Fate.

There was a spot deep in the forest, hard to find even if you knew where it was, but Charlie had never struggled. She'd been coming here since she was a child, stumbling across it almost by accident whilst chasing a rabbit through the thick woods behind her grandparents house. She'd come across a small gap in an otherwise impenetrable thicket, and after pausing to check if she could hear the rabbit in there, she heard something else. A voice. A male voice, but not one of a fully grown man. Charlie had thrown herself to the ground and shuffled forward on her elbows and stomach to try and get a glimpse. She saw a boy, not too much older than she was, with scruffy brown hair that he casually ran his hand through. He had his back to her, and appeared to be having a conversation with someone, but as far as Charlie could tell, he was alone. Surprisingly, this wasn't the strangest thing about him, for Charlie could clearly see a long, shaggy, brown tail protruding from a slit in the boy's shorts. She threw a hand over her mouth to muffler her gasp at the realisation. Willing her heart to slow down and be quiet, she tried to focus on the words the boy said, but it was no use. His muttering was too quiet for her to pick out more than the odd word. Time seemed to stop while Charlie watched the boy, and she fell into a sort of trance, only realising how long she had been laying there in the bushes when the boy's voice suddenly stopped. She refocused her eyes but the clearing was empty. After a long moment, Charlie crawled forward and into the space. She searched every inch of it, but all she found was a large boulder, too heavy to move. Defeated, Charlie set off back to her grandparents, racing the setting sun. When she mentioned the clearing, her grandmother had scolded her, and her grandfather had slammed his fist on the table and forbidden her from playing in the woods. His anger scared Charlie, and as she watched him walk away muttering under his breath about wolves and boundaries, she decided to keep the boy she had seen to herself. Despite the warning from her grandparents, Charlie spent every moment she could in those woods, seeking out the clearing and watching for the boy. As the years passed and she grew from a child into a young woman, the boy never returned, but Charlie couldn't stop herself from searching him every time. It wasn't until the week after the death of Charlie's parents that she would see him again.