Key of Holly, Lock of Hawthorn: Gate of Slime

A grin began to spread over Charlotte's face. It was still dark, but beyond the gate a shimmer of something like daylight trying to break through a veil was beginning to show. She reached out her hand...

And drew it back with a start, as something warm and gooey struck it. 

She entoned an outraged, "Oh!" and shook her hand viciously until the goop plopped off her hand and disappeared somewhere in the undergrowth. She took another step back, clutching her key; the lock nearly came with it, the old gate's moldy wood giving way, but it clung on, lopsided on the old rusty hook. 

She trained her burglar's lantern on the grass, and on the gate, and that was when she saw it: A trail of pale, translucent slime, as if an enormous slug had rolled across the wood some time ago and left goops of excretion on the planks. Only... it was moving. And, as she watched, parts of what she had taken to be slime took on the shape of moving, whipping limb-like protrusions... 

Of course, a gate would have a guardian.

Charlotte wrinkled her nose, and screwed up all her disgust into courage. "Filthy thing!" 

She whipped her silk handkerchief from her pocket and wiped down the lock, just to be sure, and stuffed it into her bag. There was no way of passing through the gate now without getting tangled with this odd guardian. Then again... Lady Esserve had said the gate would remain open until the following spring. She could come back later, and better prepared. 

She just needed... that lock. There was simply no way she would just let it dangle there. Holly and Hawthorn was Esserve's house--Charlotte's house, too, now, in a way. The key and the lock belonged together. 

The slime began to drop down from the gate, towards the grass, perhaps seeking out its missing... piece. Charlotte tried to think, but the urgency of the situation did not leave much opportunity for careful cogitation, and so she stopped trying to think, closed her eyes, and held out her hands, calling on the magic before her, within her, and that flowed through her from her unfortunate patron. 

The air had been cool and misty, the undergrowth wet with condensation. She could feel it like pinpricks of sensation even outside of the perimeter of her own body. She let it happen. She felt each drop, her own blood, even the sticky moisture that bound together the creature's strange physiognomy...

It took laboured slow steps towards her, and she could feel the leaves hiss and curl into themselves where it touched. She could not allow it to touch her!

So she pulled the water out of it. 

There was a whinnying sound as the creature stopped and writhed in obvious pain. "Stay back," Charlotte snapped at it. "Imbecile! I have the key. I have the mark of the house of Holly and Hawthorn. What makes you think I have no right to be here? It is you who has no right!" And just to emphasize her words, she plucked another spoonful of moisture from the slime. 

The thing backed away on many limbs, slipping back away and through the gate.

Charlotte drew a deep breath as the magic dissipated. The sunlight on the other side of the gate diminished and then blinked out as the magic in the air diminished.

Something told her she would not get away with this particular trick again. But for now, she was safe. 

She stepped carefully back to the gate and turned the lock of hawthorn towards herself. That little motion was enough for the wood to come apart, and the lock fell heavy into her hand. She brushed away bits of wet wood from it lovingly, admiring the contours of its molding. 

 The answers to all her questions about magic, the reach of what could be done, would be there for her, so long as she reached out for them. And here, now, was her way in.