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Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn.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 snickers, a little. "Okay, fine, want me to start spouting out facts you can't possibly know that you can look up when you get home? To prove my sentience and how I have my own knowledge base."

[shesepankh]

"Well, if I'm not dreaming, I will continue to be able to trade in human parts for sphinx ones at will even after taking a nap, and that's going to be more convincing than something I could have forgotten I knew."

[castmyown]

"Right, which was why I wasn't trying that earlier and just saying, 'No this is not a dream.' I don't exactly have a way to prove that this isn't a dream other than to keep existing and not being a dream. So. Not a dream?"

[shesepankh]

"I don't expect you to singlehandedly prove to me that this isn't a dream. Look at me, operating in ways that will leave me safe and stable even if it is not instead of deciding to flap around for kicks. Just, be aware that I'm reserving judgment till I've woken up in bed and tried the tail thing."

[castmyown]

"Sure, I was in a daze right after I found out. Just sort of wandering around following dad and asking lots of questions. You're taking this remarkably well, considering."

He adds, wryly, "Despite insisting that I am probably a dream."

[shesepankh]

"Oh, I'm pretty sure there exists a real Darren. I think I fell asleep sometime today, not two weeks ago or whatever. Although to be perfectly honest with you if the last two weeks were a dream that would be kind of great?"

[castmyown]

"No offense taken," says Darren. "I understand completely."

Then, quietly, he adds, "Would you like a hug?"

[shesepankh]

"Yeah."

[castmyown]

Hug.

[shesepankh]

Hug.

She can apparently make her neck super long, she discovers by accident while trying to put her head on his shoulder. That's weird. She puts her neck back how it is supposed to be and gives up the shoulder project.

[castmyown]

He notices, and manages a little smile. "Oh, well, if I'm allowed to cheat on hugs..."

Out come the wings. He can hug her with them, too, but he's a little nervous about spooking her. So he'll ask, first. "Want to be extra-hugged?" he inquires, amused.

[shesepankh]

"Um, sure, but the neck thing was an accident. I'm going to need to practice before school. Lucky it's a Friday and I already did the shopping."

[castmyown]

"That's rather lucky. A few days should be enough to stop absently slipping a bit if you're paying attention, if you work at it."

She is then wrapped in feathery grey-blue wings. It's actually quite soft and comfy.

[shesepankh]

Mmmm.

"Thanks. ...But I don't want to be near the magic neon sign if there might be demons after me, let's keep walking."

[castmyown]

"Yeah, but you needed a hug."

Away go the wings, and he releases her from the embrace. Back to walking!

(He is mercifully not embarrassed by hugs. She needed one, he gave it, all is well. Completely normal.)

[shesepankh]

(She is not embarrassed either.)

"I wonder which of my parents it was. I don't think Charlie'd like to be a sphinx, so I guess either way he won't be disappointed about the lack of medallions."

[castmyown]

"Yeah. I don't know of a way to check without chucking a medallion at him, though, so - it might be a mystery. Maybe there's a way to figure out through magic without disrupting the spell if he's a sphinx."

[shesepankh]

"...The lady who dropped the medallion at the store looked like my mom. I was actually trying to get a better look at her so I could convince my brain it wasn't really. But I didn't wind up seeing more than - her chin, how she walked, how tall she was."

[castmyown]

Darren thinks.

"... Could be a relative? A sister or cousin who knew that she was a sphinx or - something? Was one, herself, knew about your mom and knew she'd had you? Then she found you, got you a medallion so you could sphinx it up?"

[shesepankh]

"Mom was an only child, as far as I know. She had cousins, I suppose, none she was close with, but my grandparents are all four dead, have been for a while, so if it was a cousin they'd have to know an awful lot without much to go on about what side of the family it's from."

[castmyown]

"True. I'm not sure, it was an idea. The mysterious woman who looks like your mom and conveniently dropped the exact medallion for you is kind of suspicious, to me. It could be one of the creatures that can shape-shift, being cruel about what shape they pick to get your attention. Or I could be over-thinking it and you could just be incredibly lucky."

[shesepankh]

"Yeah, I don't know what to make of it, but I thought I'd mention it in case it was important."

[castmyown]

"It seems like it, but I don't know what it means. Sadly enough, I don't know everything. Yet."

[shesepankh]

"Let me know if you get there, I'll want to mooch."

[castmyown]

"Yup. I think my opinion on people mooching off of things I know is pretty well known."

(In that he doesn't mind at all, if it's innocent. If it's not, then that changes things.)