table was the door to the kitchen, whilst on the rear end of the table was the door to the rear extension and towards the garden.
Charlotte rushed between the sofa and the right side armchair and came to a sliding stop, her socks having minimal friction on the wooden floor, just before crashing into the mantelpiece. She spent a second scanning the mantelpiece for the TV remote, finding it placed off to the left of where it normally sat.
Charlotte went straight for the remote with her left hand and the power button on the side of the screen with her right. The screen promptly turned on, but it took a few seconds for it to properly boot up to a menu screen. The moment it was ready, Charlotte navigated to Youtube on muscle memory and turned on a music playlist that she and Victoria had been slowly building up.
She waited the few seconds that it was taking to load, in order to check what would play first. Hand ready on the remote to skip to another song if it was something ridiculous sounding. She gave a contented nod and almost threw the remote back up on the mantelpiece when she saw that Within Temptation was loading. Spinning on her toes she faced towards the kitchen door at the other end of the room and started walking to the kitchen, now more comfortable that there was some form of background noise in the house.
The kitchen was a more compact room, with the edges all around being taken up by something. Although this created a flat surface all the way around the edge of the kitchen, broken only by the sink and the burners of the gas hob. The gas hob was connected to an oven directly below it, similarly the sink was had a dishwasher underneath it.
There was a number of storage cabinets both on the ground and up at head height. Yet a large consecutive space on the floor, next to the door, had been put aside for two small square fridges and a freezer that were all creating a low buzzing noise that Charlotte had long since been able to tune out of hearing.
Charlotte leaned down to the fridge closest to the door and pulled a magnetic whiteboard off and placed it on the counter top above. The board was split up into 7 vertical slices, one for each day of the week. All of the days had notes written in them, 4 of them in a light blue colour with the other 3 in red. Victoria had assigned herself the blue colour and Charlotte the red and at the start of each week they would agree on what meals each of them would make, with Charlotte generally cooking on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Charlotte placed her finger over the Wednesday section and moved her hand a long as she read it. "Spaghetti + cooked meat". She was thankful that Victoria's handwriting was much better than her own and that she was given the easier to cook meals.
She made a quick check around the cupboards and fridges, taking out the few things she needed for the meal. Primarily checking that the sausages she intended to cook were still in date and that there was enough spaghetti in the packet for both of them. With everything out and ready she started work on cooking and hoped that she hadn't started too early for Victoria.
Charlotte wasn't there for too long before she heard the front door open and close. She had just started frying the sausages, whilst the spaghetti had been cooking in boiling water for a minute or two already now. The sound of the oil and fat in the frying pan quickly blocked out any chance of Charlotte hearing Victoria walking around. However she turned the cooker down slightly and tentatively walked away from the pan towards the kitchen door.
Charlotte poked her head around the door to see Victoria slowly moving behind the sofa and towards the kitchen. Unlike Charlotte, Victoria hadn't changed out of her university clothes and was wearing a formal outfit that Charlotte had no idea how she was comfortable in.
She wore a well fitting black blazer, with the buttons fastened, on top of a dark brown shirt. This accompanied a dark brown pleated skirt and thick black tights that led into reasonably formal black shoes, that were still somehow shiny.
Her hair had an intricate braid running around the sides of her forehead, with the remaining hair being pulled back in a plaited ponytail. This was being held in place by a combination of a hairband, that blended with the colour of her light brown hair, and two red ribbons that had been tied tight at the top and bottom of the ponytail.
Around the sides of her neck, peeking from under her shirt, was a silver chain that ran down to her chest. Charlotte knew that at the end of the chain was a golden band ring that had a deep blue gemstone set into the metal. It was much like her own gemstone pendant hanging from her own neck, but much smaller.
The look on Victoria's face was one of exhaustion mixed with annoyance, reinforced by how she practically threw her black canvas shoulder bag onto the sofa. The bag bounced and nearly tipped forward onto the floor, due to the weight of whatever was inside of it. But Victoria did seem to brighten slightly when she looked up towards Charlotte.
Charlotte moved her arm around the door frame and waved towards Victoria, happy to see that she was home safely. Although Charlotte's mind quickly turned to worry as Victoria didn't return the gesture and her face turned to that of mock indignation. Charlotte knew what was coming but had no way of stopping it.
"You promised me that you were meant to be free yesterday and today." Charlotte could tell that even through an amount of feigned annoyance there was an amount of genuine sadness in Victoria's tone. So much so that Charlotte pulled herself back into the kitchen, trying to hide her embarrassment.
