Wendy and her husband had finished loading things into their car and were now sitting around anticipating what came next as mid-afternoon advanced to late. Miss Newman had fallen asleep on their couch, Bible resting on her chest, still waiting for the phone call from their landlord. The girls were all playing in Andrea and Kristin's room, and so far, there hadn't been any sounds of fighting.
"Do you think we should wake her so she can call her landlord back?" Charles asked after finally corralling Cinnamon in the cat carrier.
Wendy shook her head as she stopped anxiously looking out the blinds. "I don't know. She needs her rest. She's our only real line of defense, and we can't afford to have her overtired."
"But she also said there was sure to be an attack tonight, and night is fast approaching," Charles reminded her. "And shouldn't she take that necklace off? She doesn't have her shotgun anymore, so she can't do anything to defend us as a human."
"We don't know that. Maybe she still has magic when she's human," Wendy countered and blinked away tears. She hated feeling this helpless and unsure of anything. "It's going to be hard to get her into the hotel if she isn't human, and having an old woman appear stark naked in our car will get us arrested or fined or who knows what."
Charles looked at the older woman's sleeping form. "I think we should wake her. She seemed to think that her landlord would have called back by now, and it's getting late. Better safe than sorry."
Wendy hesitated, then nodded. She walked over and gently shook Miss Newman. "Hey, wake up."
Miss Newman awoke with a start and flung her Bible at Wendy's face.
"OWW!" Wendy hissed in pain as she rubbed her face. Why did she have to keep being the one to take all the physical abuse?!
Miss Newman looked around and then at Wendy. "Sorry, I'm on edge. What is it?"
Charles answered for her. "It is almost five, and your landlord hasn't called yet. It will be getting dark in a few hours."
The woman bolted from the couch towards the phone. "Five?! Give me a moment. I need to call him."
They waited as she made her call. There was a long period of silence broken only by the faint sound of the ringing over the line. The ringing kept going and going with no answering machine picking up. Miss Newman finally hung up the phone and rubbed her temples.
"Think about the implications. What's the worst-case scenario?" Miss Newman muttered to herself.
She then went to the front window and peeked out the blinds before moving to the window overlooking the driveway. Pretty started singing to her, and she absently waved a hand at the bird as if that would make the cockatiel be quiet.
"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!" Miss Newman said frantically as she stepped away from the window. "We've got a problem, and it is, unfortunately, a problem of my own making."
Wendy frowned and stepped back. "What's wrong? What did you do?"
"Didn't take into account Jim's loan sharks or bookies or whoever it is who is now watching the house," Miss Newman growled. "So much for my empty threats keeping that heat off us."
Wendy gasped. "Why are they here? Why do they have anything to do with us?"
"You can't suddenly get that perfect at predicting every score and not draw attention to yourself. People wonder why, and when lots of money is on the line, they act fast to neutralize the reason. He'd rat me out in a second if threatened in order to save his own hide. Back to the Future Two is not an accurate example of how things work," Miss Newman replied as she started pacing ."Plus side, they most likely are only after me. They want to know how I'm fixing games or what source I know that is fixing games. Let me think a minute about how to deal with this."
Charles put on a sheepish grin and leaned over to whisper. "There's a sequel to Back to the Future? Guess we have something great to look forward to."
Wendy wanted to yell at him for focusing on that, but she knew Charles was just trying to cope with stress. He usually could be quite the jokester, and high pressure just heightened how bad the humor ended up being. She was surprised he'd been keeping as serious as he had been.
Miss Newman stopped pacing. "I doubt they want to mess with the kids if they can help it. It's too messy, and missing kids can get communities up in arms. They're focused on me. We're going to make it so I'm an easy target, and they can avoid all of you. They won't make this any more complicated than they have to. I apologize, but they may come in and vandalize your house, but it was still questionable whether the house was going to survive the night anyway if the ponies don't simply break in."
Wendy was ready to protest that, but at this point, any such protests just made her look foolish. It still didn't make Miss Newman look any better if this was all her fault. Every aspect of this was Miss Newman's fault since she was the one who created the time-traveling spell, yet they were still forced to do whatever she said as the older woman improvised one plan after another.
"I want you and the kids to be seen leaving without me. Everything should seem normal. I want the kids to act excited and loud about wherever you are going. You can say Toys R Us. That seems like something kids would get excited over. I know I would have been at their age," Miss Newman instructed.
"You want us to lie to our kids, or do you really want us to go to the toy store?" Charles asked.
Miss Newman looked at him like he was an idiot. "Why would I send you to a toy—actually, we're going to go to the toy store, just in case we get followed. At least, we'll park in their parking lot before moving on to the next destination."
"Which is going to be where?" Wendy asked.
"No idea, that's why we need to park. It gives us time to brainstorm that answer," Miss Newman answered. "We do want as much distance as we can between you and the house. That nocturnal mare is going to be out searching for you when you don't come home, and your station wagon is distinctive enough that she'll have no trouble finding it in the city."
"And how will you catch up to us?" Wendy asked.
"I won't need to. I'll already be in the car. They just won't ever see me get in. I'll teleport into it ahead of time. I can hide on the floorboards of the back seat. I might be able to do something about the thugs' car too; we'll see," Miss Newman explained. "I'll have to travel in pony form for a little while and switch back when there's a good opportunity. We need me in human form when on the road. I can spot the ponies that are after you better in human form. Just don't give the police any reason to stop the car."
"Do humans have better eyesight, aside from that one pony you mentioned? I mean, the girls probably have better eyesight than the rest of us. Shouldn't they be the ones on the lookout?" Charles asked.
