When Wendy and her husband went back inside, they were pleased to see that Kristin had gone to take a shower after Andrea without having to be prompted. Andrea was watching TV. Miss Newman was awake and currently reading her Bible. Charlotte was sitting on the edge of a bed, watching Miss Newman as if watching an old woman read was the most exciting thing in the world. That last one wasn't surprising. If Charlotte knew Miss Newman was a future her, then it made sense Charlotte would be fascinated by anything the old woman was doing. She'd probably get bored soon if nothing interesting happened, so Wendy decided not to worry about it. She was about to get a distraction anyway.
"Charlotte, would you mind letting Cinnamon out of his carrier?" Wendy asked as she set it down. Charles walked over to the table Miss Newman was sitting at and set the birdcage down on it, earning him a brief dirty look as she adjusted.
Charlotte hopped down from the bed and hurried over to the carrier. She fumbled with the latch on the door, needing both hands to open it. The second the door opened, the cat dashed out of the carrier and under a bed. The girl's interest in the cat was sadly short-lived, and she immediately went back to watching Miss Newman.
Miss Newman spared Charlotte a look. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to be doing something else, child?"
"I need to watch you to find out how to be a great mage," Charlotte said matter-of-factly.
The old woman closed her Bible and turned her full attention to Charlotte. "You lack the capabilities at this time and won't have them until you are even older than your parents are now. You'll need to be patient. In the meantime, I think you might find a lot more interesting to do than stare at me."
Charlotte did not give up. "What are you reading?"
"My Bible," Miss Newman answered.
"Will you read it to me?" Charlotte asked.
Miss Newman shook her head. "No."
Wendy blinked. "Why? I'm not complaining, but I don't have any objection to her being interested in that."
Miss Newman frowned. "My theology has developed some quirks to it over the past twenty years or so, and among those quirks is that I don't believe in indoctrinating children. It breeds religious people rather than Godly people. Lord knows we don't need any more religious people; people more concerned with grandstanding their Christianity than they are about being Christlike. I do hope she embraces the faith, but not until she is old enough to truly understand what it means."
"I can respect that. Thank you for not trying to evangelize my kids," Wendy said with a smile.
"A word of warning," Miss Newman said while holding up a finger. "If any of them take up interest when they are older, please help them find a good church with good people. One of my mistakes early on was falling in with a group that was more concerned with condemning others than looking at their own lives. I'm deeply ashamed I behaved in that manner and don't want your girls to look back on their lives and feel the same."
"We'll do better," Charles said in a tired voice. "It seems that there are lots of things that we need to do better than the last time."
Miss Newman looked hurt. "You did perfectly fine last time. Um...has she brought you up to speed about everything that we talked about last night?"
"I told him about you and what you said about Kristin. I didn't have time to go into all the details about you, just a few, including the big one," Wendy explained hurriedly.
Miss Newman didn't look relieved. "Well, that means we should be on the same page about things, and you should know you did nothing wrong."
"That doesn't mean we can't do better. You wouldn't be giving us warnings if there wasn't an opportunity for that, right?" Charles asked stiffly. Wendy could tell he wasn't sure how to deal with Miss Newman now that he knew she was a version of Charlotte.
"I suppose you're right," Miss Newman conceded. "I just don't want you to feel pressure to change anything when you did perfectly well."
Wendy decided not to let this back and forth continue. "We need to get some food. Do you think we are safe to find a Denny's or something, or do we need to hit the road right away? You know better than us."
The older woman lifted the curtain of the window and looked out. "I don't know. I prefer to play it safe and head out immediately, but we can stop for food before leaving the city. You need to be the ones to decide what direction we're going. One of them getting hit with a completely unfamiliar spell is a red flag that alerts them that I'm here. That means they could predict where we're going because they may know how I think. We need to head somewhere I wouldn't go, not South Carolina."
"How are they going to track us if their nocturnal pony can't fly?" Wendy asked.
"They still have a pegasus. A pegasus can't see as well at night, so they could overlook us, but that doesn't mean they're completely blind, so we still have to be careful. They also cover a lot more ground at a much faster pace. We want to be where they aren't looking," Miss Newman answered. "I'm confident they didn't search for us last night after the mare went down. They would have made treating her their only priority, but they will resume tonight and hope the pegasus's greater range makes up for lost time; you can count on it."
"That's something. I guess we go north or south, or even loop around back west," Wendy mused.
Miss Newman nodded. "They will also get more desperate and reckless the closer it gets to their time limit. I wouldn't be surprised if by the last day or two they don't give a damn anymore about being spotted during the day."