Even over the sizzling of sausages and bubbling of the boiling water Charlotte could hear that Victoria had followed in behind her. She checked that the food was okay quickly, before moving to the side and turning towards Victoria who was leaning in the doorway "There was a problem with the group coursework and I had to wait around for people to actually turn up."
Originally Charlotte had assumed that she had nothing scheduled for yesterday, all of her parts of the coursework finished or waiting on others. But a flurry of frantic messages from one of her group members, who had seemingly not even started on the work, forced Charlotte to change plans.
"You know I'd said about this guy Sam before." At hearing the name Victoria rolled her eyes and nodded. Complaints with that name attached had become commonplace. "He was meant to have had a database setup and ready for the rest of us to work on next week. He hadn't even looked at how to do it until we dragged him through it yesterday."
"And then today?" Victoria had lost the mock expression of annoyance and instead more so curious than anything else. She had also moved into the kitchen to look over past Charlotte at the food that was cooking.
"You were already gone by the time I got up and Courtney had asked if I could go down to the library. She wanted to start on things before next week. Get the report side of things up to date. Making sure to accurately track who's done what exactly." Charlotte had a hint of vindictiveness in her voice, knowing that they had put very little completed work against Sam's name.
Charlotte turned back to the cooking for a moment, stirred the spaghetti and twisted the sausages around slightly, before turning back. Victoria had moved to the side and pushed herself up onto an empty part of the kitchen worktop. "You know you could just email a lecturer and get them kicked out your group." Victoria had understood what Charlotte was saying, but was much more vindictive than Charlotte could bring herself to be.
"It's not that bad yet." Charlotte laughed, knowing that Victoria was crueller in her words than in her actual actions. Although it was definitely something that had been discussed and yet to be ruled out. "But why are you dressed so fancy anyway?" Wanting to pivot the conversation away from herself and give her more chance to pay attention to the food.
"Someone decided to be ill this week, so they had to cancel their presentation. I got an email last night asking if I could do my presentation today." Irritation had returned to Victoria's voice and with a quick glance Charlotte could see that she had pulled out her ring and had started moving it between her fingers.
"Wasn't that presentation meant to be on Monday?" Charlotte had watched and listened to Victoria prepare herself for a presentation over the past week. And even though she thought that Victoria was more than prepared, with an extremely well put together presentation, Victoria had never been happy and would constantly make changes and redo practice runs at the slightest issue.
Hearing that Victoria had been pulled in to do it early began to worry for Victoria. Charlotte had no doubt that she was capable of doing it, but there was always the chance that Victoria over thinking things or something small going wrong would put her off completely.
"We had to submit the essay and rough presentation slides this Monday, but my presentation was for next week yea. Didn't help that they had lecturers from other Universities in the room as well. All of which ended up asking questions." Victoria jumped down from the worktop and moved up behind Charlotte. With a loud sigh, as if relaxing her body, she put her arms around Charlotte's waist and pulled her close whilst resting her head on the back of Charlotte's shoulder.
She wasn't expecting Victoria to do this, but Charlotte didn't protest and leaned her head to the side so that it was touching Victoria's. She also crossed her arms around herself and searched for Victoria's hands, which she grabbed hold of. Charlotte could feel a particular patch of heat radiating towards the back of her neck, much hotter than Victoria's touch was. The feeling slowly pulsed as the heat it was radiating intensified and weakened in rhythm with Victoria's calm breathing.
From past experience Charlotte knew that this was Victoria's gemstone. It was one of the few things that Charlotte could truly feel heat in a variety of different temperatures. And more importantly the heat never seemed to burn her, no matter how intense it had been.
Charlotte twisted her head to look down towards Victoria, who was looking up with a contented face. And with a much quieter than before voice Victoria continued speaking, "It's done now though and I think it went well thanks to your help." At this she closed her eyes and held Charlotte tighter and leaned more of her weight onto Charlotte's back.
"You did the work for it, not me." Charlotte spoke in a similarly quiet voice, just enough for Victoria to hear her over the noise from the TV and the cooking in front of them. She continued to look down at Victoria, trying to savour the moment for as long as possible. It was rare for Victoria to seem to still and peaceful and it was certain to not last too long.
