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Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn.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

[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."

[shesepankh]

"I want details on how they do it, what it consists of, and if there's any way to hedge 'em out." Her wings arch over her shoulders till they touch the ceiling, disappear, reappear folded a moment later, vanish again.

[steppingup]

"They lose their physical bodies and go into the person. They get control of the person, but not access to their memories, so while some can be good actors it gets a bit hinky for long periods of time. Only way I know to get them out is to get an angel, or wait for 'em to get out on their own. Might be possible to threaten them out, but I don't think you want to get mixed up in stuff that can scare a demon out. I dunno of a way to keep 'em from getting in, maybe load yourself up on tons of luck charms and hope for the best."

[shesepankh]

"There are luck charms? That work?"

[steppingup]

"Yup. Expensive, though. Before you ask, Darren, no I've got no clue how they're made."

[castmyown]

"Aw. That would have been helpful..."

[shesepankh]

"Seconding that. Is there a ballpark estimate you can give me on how many demons there are active in the world at any given time?"

[steppingup]

"Not a clue. Sorry. Not tons, but there are more of 'em than there are angels running around."

[shesepankh]

"How does one get ahold of an angel if one requires an angel? And do angels just look like winged humans, such that if I had to I could -" Wings. "Fool somebody?"

[steppingup]

"Four wings, not two. I've got no clue how to get a hold of one, but I know one. They'll show up if something gets bad enough, usually."

[shesepankh]

"You know an angel? Do they have, like, a phone number?"

[steppingup]

"Nope. Enigmatic. Really unhelpful that way. But I met - it."

[castmyown]

"'It'?" asks Darren, confused.

[steppingup]

"Couldn't for the life of me tell what gender it was. Could've been a man, could've been a woman. Might be neither, I don't know."

[shesepankh]

"And you didn't ask? I guess this might seem comparatively unimportant next to their species."

[steppingup]

"He or she was a little busy at the time. Seemed kind of rude to go up to it and say, 'Are you a boy or a girl?' Professor Oak style."

[shesepankh]

"Yeah, fair. What was going on?"

[steppingup]

"Exorcism, followed by closing a hell mouth. That was fun."

[shesepankh]

"Sounds like a heck of a way to kill a weekend, yeah. I need to know a lot of stuff, it'd seem. I'm glad Darren found me instead of - most anybody else."

[steppingup]

"Yup," agrees Vernon. He pats Darren's back, in a fatherly sort of way.

[castmyown]

"Happy to help."

[shesepankh]

Bella produces, swishes, and dismisses her tail. "I don't suppose there's informational pamphlets. 'So You're A Mythical Quadruped: What You Will Need To Know'."

[steppingup]

"I wish. It would have made my life a ton easier. Along with a, 'So Your Kid Is A Mythical Quadruped: What To Do' pamphlet."