Starcross

Part 8

I'm going to admit this now, but this chapter was going to be longer. But with what I have planned, I need to take time with it without losing readers to a wall of text (this chapter as is is almost 1.5K and I'm afraid of going higher). While this chapter is being cut a bit shorter than I intending, I do hope to have some more time with just Oopsy's perspective while Claire is in Care-a-lot. It's going to be a super frustrating chapter. Mostly for Grumpy. xD

Rest assured though, this chapter contains quite a bit of foreshadowing. Maybe about two or three instances- but I'm not telling what they are. Not yet, anyway.

. . . . .

. . . .

. . .

Matthew hadn't returned home by dinner time, so Amelia set to make dinner instead. Claire didn't mind, she wanted to spend time looking over the amulet in the privacy of her room. The amulet felt a little heavy in her hands, but she didn't really notice it when she had tied it around her neck. The amulet's chain was also long enough that it allowed the amulet to sit just a little below her (still rather small) bust.

Sitting on her bed, Claire looked over the amulet with curiosity. It was so familiar, and yet she couldn't figure out why.

"This... did something..." the teen said out loud in thought, "Didn't it?"

The teen turned to amulet over in her hand as she looked over it. Nothing. The back was completely smooth- no mention of who could have made it or where it had come from. Of course, that was assuming that this was the something she thought it was, an object from her distant past that likely didn't need to be remembered.

"I wish I knew what you did..." she mumbled to herself. "Not that it could make my life easier or anything..."

Still trying to remember blocked memories, Claire turned the amulet back over to realize that the jewel was letting off a soft glow. Claire gave a tilt of her head as she looked closer at the jewel- for a moment she saw a flicker of something, like a face, shine back at her. The teen swiped her thumb against the jewel in a trance; it seemed to have some effect as the jewel glowed a bit brighter with each swipe. It didn't take long before Claire suddenly retracted from the amulet as a rainbow shot out from the jewel, flitting around her room before forming an archway in front of her closet door. The newly created rainbow archway started to shimmer as a scene of another world slowly appeared through the archway.

Claire gave the rainbow archway a wary glance as she walked over to it. When she was close enough, she slowly lifted her arm and made it go through the arch. Nothing happened to her arm -thank goodness- but it only made things weirder. Claire pulled her arm back and looked at it as if she was trying to find some fault with it now; she looked back at the archway with an even weirder expression.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Claire found herself saying before going through the archway.

. . .

"I have had ENOUGH of this bear!" Grumpy hollered as he threw down his wrench. Everyone in the vacancy flinched, but it was Tenderheart who tried to reason;

"But Grumpy, please have exercise some patience..."

"Patience?" Grumpy snorted. He gave Oopsy a rather accusatory finger point before declaring, "I had patience when he showed up. I had patience when you said he'd be a help. Heck, I even had patience when he broke the whirly-gig not once, not twice, but TEN times!! But now? I'm done! I am so completely done with this bear that if I ever see him again in this lifetime or the next, I'll start a mutiny!"