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Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn.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

"Bide your time, the day of reckoning will come. There will be adorable pictures. Lots of them."

[castmyown]

"Noooooo," says Darren, shaking his fist.

[shesepankh]

"Aww, I'm terrible at patience."

[steppingup]

"Oh, well, in that case-"

[castmyown]

"Nope. Not allowed."

[steppingup]

"Aw."

[shesepankh]

"Pretty please?"

[castmyown]

"No."

[shesepankh]

"This is totally not fair, you realize, you've been literally physically present for one hundred percent of the time I have spent at all sphinxy."

[castmyown]

"Yes, but you still don't get to see embarrassing pictures. Besides, I missed when you first turned, I showed up after you woke up. So ninety-eight percent of the time, instead."

[shesepankh]

"I suppose I'll have to settle for magic lessons."

[castmyown]

"You poor soul."

[shesepankh]

"Yep. Oh well." Stretch, humanize, materialize exactly one claw with considerable concentration and then get an entire paw, shoo the paw in favor of humanity again. "Magic lessons and whatever else there is to know. I want to know all of it, without exception, as quickly as I can digest it."

[steppingup]

"... No wonder you two are friends. I bestow upon this friendship my fatherly blessing. Be friends in peace, and... Stuff."

[castmyown]

Darren bursts into laughter.

[shesepankh]

"But seriously, if there's a 101 I can get besides 'hello, surprise secret sphinx, beware demons, fyi medallions,' I would like that sooner rather than later."

[castmyown]

He recovers, and says, "I mean, you should probably visit Seattle's Avalon, and - I dunno, get a list of mythical creatures. But you've got the basics."

[shesepankh]

"How does one prove one is a creature and thereby enter an Avalon?"

[castmyown]

"Show them your medallion and probably do a quick demonstration of creatureness."

[steppingup]

"Or, if you're human, explain the system in absurd detail in a low voice and say you're in on it."

[shesepankh]

"Is there absurd detail to be had? I don't currently have absurd detail."

[steppingup]

"I was naming people I knew when I went in without anyone else there, and what types of creature they were. Not the kind of absurd detail that's useful. You'll want books, for that. I just know people."

[shesepankh]

"Ooh, books. Yeah, I want books."

[castmyown]

"I know some good ones, we didn't buy them because money but I skimmed and read quickly."

[shesepankh]

"Are they really expensive? I mean, for books?"