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Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn.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

[sundayfish]

He shrugs. "As opposed to what? Vernon says sometimes kids come home with wings and get kicked out. Don't see how that solves anything."

[steppingup]

"It doesn't," says Vernon. "But sometimes they don't want to deal with the problems."

[sundayfish]

"Not how having a kid works," mutters Charlie.

[shesepankh]

"Dad, is it gonna freak you out if I practice changing on purpose so I'm less likely to come over all angelic if I faint in school or whatever?"

[sundayfish]

"Probably. Do it anyhow if it helps."

[steppingup]

Okay, Vernon likes Bella's father. He smiles at him, just a bit. Finally a father who gets it.

[castmyown]

Darren smiles too. "I er - should I ask around to see if blacking out upon turning is normal?" he offers.

[steppingup]

Vernon snorts. "Darren, I love you but you can't be subtle to save your life. I can do it."

[sundayfish]

"Some reason to be subtle with the kinda people who'd know?"

[shesepankh]

"I," says Bella, turning fullform and sprawling all over the couch tail and all, "am an extra special fairy-princess kind of monsterperson, so if it's normal for sphinxes but not normal for anything else, the question would ideally not be connected to me."

[steppingup]

"Yup. I can ask some people, pretend to be the stupid human that needs education."

[castmyown]

Darren snickers, a little, at her completely serious description. "Has this gone firmly into the 'not a dream' category yet?"

[shesepankh]

"No. I've passed out twice, I haven't actually fallen asleep on purpose, and that was the check I picked."

[castmyown]

"Well, at least you're sticking to your guns."

[shesepankh]

"I do that." She changes one leg, observes the complicated reaction her jeans have to this, and symmetrizes herself. "Man, this is weird."

[castmyown]

"It really is. You get used to it."

[steppingup]

"Some get used to it, anyway. I mostly just stay out of it."

[shesepankh]

"Why?" Bella asks Vernon.

[steppingup]

"Because usually I am so far in over my head it's not even funny."

[shesepankh]

"Hey, this time this morning I didn't know sphinxes existed. From what I understand, neither did Darren." She plays with claw retraction, careful of the upholstery, and then goes fully human and sits up, and then watches her shoes disappear as she changes from the ankles down. "But whatever you gotta do."

[steppingup]

"Normal human. I have a pocket knife. Demons possess people and are impossible to kill, they just go poof and go back to Dis. Angels have huge pointy swords. Even Darren, the pacifist who bleeds altruism if poked with something sharp, can blast people with magic. I know when I'm out of my league."

[castmyown]

Darren is watching Bella's shapeshifting experiments curiously, but glances up when his dad speaks. "Thanks for doing it anyway."

[steppingup]

He smiles back, and then - hugs. "Yup."

[shesepankh]

"They possess people? Darren didn't mention that."

[steppingup]

"He didn't know. They freak him out and have got no reason to mess with him, anyway. I don't scare my kid for giggles." He considers Bella. "Though maybe now they do have a reason to mess with him. Okay, well, demons can possess people. If someone acts weird, get a bugbear or an angel or somethin' because you need to check."