Author: self_composed | Bella brings two blank notebooks to school the next day. Her old one is safely computerized and boxed up with its predecessors.
At lunch, she sits with Angela; Jessica and Eric and Lauren sit at the same table but mostly talk to each other, and Mike is nowhere to be seen.
Bella is just about on time to gym, thanks to an overnight icing that means she has to pick her way with extreme care across the slippery grass or the slick sidewalks. The second time she falls down, she gives up on attempting any dignity at all, and, cradling her thwacked elbow, scoots the rest of the way to the gym on her rear. This leaves her with damp jeans but no further injuries, and they were a little damp anyway from the falls.
She doesn't have time to do more than smile and wave at Alice on her way to get her mat and get out of the way of careening balls. She spends the class doing the subset of her safe activities that won't stress her elbow. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | At the end of class, Alice drops by her mat with a smile on his face.
"Hey guess what," he says cheerfully. |
Author: self_composed | "You love your new notebook?" Bella asks, pulling it out and handing it over. "That is my guess." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I do," he says, kisses it theatrically, and hugs it to him.
"But nope! Dad fucked off to I forget where and Mom says you can come over for dinner again and she doesn't care what we do or where as long as we don't break anything she has to explain later." |
Author: self_composed | Bella laughs, at the antics and at at the relation of Mrs. Hammond's attitude. "Sounds great. I have to do some nonzero amount of homework this afternoon, but I can do it at your house. Lemme call and tell Mr. Jenkins to tell my dad he's on his own for dinner again. Well, not quite, there's leftover mashed potatoes and half a steak..." She pulls out her phone and places the call, which goes a lot like the last one. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Pff, homework," says Alice. "Sure, okay." |
Author: self_composed | "Yes, homework. I can coast in English with recycled essays, but I have to actually write things down for other classes, even if it's easy." She shrugs. "I want to go to college." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Dad keeps making noises about how if I was more responsible he could send me to law school. Pretty sure I'd rather die," says Alice. "We good to go?" |
Author: self_composed | Bella gets up, favoring the hurt elbow still. "Sure. I haven't thought as far ahead as graduate school yet. I'm not even sure what I'll major in. Maybe bio or something." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Can't help you there," he says serenely. "Y'know, this is the longest I've gone without skipping gym in ages." |
Author: self_composed | "I got the impression you usually came to gym even before. You like Ms. Finch and whatnot." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yeah, usually's not the same as always," he says. "Maybe you're a good influence." |
Author: self_composed | "No wonder your mom likes me." She tilts her head and heads outside, looking grimly at the ice. She sits on it again. Scoot, scoot, scoot. "What do you normally do during the school day while you cut classes?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | ...Alice blinks at her method of locomotion.
Then he shrugs and keeps pace.
"Climb trees," he says. "Wander around town. Sleep. Once in a while I read a book." |
Author: self_composed | She sighs. "There's a reason I can't play anything in gym. I fell twice walking there, I'm just going directly to the safe undignified method this time."
"How long ago did you turn 18? My dad's always muttering to himself about truants, I bet he would have picked you up at some point if you were 17 and skipping school in Forks at any time." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "October. I'm good at not getting caught." |
Author: self_composed | Bella laughs. "So it'd seem."
The parking lot has lots of cracks in the ice, and slush, too. This would be impossible to scoot over and is slightly less likely to tip her over. She gets up and moves very carefully towards her car. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yep. It's a talent."
He tags along beside her, not close enough to crowd. |
Author: self_composed | Bella makes it to the car - walking the final stretch with the intervening cars as supports - without falling over. She kicks her front tire until the slush is mostly off her boots, and gets in.
She again waits until Alice is buckled in before going anywhere. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | This time, he even puts his seatbelt on without prompting! |
Author: self_composed | Bella drives with care, although Forks of necessity is pretty good about plowing and salting. "Apart from it usually being father-infested and this being a good opportunity, is there anything particularly cool to do in your house besides inspect all the pretty things in it? I did that one time already." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Father-infested. Good one. He laughs.