Charles looked over from where he had been setting out a water bowl for the cat. "Will you be up and running with your magic by then?"
"In some limited capacity. I won't be able to push myself," Miss Newman said as she absently rubbed her arm. "I'm a great mage because I'm knowledgeable, not because I'm powerful. I won't be able to pull that same trick again while I'm here, and we're in deep sh—" She paused and looked at the girls before resuming. "—we'll be in trouble if I have to square off against their unicorn. He will easily overpower me without that trick at my disposal."
"You should yell at Charlotte for almost cussing," Andrea said smugly.
"I didn't say nothing!" Charlotte protested.
Andrea pointed at Miss Newman. "I meant old Charlotte."
"Honey, she's—" Wendy turned and looked at Miss Newman. "How old exactly are you?"
"Sixty-six," Miss Newman replied, smirking with amusement.
Wendy turned her attention back to Andrea. "—she's sixty-six years old and caught herself before cussing in front of you. I'm guessing you'll be guilty of worse at some point."
"Oh, yeah," Miss Newman said with a snicker. "My Andrea has a mouth that makes sailors cry when she's angry. Don't worry, child, my version of you will be giving me quite the earful about being stupid and reckless when I return home."
"I get to boss you around?" Andrea asked, sounding hopeful.
Miss Newman narrowed her eyes. "My Andrea gets to advise me about security concerns at the house, and she can be very vocal about it. I also will be having words with her because she completely dropped the ball on her job since those ponies hunting us made it through her precautions. The next time you yell at your baby sister for something she is not responsible for, consider how much of this is also my Andrea's fault and how you shouldn't be held accountable for her screw-ups."
Kristin had stepped out of the bathroom while everyone was talking and grinned broadly. "So none of this is my fault? Just them?"
Miss Newman scowled at her. "Remind me, who was it that took my necklace without permission? Someone who can't blame their future self. My version of you in my timeline didn't have anything to do with what's happening. The way I see it, you're the only one of your sisters guilty of anything. Do you want that to continue hanging over your head, or do you want everyone to let it go?"
Kristin deflated at being called out.
"I really should have taken a picture of you while you were a pony," Miss Newman said thoughtfully. "I could have picked at my sister with it. We still do that, old as we are. Some things never change. Just learn to know when you are crossing a line with the picking. Blaming your sisters for things happening now is crossing that line, okay?"
"Okay," Kristin replied with a sniffle, then looked at her little sister. "Sorry, Char."
Miss Newman looked at Wendy apologetically. "I didn't mean to parent your kids. I have a thing about families needing to have one another's backs, and their bickering was getting to me."
Wendy waved it off. "I'm not worried about it. It was stuff that needed to be said. You seem to be good with kids."
Miss Newman's mood seemed to brighten. "You've just got good kids. They've got their issues, but no one's perfect. If you want a difficult kid, you should have tried dealing with my second daughter when I adopted her."
"Highly disobedient?" Wendy asked.
"No, quite the opposite. I have never seen a teen so obedient and responsible, and I've seen some good teens," Miss Newman answered.
"Then why was she difficult if she was well-behaved?" Wendy asked, confused.
Miss Newman gave the girls a sad look and shook her head. "There's a reason I ended up adopting four foals. Their mother was another person people wanted to get secrets from, and her foals were the leverage. She died getting her foals to safety, and my younger daughter watched it all go down. How do you think it impacts someone to see their parent die saving them? It wasn't just a simple accident either, it was a very public and dramatic suicide, and my daughter watched in horror as it happened."
Wendy gasped and covered her mouth. Everyone went quiet and was staring and horror at Miss Newman.
Miss Newman looked at them all and then looked downward. "Their mother was an important pony who had access to knowledge that would put me to shame. China tried to pressure her by threatening the lives of her foals. Yinyu, their mother, knew she would break under such pressure. So she took her foals and ran. They almost made it to safety, but their pursuers were close, too close. They would never have made it. So Yinyu made the only choice she could, one that she knew had been a possibility and had prepared for. She had an incendiary bomb in her bag. She told her foals to keep running and not to look back. She then used the incendiary right where she stood, consuming herself in the blaze."
"Oh my God…" Wendy breathed.
"She died to buy her foals a few precious minutes. They got away, but unfortunately, her daughter, my adopted daughter, looked back," Miss Newman concluded.
The whole room remained still.
"A mother would do anything to keep her kids safe, but that doesn't make it any easier for the ones left behind," Miss Newman added in. "Let's get moving, so you don't have to be in a situation where you need to make that kind of choice."