As Athena pawed through her clothes, trying desperately to find an outfit that wouldn't affect her too much, a sudden, strange thought crossed her mind: "What if I didn't wear any of these outfits at all?"
She paused at the idea. Miss Fine's magic, whatever it was, seemed to have permeated through all of her choices of outfit, so if she simply refused to wear any of them, would she still be affected by it? Or was it the statement she made by choosing an outfit that mattered? And besides, she obviously couldn't just go naked all her life from now on.
But Athena could get new clothes. New clothes that hopefully hadn't been affected by Miss Fine, not yet at least. She would have to bear a nearly naked trip across town to the Occult Store...
"The Occult Store!" she exclaimed aloud. It was where she bought her clothes and all her things, how could she have forgotten? Something there could help her! Miss Fine, Athena hadn't failed to note after a look about her room, had stolen everything even remotely related to magic that could've helped resist her influence, but not all of it was irreplaceable. Ouija boards, dream-catchers, some basic tomes, they were a dime a dozen at the occult store. Of course nothing there could approach the value of the collection Athena had until recently spent years amassing, but what else was she to do?
A plan was coming together... Athena would skip school tomorrow, (which she probably should anyway, now that she thought about it, given how strongly Miss Fine had it under her thumb), shun all clothes but the undergarments she was already in until she bought some new ones, brave the journey to the occult store in her underwear, starting at maybe 10 (hopefully there wouldn't be too many passersby to see her naked then), buy some new clothes and some replacement artifacts to help her, and go from there.
It seemed to be a logical plan, hopefully even solid enough to work, but still she turned it over in her head as she crawled into bed that night, discarding the sheets (who knew what Fine had done to them?). That she would have to journey across town while effectively naked bothered her; she was getting embarrassed even thinking about it, in fact. Still, she tried and tried to remind herself that much more was now at stake than just her pride; what was a little shame to her person when compared to stopping Fine from making the school into her dollhouse? She knew exactly what: it was an awful knot in her gut, keeping her from sleeping well that night.