"We didn't actually see the whole basement," he offers. "Or my room. But my room might be boring, I dunno." |
Author: self_composed | "How come your mom skipped your room on the tour?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "She also skipped hers and Dad's. And Hilary's." He brightens a little. "Ooh, we can help Hilary cook, would that be fun?" |
Author: self_composed | "That could be fun!" Bella agrees. "I will copy all her recipes." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Okay. I'll ask her." |
Author: self_composed | Bella hums happily to herself. "My dad's having Hilary over on their coinciding day off next week. I think he intends to teach her to fish." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Sounds like fun." |
Author: self_composed | "Fishing is dull as a poorly maintained guillotine during the French Revolution," says Bella. "But perhaps they'll have fun chatting." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | ...He cracks up. |
Author: self_composed | Bella giggles a bit too.
"What do you read about, when you read?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Pretty much whatever I pick up," he says. "If it's boring I put it down again." |
Author: self_composed | "Anything good lately?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I have a favourite book!" he offers. "You wanna see my favourite book?" |
Author: self_composed | "Yes. Yes I do."
This is liable to be interesting. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Cool. I'll show you when we get there." |
Author: self_composed | And in due course... they get there. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice rings the doorbell; his mother answers with suspicious promptness.
"Come in, come in!" she says, beaming at both of them, no less formally dressed than she was last time. |
Author: self_composed | "Hello, Mrs. Hammond," says Bella brightly. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "It's nice to see you again." She steps back out of the doorway to let them in. "The man of the house is away on business, so you two have the run of the place," she adds, and winks.
...Alice laughs. |
Author: self_composed | Bella giggles softly. "I'm told I missed some basement." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Don't let me stop you," Mrs. Hammond says serenely, and sails away up the stairs.
Alice watches her go, shaking his head.
"I have known her my whole life and I still have no idea what it's like in there," he says. "So, basement or book?" |
Author: self_composed | "Book first," Bella says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Sure thing," he says, and leads her up the stairs.
Mrs. Hammond is nowhere in sight; Alice leads Bella past the farthest room they explored on their previous tour—just past it, in fact, to the very next door.
In Alice's room, the remains of the ex-fireplace are visible as an actual brick chimney set in one wall—a peculiarly wide one. The floor is almost invisible beneath a snowdrift of discarded clothing; he looks at the mess, looks at Bella, and then says, "I'll get the book, one sec." |
Author: self_composed | Bella follows him in, looking at the decor more than the mess on the floor.
This proves to a mistake.
She pitches to her right, feet tangled in a pair of jeans, and braces herself to hit the bricks -
Which she goes right through. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | ...
That is not what Alice expected to happen!
He puts his hand against the chimney, which is entirely solid and does not at all appear to have just swallowed a teenager whole. |
Author: self_composed | Bella's screaming her head off, but whatever let her through the chimney doesn't admit sound; she hears echos.
She lands.
With a crunch.
She screams some more. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | After exhaustive groping and a few kicks reveal that the chimney is impermeable to Alice, however permeable it was to Bella, he goes around to the other side and hits the wall a few times just to be thorough.
Then he goes downstairs, to the living room that used to have a fireplace in it, and starts going over that wall. |
Author: self_composed | Bella has broken bones before. She is very sure that this has happened again. She breathes. And breathes. And calms the fuck down. She has to figure out what's going on.
Why can she see? She's in a closet-sized room at the bottom of an enclosed pit; where is all this light coming from? It's like the air in here glows.
Her foot - on the bad leg - is wedged against a book, tied closed with a twist of hemp string or something that's strung with a hexagon-shaped bead.
That's the only thing in the room.
She leans - very carefully, wincing horribly - and picks up the book. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Nope. Nope nope nope and nope with a side order of nope.
What the fuck.
