ghost

[shesepankh]

Kindergarten teacher Renée Higgenbotham Swan (36) was killed in a car crash one mile from her residence in Phoenix, AZ, January 9, 2005. She is survived by her daughter Isabella (16). Her service will be held at -

Bella has the entire obituary pasted into a page of one of her compilation notebooks but tends not to re-read past the first lines. It's repellent. The concept of obituaries is repellent. The funeral is over. Renée's vibrant brief life has been summed up over the course of a paragraph, and is also over.

Bella pretends to sleep on the plane. Her neighbor is talkative and she doesn't want to say shut up, my mom just died, because - what if it doesn't work? What if this news doesn't have the power to bludgeon everyone else into stunned silence the way it does Bella?

Charlie collects her. Charlie hugs her. Charlie doesn't make her talk. Good wonderful understanding quiet Charlie does not say a word. He takes her home. Her room's where she left it last August.

It's raining.

Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn. First class is English. Okay, whatever.

The teacher wants her to introduce herself. Bella wants to yank on the skinny end of his tie until he regrets making her.

She stands at the front of the room and says that her name is Bella Swan and she's moved here to live with her dad. The teacher makes an impatient go on gesture and she stands there for a moment before robotically saying the same thing she produced at the beginning of the year in her old school in Phoenix when they were doing go-around-the-room-and-share-facts. "I'm one of those people who actually likes Shakespeare."

He lets her sit down.

She sits.

Comments

[shesepankh]

"Perytons don't have special magical affinities?" Pause. "Also, weren't perytons invented in the fifties? It's not, like, ancient myth the way sphinxes or dragons are."

[castmyown]

"... We actually do. Um. But I'm not using it ever. We get the fantastic ability for shapeshifting... Into a specific person. If we um - eat their heart." He coughs. "We weren't invented, we were discovered in the fifties. We were really good at hiding. Because of the heart thing."

[shesepankh]

"...Okay, it sounds like you don't need my commentary on that."

[castmyown]

"Yeah, my opinion of it is obvious, I think. Never using it, ever."

[shesepankh]

"Yeah. I'm assuming Savannah agrees?"

[castmyown]

"For the most part. I think she's of the opinion that if it's an emergency and there's someone nearby who is morally reprehensible she'll use it, but outside of that single unlikely situation - she agrees with me."

[shesepankh]

"It seems like a limited advantage to be disguised as a morally reprehensible person."

[castmyown]

"Hey now, I argued her down to that, don't poke holes in my reasoning."

[shesepankh]

"You're concerned she'd take my comment and go from 'well, I'd do it if it was a morally reprehensible person' to 'let's eat the hearts of children, they're great camouflage'?"

[castmyown]

"No, but I'm concerned that she'd go back to, 'If I hate this person and my other choice is death I will eat their heart even if they're not terrible people.'"

[shesepankh]

"All right, I'll keep my mouth shut. You know her better than I do."

Is that the road?

[castmyown]

"Thanks. I'd like to avoid any heart-eating."

That is indeed the road! "Well then - from here you can find your way back just fine? Or would you like an escort in case of demons?"

[shesepankh]

"I can find my way, but I'm actually more worried about blacking out again than I am about demons. Or maybe starting to walk digitigrade and not noticing."

[castmyown]

"Okay. Hopefully your dad doesn't see me and say, 'You were in the woods for a longish period of time with a strange boy, I'm getting the shotgun,'" he says in a deadpan.

[shesepankh]

"Charlie's only gun is his service pistol. I've also mentioned you to him before and I'm not bleeding, frantic, or furious, so that should help."

[castmyown]

"That helps, a bit. Then let's go, if you randomly black out let's hope I can carry you."

[shesepankh]

"Or drag me off the road and sit by me and make sure cars don't use me as a speedbump. And put leaves over me if I'm sphinxy. Do you know my house's landline number, just in case? You can usually get Charlie via the non-emergency police number too but he's home today."

[castmyown]

"That too. That's probably the better option, really. What's your landline number? I don't have it."

[shesepankh]

Bella pulls out the mini-notebook in her pocket, tears out a blank page, and writes it down for him.

[castmyown]

Into his phone it goes! Look at them, planning things out in case of horrific emergency.

[shesepankh]

On they walk.

Bella trips about a half-mile from her house. She's unconscious - and inconveniently winged - before she hits the ground.

[castmyown]

Darren is concerned. He tries to wake her, gets nowhere, then gets her off of the road and tries again.

He's there for fifteen minutes before he starts wondering what happens if anyone finds them like this. They're by the road, anyone could see them, and she is very inconveniently winged. Her dad is probably reaching the point where he would be worried, now. As much as he dislikes informing Bella's dad about things before she's ready, health comes first, something might be wrong.

She is his friend, and he would like her to be okay. If her dad reacts badly to her new species, she can bunk with him, but he seriously doubts that will happen.

So he calls Bella's landline. "Hello," he says, a ting of panic in his voice. "Is um - Mr. Charlie Swan there?"

[sundayfish]

"Speaking."

[castmyown]

"Hi, um - help, your daughter is unconscious on the side of the road. Er. Also she has um - wings, I will explain but she's unconscious and I am kind of freaking out right now. We're on -" He checks the road name. "Buckleberry, the south part? Please bring um - a car, I don't think I can carry her."

[sundayfish]

"Who is this? I'm not a good pranking target, fair warning."