3. Chapter. Randy on the shore

Randy, Sunny, old mill

Randy was on the shore, he had been allegedly fishing, he remembered that the only reason he even attempted to fish was to be close to his best friend, she fished.

'Sunny's up on the bridge, trying to get a better view through the branches and leaves to spy into her backyard, Missy's, Melissa Thornbare's special, secretive, mysterious yard.'

"Not backyard." Randy spoke as he held onto the thought of what he had just witnessed with Sunny.

"She did it"' He reminisced, "She went to fairyland and brought a unicorn back."

He smiled because Missy was his friend, his best friend, and although he hadn't messed up very much in front of her, "Well," He breathed in and thought that he had been telling Felix, "we're gonna knock on her door on the way home." then glanced up and remembered that Felix was up on the bridge keeping Sunny company.

'BUT!' He started to pout as the thought reverberated through his whole being, 'She doesn't want me to know.'

He tried to silence the anguish that felt like a pit, a dark, hard, avocado pit that he imagined being as small as an olive pit if he could stomach the idea of eating raw bitter olives and biting down into there pits, he imagined that they weren't hard and brake his teeth like the reason why he doesn't eat prunes any more, but much like a rubber bullet. Very Dense, causing his teeth to sink, like a rock-hard Ju-Ju-bee. Kinda sticky too…

"Dude," Deep in his brain came a voice that was getting louder as if the one who spoke it was walking closer towards him, "She's given you so many hints, every time she sees you!"

He thought.

He looked and watched. He heard Missy telling him, 'I have a secret, behind my fence, it's too big to show you, and I want to show you in person, surprise you, like a blind fold.' It was all unreal though, and he wasn't sure if it was a real memory or a dream memory.

"Anyways," He told the voice and himself as he packed up and fully accepted the fact that Sunny was not interested in fishing, 'Missy's only home a few days a month.'

That thought was one that he often believed was a just a cheap excuse, stayed with him as he walked up the steps and tried to avoid looking at her property, then he put on a smile when he noticed that his nieces feet were dangling above the waterfall and didn't even bother thinking about what would happen if her sandals were to fall down.

"Oh well. Anyways," He dropped the his backpack unto the wooden floor boards and looked out at the water, at Missy's lagoon, he watched that mermaid dancing in front of the unicorn for a minute, then followed the glimmer of the horn that still sparkled with glowing colors as it moved through the bushes and muttered. "It's true…"

"Of course it's true." Sunny looked up at her uncle and defended her faith, "Yeah, Mom's sorta secretive, but she certainly isn't a lair!"

Sunny was surprised at how defensive she was, she hated the fact that her mom had all these mysteries about herself, that her motto seamed to be, "Some stories are real, some are lies, just stories, and if you call them that, say everything you say is just a story, it's okay to mix up the two."

She hated everything because she was positive that some of those strange, sometimes funny, and always magical parts of her bedtime stories were real. 'Yeah, Mom probably had some mental issues,' and when she looked at her uncle, she shrugged the strap on her relatively light backpack and told herself, 'He certainly does.'

The thing was, mental issues were sometimes talked about at school, mostly how important mental health was, but sometimes with examples, like, "Some people have a really hard time distinguishing truth from fiction." and how that was okay for the most part, but absolutely not okay in other ways.

She assumed that her mother was aware that she had those problems, and was afraid to mess up.

Her dad, he told her that Amy and Randy's parents weren't all that understanding, and although she didn't really understand what he had meant at the time, she started to wonder…

"Magic"

"Yeah…" Randy knew it was make believe, but this, and his niece beside him, sharing the same vision of watching a mermaid dance around and through the water, brushing the crud out of her hair, it started to make him wonder.

"Yeah," He looked at Felix, Felix was Magic, that was certain. Just being alive, and by his side, must have extended Randy's life at least 5 years. Yeah. But, "Your mom didn't tell you any of this?"

