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Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn.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

"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?"

[castmyown]

"Compared to normal bookstore books? Yeah."

[steppingup]

"I am also a single parent. Just saying, money doesn't grow on trees."

[shesepankh]

"I know it doesn't."

[sundayfish]

"We can buy you at least a few books, I think, Bells."

[castmyown]

Darren smiles a little. "Want help picking them out?"

[shesepankh]

"Yes please."

[castmyown]

"We can probably pick a weekend to go, then. Not this one, because shifting and settling in, but - yeah."

[shesepankh]

"Is it generally safe to fly around outdoors? I guess if you're high enough you look like some unidentified bird and planes can be seen from a ways away... Or we could just take the bus."

[castmyown]

"Yeah, but beware of cold. And we can't take our dads if we fly, which... They will probably want to come. So." He coughs.

[steppingup]

"It's like you know me or something."

[shesepankh]

"I'm usually allowed to go places on my own, but I suppose the Seattle Avalon might be a little different than going with a school acquaintance to Port Angeles to find a decent bookstore."

[steppingup]

"Just a bit different, yeah."

[shesepankh]

"Okay, so, significant scheduling projecty thing. How fast can we fly? Or is it likely to be the same...?"

[castmyown]

"I think we can manage to be faster than a bus, since we can just go straight there and don't need to make stops. But - parental figures, I'm not sure I can carry my dad."

[shesepankh]

"I'm reasonably big in fullform but I don't think I want to try carrying a person either, yeah. Especially not as a novice. But I meant just swooping around for fun, how fast are you, in miles per hour, and is my speed likely to be alike?"

[castmyown]

"You know I've never actually measured it? It's hard to, considering that I work to get up speed. But um - pretty fast, I think. Your speed's likely to be similar to mine, so you will also be pretty fast."

[shesepankh]

"Okay. 'Pretty fast'. When we do flying lessons I'm getting you a stopwatch."

[castmyown]

"All right! I find it a fun thing to do every now and then, but not a major method of travel, so I never bothered."

[shesepankh]

"Is invisibility a possible magic?"

[castmyown]

"Maybe? But I haven't learned it, so I can't teach it. I think it's possible, though."

[shesepankh]

"Are there textbooks or what? For that matter, what is the - basic procedure for magic-doing? Chanting? Burning incense? Drawing pentagrams?"

[castmyown]

"Drawings and chanting are both present. Natural talents you don't need either but if you want to do it the hard way, you need to draw diagrams and chant a spell."

[shesepankh]

"How much of this is gotten from ancient scrolls and how much can you figure out with - the magical equivalent of a dictionary and stoichiometry?"