Technically, if he tells his mother, they could have this whole house methodically torn down to find out where the fuck Bella went. But he's not sure that would help, and he is sure that it would take a long time and lead to pretty much every kind of attention his father doesn't want.
Hell, he could see his dad just having Bella's car quietly disposed of, if he thought he could avoid getting heat over it that way.
If that happens, Alice decides, then fuck it, he's going to her dad. With the whole fucking story, if necessary.
Before that, though... well, hell. Maybe there really is a secret passage. In which case, there's one more floor of the house this chimney goes to, although as he recalls they wrapped it in a pillar.
He heads down to the basement. |
Author: self_composed | Bella can read pretty fast. And she's pretty familiar with classic literature, so she's not that slowed down by the old-timey language. The handwriting's good, anyway, though it has those silly S's that look like F's. Yes, complain to yourself about the font, Bella, that's better than focusing on your leg, which really fucking hurts.
"My deareʃt Deʃcendant." Descendant, not defendant, presumably. "I, Elias Frobiʃher, bequeath to thee this Book and the Fourth-Coin encircling ʃaid Book." Why was a hexagon called a fourth-coin? "Merely hold the Coin and make a Wiʃh, enviʃioning the Wiʃh focuʃed through the Coin. It will provide thee with the magickal Powers I myʃelf invoke, and describe herein, Powers of many Kinds including thoʃe of Conjuration, Healing -"
This is obvious crap, but it's a cheap test.
Bella touches the coin.
And she makes a wish. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice doesn't have the head for spatial relations necessary to figure out which pillar.
So he just goes through all of them, methodically, starting at the stairs. No signs of secret passages, no places he can put his hand through. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. |
Author: self_composed | The coin disappears.
It fucking disappears.
Bella returns her attention to the book. This is officially much, much more interesting than her broken leg.
"- Attack and Defenʃe, and other Uʃes. Theʃe Powers are marvelous and I value them and wiʃh them paʃʃed on to future Perʃons who may come to underʃtand them. However the Powers come with a Cost, borne in Pain."
Uh-huh...
"For the Firʃt-Coin, the least prick of a Pin will ʃuffice, yet for greater Coins greater Pains are required. Only Pain and not laʃting Injury is needed and so Gains may yet be made in the relief of ʃickneʃʃes and Wounds."
Bella turns the page.
"Make a Coin by producing in thyʃelf a Pain, and then moving thine Pain through thy Mind from Left to Right. Thine Coin will appear, in whatever sort correʃponds to the uʃed Pain."
Bella is absolutely certain that this would have made no sense a minute ago.
But now - it does.
She moves her leg, abruptly, sharply, and she moves that pain through her mind. Left to right.
And she's holding a pentagon with a hole in the middle of it, and it glows a soft red.
Damn. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Pillars that are clearly not big enough to hold an entire person, he skips. At first.
Then he recalls that Bella fell through a brick fucking wall.
It still wouldn't make that much sense for the pillar at the bottom of the chimney to be any smaller than the chimney, but fuck it. He goes back and starts checking the rest. |
Author: self_composed | Bella tries to kick the wall, to get another coin. This hurts - enough to net her another pentagon, clinking together next to the first - but only because she moved her leg. As far as her leg is concerned, there is no wall to kick, and her foot is sticking out through it.
She's going to have to read the rest of this book.
In the meantime, she is very done with her leg being broken.
She makes a wish, stands up, and - hands held out in front of her - walks out of the room, book under one arm and remaining pentagon clutched tight in her hand. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...so," says Alice, "this walking through walls thing. Is that new?" |
Author: self_composed | "Ayep," says Bella.
She blinks, and looks at her book, and at her bead.
"I have magic powers now." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He tries to come up with a response to this.