Sunny glanced at him, and spoke her thoughts,

"Wait, does that mean she told you?"

'Yeah' Randy thought, people told him they have a special bond. He didn't believe it, or want to, but. "...Yeah."

"Well~~~~" Sunny took a large breath and held it tight to try and stop herself from pouting. Then turned toward the old mill and let it out. She petted Felix when he came by, and she keep thinking that it's wrong… It's wrong… because, "she doesn't trust her own daughter." She muttered.

"Sunny," Randy started as the girl stared as the side of the bridge, "maybe it's 'cus you're young, I mean, I had thought she left me for good when I was younger."

"GRRR." Felix started.

"...Really?" Sunny knew know that her mom really did have mental problems, at one point in her life anyways, because, she had never not wanted her brother around.

"So." Randy started as he noticed what Felix was growling at. There was Missy, for some reason she was really wet, "I guess we don't have to knock on her door after all."

"What do you mea-" Sunny saw the figure in the doorway of the old mill.

"Well, Missy had all these tunnels dug," He tried not to stare at the woman that he was frankly afraid of, "said it was like, support for the old place." he waited for Missy to explain like she had him a few years back, but some reason, she looked… shy, "Huh. Well anyways, there like an adventure or something, I mean, cool kids stuff, a cave system, you know."

Sunny looked at the figure, this was some shy, teenage, goth girl, and "Missy" had her own house, "Randy?" she turned to Randy and back at the figure in the doorway.

"Anyways." She let out a breath and smiled at the strange girl, "I'm Sunny, Mom said you guys were good friends?"

The figure looked at Sunny, started to get really nervous, like she had the first time that Missy, the grouchy old lady first saw her a few weeks ago, 'and now, there's this kid, younger then me whose trying to touch me!!!' Bubble started running down the way that she came.

'I only wanted to see if they were friendly!!!' Bubble thought as she ran down the tunnels, 'They were concerned about me, and the old lady is concerned sometimes, and said to me, "You can have this sweater, if you report any strange activity. Like, let me know if anyone saw you."

'Yeah…' Bubble started to whine as some little human came closer to her, "Ahhh" she ran down the tunnels and was worried that the old lady would be furious at her!

*"Following Sunny down into Missy's tunnel."*

When Randy saw the horns, along with Missy's sweater in the shadowy door-frame of the old mill, his imagination immediately assumed that the figure that was luring them deeper into the shadows had short, auburn hair.

'Missy's wearing a mask.' His subconscious told him as he followed his niece into the dark building, 'She really did it, went there, brought a unicorn back and wares a fairy costume to blend in.' He almost giggled at the ridiculousness of it all while he helped Felix up the 20 inch rise and tried to tell himself that there was definitely more to this story, that his brain was jumping to wild conclusions and accusations, but... He watched Sunny jump down the trap door after her, 'IT' doesn't matter, at least not in this moment!'

In his minds eye, he remembered the tunnel that Missy had planned on building before she even finished ROTC and how he was awed by how elaborate the system that she designed was, he remembered the heavy machines that she had hired when she dug out the mills foundation, "Extra support might be needed." she told the interviewer when asked why it was going to be one lane traffic that morning, and when asked if she had planned on cleaning up the interior, she told the world, "Keep the graffiti, it's part of our history!"

"Come on! Come on, come on." Sunny directed to her uncle with haste because she was having a hard time even hearing the strange girls sloshing footsteps anymore, "And if you really think that's your friend Missy, you're dumber then the animals in your books!"

She slid her hands down the wooden railings and followed the horned girl down the ramp that was illuminated with a neon blue glow, that only added to the magical impression of the place.

She took a quick look behind her at a silhouette like shadow that carried a dog down the trap door and into this magical tunnel, 'THAT makes sense,' she remembered that Felix had a bad hip, 'but…'

"Your gonna scare her!" She hushed as Felix ran past her and barked at the interestingly fishy, friendly smelling figure that he ran up to.