The two of them stood there silently for what felt like minutes to Charlotte. And if she couldn't feel the tightness of Victoria's grip Charlotte would have assumed that Victoria had fallen asleep on her shoulder. The warmth from Victoria's gemstone had started to spread out from Charlotte's back and although it had reached a searing heat on the touch, it was nothing but comforting to her.
Victoria broke the quiet with a teasing tone, "You still owe me the day you promised me."
To this, Charlotte pried Victoria's arms off from around her and twisted herself around so that she was properly facing her. Victoria was quick to regain her grip around Charlotte's waist, pulling her close in again, whilst Charlotte loosely put her arms around Victoria's shoulders.
"If you're free tomorrow, we can do whatever you want." Charlotte spoke as she moved her head forward so that their two foreheads were touching. She knew that she had promised that she would be free and didn't want to pass up on spending time with Victoria when they had the opportunity.
"Make that tonight and tomorrow and you have a deal." Victoria responded in a much more assertive tone than anything before. Charlotte could tell she wasn't being asked and more so ordered, yet she had no complaints.
"Once this food is done I'm all yours." Charlotte tried to keep a serious tone, but her red face and smile worked to contradict her feigned seriousness.
Without any warning Victoria pulled Charlotte toward her again and she placed a kiss on Charlotte's cheek, before letting go completely and ducking her head from under Charlotte's arms. Charlotte instantly flushed with both embarrassment and delight and this time she made no attempt to hide it.
"I'm going to go change. So you should probably start getting the food out." Victoria returned to a normal talking voice and slowly walked backwards towards the kitchen door. First gesturing over her shoulder and then towards the gas hob that had been left unattended for some time now. "Don't need you melting spaghetti to the pot again." She added with a smug grin.
This time Charlotte did turn away, trying to hide her shame at being reminded of some of her previous exploits in the kitchen. Charlotte wanted to turn back to watch Victoria leave, but her attention was taken by the lack of water inside with the spaghetti and the small trail of smoke coming up from the sausage pan.
She rushed forward and turned off both the sausages and the spaghetti, which Charlotte hoped that she had gotten to in time. She was going to go for the oven mitts to the side of the gas hob, preparing to pick up and drain what water was left in the spaghetti pot, but she was interrupted by a shout from behind her.
"Charlotte!" Victoria's voice was filled with an urgency that instantly filled her with fear. Charlotte span around, left hand reaching straight for her necklace and right arm out to the side with her fist clenched. Victoria hadn't got much further than the doorway and was standing with her legs bent and her body twisted in what Charlotte knew to be a combat ready stance, the only difference was that Victoria hadn't reached for her own necklace.
Within that moment Charlotte's senses seemed to heighten and she could feel that her hands had instantly started to shake. The peacefulness from before had been shattered, forcing Charlotte back to her normal anxiousness.
"What are you doing here?" Victoria was no longer directing her words towards Charlotte and was speaking into the living room. Charlotte rushed up behind her and looking past Victoria's shoulder confirmed what she was addressing.
Sitting in the middle of the table was a large cat like creature, covered in a mixture of white and pink fur. It had lifeless red eyes, that looked as if cloudy rubies had been implanted in its face. It had a long flowing tail of white fur, that although Charlotte knew it was solid, it looked as if it was a puff of white smoke as it gently waved around.
It had two pointy ears on either side of its head, with a long piece of fur coming down from its ears and floating slightly away from is body. The ends of the fur almost reached its feet and with 3 red dots, similar to its eyes, near the bottom. The fur had golden rings that hovered around the fur, that were slowly spinning, as if orbiting the fur itself.
Kyubey.
The mysterious creature that had granted many girls like Charlotte a single magical wish. In return they became magical girls and were given the singular purpose of hunting down Witches that threatened innocent lives. Kyubey had stayed with Charlotte during her first Witch hunt, but since then she had only seen the creature in fleeting glances over the years, as if it was always watching but never wanting to interfere.
"To deliver a message of course." The voice was extremely flat and matter of fact. Both Charlotte and Victoria could hear its voice inside their heads, as its small mouth made no movement to suggest it was talking. It got up from its sitting position and walked closer to the two girls, showing a white envelope on the table that it had been hiding underneath it.
Neither Charlotte or Victoria relaxed their bodies, both ready to jump and move at a moments notice. "How did you get inside?" Charlotte was sure that the only way into the house was the front door, something that Victoria had never left unlocked beforehand.