She shook her head. "No, my human form comes with the benefit of human magic, and we need it. Human magic takes a wide variety of forms and varies widely from individual to individual. My form of human magic allows me to see disruptions in the thaumic field, and ponies are walking disruptions to that field. It's like looking at something very hot with an infrared camera, better even. They stand out like a sore thumb, even if they're hiding or behind a wall. I might not be able to do any other magic as a human, but being able to spot them sneaking around is the most useful asset I have against them. I'll be able to see them even if parts of the car are in the way, and I'll be able to see them through hotel room walls."
Wendy didn't like this one bit, but delaying things wouldn't help. "I'll get the girls."
"And I'll go to the bathroom and get back to my normal form. We should be leaving within five minutes. Wait for me to be in place before you go out to the car," Miss Newman instructed. She looked at Charles. "And have your handgun ready. I hope we don't, but we might need it."
"I packed it up. It's in the luggage in the car," Charles replied.
Miss Newman gave him an incredulous stare. "Why would you do that?! What good does a weapon do you if you don't have it readily available to use?!"
"We've never done things like this before. Forgive us if we haven't thought of stuff like that!" Wendy snapped at their inhuman protector.
Miss Newman growled to herself, then took a deep breath. "Fine. That just puts a little extra pressure on me for this initial drive. I hope we don't need to defend ourselves because a pony shooting magic beams will draw all kinds of unwanted notice."
"And me firing a gun won't?" Charles asked as he crossed his arms defiantly.
Miss Newman scowled. "Not the same type of attention. Anyway, after we reach the designated parking lot, I want you to take the time to unpack it and put it somewhere you can access it in a hurry. If any of the ponies realize I'm here, they'll still be warier of the gun than me, especially when they realize it is me and not someone else. I have a reputation for being a weakling. I'm extremely skilled, yes, probably the fourth or fifth most overall skilled unicorn there is, but strong no—laughably weak. Even Sunburst is stronger than me. Under normal circumstances, my unprepared horn blasts are best compared to a BB gun. I'm at my best when I have time to prepare something more complex, which is not the conditions you find in a fight. On the plus side, if they realize it's me and that I have no backup, they might turn their attention solely on me and forget about the rest of you, but I can't guarantee that; otherwise, I would have already willingly blown my cover to them to keep you safe, but I'm not going to do that if it doesn't accomplish anything."
Wendy definitely could imagine that Miss Newman indeed had been a mayor and a preacher. The pony liked to bark orders and monologue. Miss Newman had said that she told the truth when possible, so it might not have been a lie. When they had some downtime, they needed to clarify what had been lies and what had been honest, but that time wasn't right now.
She hurried to the kids' room and ordered them to head towards the door. They each grabbed a toy last-minute. She wanted to object and say that the car was packed as it was and they each already had toys packed, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Was she too lenient and soft with her kids? Was that what had caused Charlotte to be so troubled? Maybe, maybe not. Charlotte's behavior and development would just have to be more closely monitored than the other two.
It took them an extra minute or two to pick out what they couldn't possibly leave behind. That probably had given Miss Newman time to revert to pony form and get in position. Each of the girls decided to settle on a stuffed animal, even Andrea, who was getting to an age where she tried to act more mature than she was. Wendy escorted them back out to the living room.
Miss Newman was back by the window overlooking the station wagon and in her pony form while wearing her saddlebag. She was peeking through the blinds while standing on a box of old magazines, and her horn was brightly lit.
"I need you all to be quiet for a minute or two. I'm working," Miss Newman said.
"How did you get out of your house safely if teleports take this much preparation?" Charles asked in confusion.
Miss Newman turned and glared at him. "I'm not teleporting yet. I'm trying to give our potential pursuers a flat tire so they can't immediately tail us. This has me working at a longer range than I normally do while at the same time trying to stay inconspicuous about it. That takes time and concentration. Now shut up and don't interrupt me."
"Rude!" Kristin declared with a cross of her arms. Wendy silently agreed with her daughter.
The pony ignored them and kept focused on what she was doing. Seconds stretched on till over a minute had passed, then two. Finally, the horn went out, and Miss Newman stopped to pant.
"That...that was harder than I thought it would be, but it's done. The thaumic field is so stiff here," the unicorn said, gasping for breath. "Give me a second to catch my breath before I teleport. After I do, you can go out to the car."
Wendy was actually eager to see the teleport. In all honesty, Miss Newman's magic thus far had been rather dull. Sure, she could telekinetically push things around and grab them, but for all her talk about being skilled and claiming she developed the time-travel spell that brought her here, Miss Newman hadn't had much wow factor. Having a magic-talking horse around should have been more amazing than it currently felt. Teleportation seemed like it should be more impressive.
Miss Newman took one last breath and turned to peek out the window again. "Okay, let's see if I can manage a ten-foot line-of-sight teleport after wearing myself out."
She seemed to focus on the car with her horn still glowing, and two seconds later, she was gone in a flash so fast Wendy questioned whether a flash had even occurred.
"That's our signal to go. Let's hope she's in the car and didn't accidentally teleport to Timbuktu," Charles announced as he picked up the bit cage and ushered them all to the door.
Wendy grabbed the cat carrier with her working arm and took one last look around the place. This might be the last she would see of it, and she'd barely had time to let that fact settle in. Not knowing where they would end up didn't make her feel any better about it. She quickly decided that if she focused too much on it, she would have a breakdown. Her kids needed her to focus. What was the next helpful thing she could have her attention going to? Perhaps, how were they going to eat for the next few days?
She exited the house with her daughters, and Charles waited till last to leave. With the closing of the door, the adventure had begun. She stopped briefly and laughed, which made everyone look at her.
"Sorry," she apologized. "Was just thinking about what we were going to eat tonight, and the thought crossed my mind that adventures make one late for dinner."
Charles shook his head. "Don't know, but I hope we don't have any dragons under mountains waiting for us."
She groaned. "Please, don't jinx us any more than we have been."