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Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn.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

[castmyown]

He giggles maniacally.

".... This will take a while! I should call my dad first. And Savannah, she's probably still flying around. Hold on."

Phone's retrieved, then, "Hey, dad. Yup, found it, or, well, her - she's a sphinx. I know, right?! No, no, she can't, she just turned, she doesn't know any either. Right, yeah. That was the plan! I'm extremely excited and I might have to run around the house with wings most of the time because I do not think I can just stay on the ground right now. No I won't break anything. Promise. No, dad, not even the ugly vase. Yeah, sure. I'll make sure her dad's not worried."

He pauses, then smiles a bit."... Aw, dad. Thanks, that's really nice of you, I don't think it'll go that way but if it does I think she'll appreciate it. No, I'm not, shush it's nice and I love you. Yeah, I'll go let Savannah know - she's flying around. Bye, dad. Love you."

Click.

"So um - dad mentioned that if your dad takes your sphinxiness badly you can stay with us."

[shesepankh]

"So this isn't sufficiently top-secret that I shouldn't tell him at all, then?"

[castmyown]

"I don't think you should go and tell anyone you don't trust about it, but generally if you trust the person enough and know they're not going to react by throwing you to be dissected - yeah, it's fine. It's how my dad knows, he's human and was told."

[shesepankh]

"Okay." She smiles slightly. "You can fly inside your house? I'd think that'd be awkward."

[castmyown]

"Yeah, it is a little awkward but I can manage in the living room or something while I'm - oh, I forgot to tell you, er- sorry, I got excited." He clears his throat. "The medallion will actually let you be at any point between human and sphinx, or for me human and peryton, but it takes a bit of practice and isn't as easy as going back and forth between them. So if I want to I can be somewhere in between the two, like so."

He demonstrates by shifting in his wings and antlers! He is now a human with grey-blue wings and antlers.

[shesepankh]

"Oh, cool. How finely controlled does 'any point' get? Like, could I draw extremely specific designs in lion fur on myself?"

[castmyown]

"That one depends on you, it's a little tricky but if you want to do it I think if you practice a lot you can get it. I got enough fine control to get antlers and wings, but not the fur because I think I look silly as a human with fur. Or as a half-human half-deer-man with fur."

[shesepankh]

"I don't have any immediate application for drawing things on myself in fur, I was just curious if I could." She bites her lip and concentrates and manages to get the wings - and accompanying shirt adjustment - without changing anything else. "Can I fly like this? Can you? Or do you have to have the entire designed-for-wings body plan at the time for that to be advisable?"

[castmyown]

"You can fly in midform, but the wings need to be fully in. It's a bit awkward, though. I got it because hooves and stairs do not make friends so if I'm flying indoors it's going to be like this."

[shesepankh]

"Makes sense. How did you find out about all this, then?"

[castmyown]

"Well, our dad knew our birth-father and suspected he'd had some kids somewhere, so when he died he went investigating and found us. He had our birth-father's amulet, but wasn't sure what to do with it, so he was trying to think of a way to explain things when Savannah got curious about an amulet that supposedly belonged to our birth-father. Mind you we were like eleven, so, don't judge her too much, please. She went and investigated, ran off to the woods with it to inspect it because dad was not happy about her grabbing it, for obvious reasons. She turned, dropped it, came home freaking out as a peryton, dad explains what's going on and he and I go looking for it. And that was how I learned about this."

[shesepankh]

"Where'd you get yours?"

[castmyown]

"We went and bought one in the Avalon nearby. Perytons are kind of commonish, so it wasn't too expensive. I wanted to fly, Savannah was having a lot of fun with it."

[shesepankh]

"...Avalon," prompts Bella.

[castmyown]

"Right, sorry, uh - place where mystical creatures can mystical creature it up with no problem. The one I went to was in a really big warehouse complex thing, but some others aren't. People live there, have shops, hotels, so on."

[shesepankh]

"Where's the nearest one to here, then?"

[castmyown]

"Seattle. But the one I went to was in Detroit, so I couldn't tell you what this one's like."

[shesepankh]

"Okay. Wow." She puts her wings away, produces a tail, feels around the gap it automatically makes for itself in her jeans, disposes of the tail.

"I don't feel like I'm dreaming. I mean, I suppose I say that when I'm dreaming, too, but there are characteristics of dreams that my current experiences don't have."

[castmyown]

"You're not dreaming. Promise. ... Also I should call my sister, she is still flying and I forgot about her! Hold on."

Phone, number dialed, then - "Hey! Yeah, found her. Yeah, her. It's Bella, she is a sphinx. No, no I won't, I already got excited at dad I think it's out of my system now. She just turned, yup. She's fine, has her amulet with her and is playing with midforms a bit. We're -" he looks around for a landmark. "Um. You know what, we can just meet back home. Yeah. Bye!"

The call ends, and the phone goes to a pocket.

"Right, sorry about that."

[shesepankh]

"She can answer the phone while flying? Where does her phone go?"

[castmyown]

"She took off in fullform and switched to midform once we split up, so she could have thumbs and the phone."

[shesepankh]

"Makes sense. Is it hard to learn to fly?"

[castmyown]

"No, but it takes some practice. More than walking or running, as a quadruped."

[shesepankh]

"I'm pretty terrible at walking even with the feet I'm used to. Although I guess having more feet is probably a help all else being equal? I didn't feel exactly catlike and acrobatic, though."

[castmyown]

"You'd be able to at least glide, gliding's easy. Just keep your wings open and steady and bam, gliding. Having more feet usually helps, but not with stairs. Or at least my four delicate cloven hooves don't work with stairs, a lion's limbs might be different. They take practice, though."