"How unusual for magical girls to be as old as you." Kyubey ignored Charlotte and instead twisted its head in contemplation. While the sound of its voice remained completely flat, to Charlotte she had a strange feeling in her mind that it had it was speaking with curiosity.
"Answer the question, before I throw you out the window." Victoria quickly responded with anger, now reaching for the ring on her necklace with her left hand.
Kyubey kept its head tilted to the side and simply continued to wave its tail, "You opened the door for me." It seemed as if Kyubey was confused at the line of questioning, as if the answer had been obvious from the start.
"I didn't let it in." Victoria spoke in a whisper to Charlotte, but sounded both bewildered and angry at the same time. Yet Victoria quickly flicked her head towards where the front door was with a look of worry.
Kyubey tilted its head back and continued to stare with its blank eyes at Charlotte and Victoria. "Unusual but interesting although none the less interesting than the proposal I have come to share." Kyubey turned around and looked towards the envelope on the table.
Charlotte looked at the envelope for a moment, but quickly returned her attention to Kyubey, not wanting to miss any of its movements. "What do you mean proposal?" Charlotte didn't want to move without Victoria and wanted to drag as much information out of Kyubey as she could.
"A hypothesis on how to help keep the universe in check. One that you've been invited to listen to." Charlotte could feel a strange excitement coming from the flat voice in her head. An excitement that did nothing to put her at ease.
"I'm certain it will be a revolutionary moment for us all." Kyubey began walking to the edge of the table as it spoke. Charlotte took a step back away from the doorway, she knew that Kyubey wasn't a threat to either of them but she was still scared of the creature and its soulless eyes.
Victoria held her space in the doorway and even moved to the side slightly, as if to block Kyubey from being able to reach Charlotte. But instead Kyubey deftly jumped to the ground and without another sound slowly walked towards and through the doorway to the front entrance of the house.
Charlotte and Victoria stood frozen and in silence, both of them holding their breaths, trying to hear for any type of noise from Kyubey. But its paws were silent along the floor and in the time after it exited the living room there was no indication of the front door opening or closing.
Both of them stood silent looking in the direction Kyubey had left for a few seconds, neither of them able to relax their bodies. Without a word Victoria rushed forward from the kitchen doorway to the entrance hall, her footsteps loud enough to be heard anywhere in the building. Charlotte kept close behind her and only gave a brief glance to the white envelope on the table as she passed by.
"Nothing." Victoria's voice was a mixture of anger and bewilderment. Victoria was blocking the doorway, so Charlotte had to look over her shoulder to get a good view. Nothing was out of the ordinary and the front door was closed.
"Check the door, I'll check upstairs." Victoria instantly started sprinting up the stairs as she spoke, barely finishing by the time she disappeared from Charlotte's sight.
Charlotte cautiously approached the door, wondering if there was going to be anything on the other side. A quick look up and down confirmed that neither of the dead bolts had been set, but Charlotte doubted that Victoria had set them when she came in. Next to the door was a small basket that held Victoria's door keys and a spare set of keys.
On instinct she reached down for her pockets to try and search for her own set of keys, instead finding the folds of her skirt that had no pockets. It took a moment of thought, whilst grabbing hold of her skirt, for her to realise that her keys should be with her trousers upstairs. But that there was still no way for anyone, or Kyubey to have gotten to them.
Charlotte opened the front door slowly, with an outstretched arm and her body as far away from the door as she could manage. She braced herself, even though she knew there wasn't any reason for her to be as worried as she was feeling. She opened the door to its full extent and nothing was amiss, it was simply starting to get darker outside now that it was closer to sunset.
Charlotte slowly closed the door, checking that the lock clicked correctly, and then pushed and pulled on it a few times to make certain. Nothing could have gotten through the door without either her or Victoria opening it and she couldn't believe that Victoria would have missed seeing an animal like Kyubey sneaking in behind her.
Knowing that the door was fine she was able to calm herself down somewhat and the act of doing something and moving had helped to stop her hands from shaking. As a precaution though she pulled on the two deadbolts and made it so that it was without a doubt shut to anything on the outside.
She turned around, moved to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up for Victoria, "Nothing is wrong by the door, are you okay up there?" A second passed before Charlotte could hear footsteps slowly moving above her and back towards the top of the staircase.
Victoria soon appeared at the top of the stairs looking extremely deflated, her arms flopped down by her side. She slowly climbed down the stairs as she began answering Charlotte's question "Nothing up here. No windows open or anything."