Then, 'She dropped her glowing marble, some type of vacuum tube that's probably charged with the sun or a special electrical charger, magnets or something,' Randy told himself after the strange girl that was wearing a wet sweater dropped her light. It was fine now, it was cool, and he told Sunny, "I'm sure that she knows her way around her own tunnels."

Sunny flicked a glance at him before she stared at the girl, 'Does she really have horns? ... Too?' Sunny wondered as the girl bent over to pick up the marble, and to her frightful delight, the girls hood fell down and she reveled a very friendly saber tooth smile.

'Contacts in a marble? Really?' Randy's subconscious frowned at him as he watched the hooded figure bend down to pick up the marble with her long, thin fingers like one would probably only find in dark fantasy, and honestly, he wasn't surprised that his childhood friend was into that.

He noticed that the mask that she was wearing hadn't been strapped along her ears, or 'maybe it's on the inside' and when her hood fell down and he noticed her long, erect rabbit ears, he started to frown, because Missy really went all out, 'Is she making a film? And we're the pranked?'

'Maybe they aren't so scary after all…' Bubble thought after picking up Calico's glass eye, then she thought of a great way to earn they're trust, 'I know my way around this dark tunnel maze, but they don't!'

"Hmf." Randy smirked and almost said, 'She's going all out! Isn't she?' then looked at his niece as the figure smiled at her with fangs that looked as if they belonged somewhere deep in the ocean, then handed Sunny the glowing, marble sized orb before she turned to walk down the deep, semi-subterranean dark tunnel.

"Ahhh…!!!" Sunny's mouth gaped open as she tried to get the words "Look!" and "Randy!" out and finally made a different sounds so she exclaimed, "… There's a flame inside!"

Needless to say, Randy thought that it was just a flickering LED encased in foggy glass orb as he followed his niece through the maze, before he knew it, Felix was already outside in the light at the end of the tunnel, Sunny was too, and Randy had the excuse of, "Sun in his eyes" but in reality, he just felt awful, he was certain that Missy did not want ANYONE on her lawn, behind the fence, of course, coming from her secret entrance, but internally, he knew that that was the most ridiculous garbage that he could possibly imagine about a lady who honestly leaves her house unlocked with a sign saying, "Please pick up after yourself."

He knew her father came by every few days to take care of things, he knew her dad, Jeremy Thornbare was a photographer, probably more of a father then his own, he brings Randy photographs of animals doing interesting things. "But…" Randy knew that it didn't matter, if anything, he and Missy were like cousins that hardly ever spoke to each other.

Basically, he had a bad self image of himself, and refused to believe that he did.

He looked around the fairly nice garden, the little wind mill on top of a gazebo, yeah, you could see the gazebo from the market, what you couldn't see though was that there had been shadow puppets cut along it somehow so that the sunlight showed magic symbol like shadows on inside of the fence, and he realized why the designer had placed the solid wooden fence there, he also realized that his sister was right about another thing, that Mellissa Thornton was a witch.

He had known a witch in high school, Zoey, the best friend he could probably ever have, and as he looked around the garden that was still in bloom, he was waking up to the biggest challenge of his life, knocking on the door of his supposed best friend.

He stopped before the concrete footing to look behind him at not only Sunny and Felix, but that unicorn, that creature who brought them here.

'Amy is right…' He stared at the mythical creature who, for some reason didn't want anyone to enter the ground level gazebo and muttered, "A unicorn… If Amy is right," he watched the one who led them down the tunnels and into the garden take off her hooded sweater and walk into the water with her wide web-like feet.

And stared, and looked around, really let his eyes focus so that he wouldn't only see the big things, but the little things, like his dragons, the silly thing that had started it all, that he believed in, that he was supposed to take a photograph instead of drawings that people wouldn't even think might ever be true.

'Then maybe it's true...' He pressed his hand on the edge of a brick work, raised bed and muttered, "There are no wrong answers…"