"It's only Kyubey. Probably use some kind of magic to get in." Charlotte had no real idea of the extent of Kyubey's abilities, but teleporting in and out of places didn't seem out of the question. But she also wanted to try reassure Victoria, Kyubey saying she had let it in had spooked her.
"Lets just go check that envelope." Victoria got to the bottom of the stairs and without stopping moved straight for the living room again. And even though she was trying to move on, it was clear from her face tat she was still thinking about Kyubey.
"Even if you let Kyubey in, everything was locked and you know that thing appears randomly anywhere it wants." Charlotte followed Victoria in and grabbed hold of her hand. While Victoria squeezed Charlotte's hand in return, she didn't look back or respond else wise. Instead Victoria came to a stop by the table and picked up the envelope with her free hand.
Victoria hesitated with it in her hand, looking down at the blank front of the envelope. "You know, we could ignore it and not open it." Charlotte knew that both of them wouldn't be able to rest without knowing what was inside, but whatever was inside was sure to be problematic for the two of them in some way.
"No one's stopping us from burning it once we've seen it." Victoria responded by gesturing the letter over to the empty fireplace. Although as she said this she let go of Charlotte's hand, flipped the envelope and started tearing it open.
Victoria quickly looked inside before tipping the contents out onto the table. A folded up letter on black paper with what seemed to be metallic gold trim around the edges fell out first. Followed by two smaller pieces of orange cards with black letterings on them, Charlotte quickly recognised them as train tickets.
Both Charlotte and Victoria reached for the train tickets, both taking one to read. "All day travel card dated for tomorrow." Charlotte read the ticket details out loud, not that it helped explain why they were there.
"Well there goes our plans for tomorrow." Victoria already sounded annoyed before they had even read the letter. Although Charlotte didn't disagree with the sentiment.
Charlotte put her ticket down and went for the folded letter. The paper was strangely thick, with the black sections of the paper surprisingly rough compared to the smooth gold edges. Charlotte unfolded the paper to find that shimmering gold lettering had been used on the entire page.
She held it out between them, so that both could see it, but started reading from the top.
"Greetings Magical Girls,
Your lives have been that of secrecy and survival against a foe most evil.
No longer must this be the case.
I have the opportunity and ability to change this sordid fate.
A world where the power of the magical girl may claim its rightful place of humanity's protectors.
You are duly invited to hear how the world shall will be refined and tempered.
And are encouraged to gather, discuss and prepare for the oncoming revolution.
Yours with esteem,
Lady Penelope Hanover
Royal Albert Hall, London
12:00, May 11th"
Charlotte flipped the page over, but there was nothing else on the back to help decipher what she had just read. "That was no less confusing than what Kyubey had said." Charlotte went back to rereading it, trying to figure out if she had missed something.
"Sounded like a letter from the Victorian era." Charlotte could tell that Victoria was extremely unimpressed. Although she grabbed hold of the side of the letter and tilted it so that she could read it better, "It's written as if this Lady Penelope isn't a magical girl herself."
"That might explain what Kyubey meant by a proposal at least?" For Charlotte Kyubey's words started lining up roughly with the contents of the letter. Not that she could figure out the meaning behind the words.
"They're both talking about a revolution or something." Victoria responded, her voice changing from annoyance and back to a puzzled tone. She let go of the paper and pulled out a chair to sit on. Charlotte followed by pulling out the next chair and placed the letter flat down in front of both of them.
"Its also sending us to the Royal Albert Hall?" This was one thing that stood out the most to Charlotte. "How have they managed to get a time block for there?" Charlotte didn't even know how or if members of the public could hire the hall at all.
"No idea, but whoever they are they paid for our train tickets." Victoria picked up and waved one of the orange tickets around with a smile. Although she quickly changed back to a more serious look as she stared at her ticket. "This letter must have been sent out to more people right?"
Charlotte looked back at the letter and its wording wasn't directly addressed to the two of them. "If Kyubey was delivering them, they could have gone to loads of people. We can send a message to Athena and ask if she or Rebecca got one, but I haven't heard from them since they went on holiday." Charlotte's voice trailed off at the end of her sentence, knowing that it had been nearly a month since either of them had heard from the two other magical girls.
Victoria remained silent, her eyes flicking between the letter and her train ticket. She put down the ticket slowly and span on her seat to look at Charlotte, "Whatever it is, it sounds important enough that we need to go."