He settles, after a moment, on: "What the hell?" |
Author: self_composed | "I'm at least as surprised as you are." She half-turns, and puts her arm back through the wall of the pillar. It goes like the pillar's not even there. She puts her weight on the leg that was formerly broken, and finds it just as fine as it was before she fell. "They're kind of fucked-up magic powers, though." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...Fucked up like how?" |
Author: self_composed | "You're going to love this," Bella realizes. "I can make coins that I can then use to grant myself wishes, of various sizes. The coins are made out of pain. I broke my leg falling down and fixed it with itself." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...Yep, you're right, I love it," he says, grinning a little. "Except that if anybody's gonna have those magic powers it should clearly be me. I get hurt more than you do and I like it." |
Author: self_composed | "I'm not actually sure if you can have the powers," Bella says, putting the pentagon in her pocket for the time being and looking at the book. "This is dedicated to someone named Elias Frobisher's 'descendant'. Might also be why I can go through the pillar and the chimney and you couldn't. I need to read the rest of it." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "You'll probably use 'em better than I would, anyway," he muses. |
Author: self_composed | "Probably, yes," Bella says unapologetically. She picks a different pillar - one that is not insubstantial to her - to sit against, and she opens the book back up. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Just to satisfy his curiosity, Alice puts his hand against the pillar (it was one of the big ones, after all) where she walked through it.
Nope.
Shrugging, he sits down against it.
"Wanna tell me what it says?" |
Author: self_composed | "Paraphrased, Elias Frobisher believed this book would be found by his descendant, and wanted to pass on what he knew about magic. The book came with a coin that was like this -" She shows off the pentagon - "only six-sided and it didn't glow red, it was just kind of sparkly. I wished on it to get the power to make my own coins, which I can do by being in pain and moving the pain left to right, which, swear to God, makes sense after use of the hexagon coin for some reason. There's apparently types."
She bites the inside of her cheek a little and gets a triangle, then another triangle when she pokes at the bitten place with her tongue; these too glow red. "Like so. I think this is the smallest kind, but I need to read more."
She turns the page again. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "That is really cool," Alice opines. |
Author: self_composed | "I know," Bella enthuses. "This page is a chart of kinds of coins. There's five kinds, but Elias never quite got as far as making the star kind, at least not before he wrote this book... which he says was at least in part because using stars often goes very wrong. The other kinds work better and a hexagon's enough to grant permanent magical power. Not just the power to make coins..." She turns the page. "If I get hurt really bad - like enough that the hospital would have to remove something on the order of an entire foot or a lung or something to save me, under normal circumstances - then I can make a hexagon and use it to be able to fly, or turn invisible at will, or have super-strength. I could be a freaking comic book hero."
The next page has a drawing. She blinks at it and then covers it with her hand. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice perks up and leans forward. "Ooh, what's that?" |
Author: self_composed | Bella shuts her eyes, moves her hand, and turns around the book. "That's an illustration of how Elias made the hexagon I just used," she says.
It appears that Elias opted to stick his arm into a cage full of starving rats. A caption under the image explains that while this was agonizing, it also created numerous smallish wounds, each individually something he could take care of with a Second Coin instead of having to expend a Third. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Damn," he marvels. "Your great-whatever-grandpa was pretty hardcore." |
Author: self_composed | Bella puts her hand back over the image and turns around to read the opposite page. "I suppose so," she says. "I wonder if I actually am related. There doesn't seem to be an index... Oh, that's convenient, a table of recommended methods for getting certain coins with ideal pain-to-injury and pain-to-coin ratios. Kind of outdated probably, still a useful reference."
She reads on, turning the old pages carefully. "Aha. He made the secret passage in his house so only his descendants could get into it, and his descendants would always be able to get into it - so even though there were walls put around what used to be the passageway, I can just walk right through them. But..."
She blinks at something in the book, then offers Alice a triangle. "I think you can use the coins. Up to and including using a hexagon to get your own magic powers if I'm ever able to produce one, or we find someone else who does magic and they'll give one over. You just can't get into the secret room is all. Try doing something with the triangle coin I made; those are cheap, I could make a dozen by poking the wire end of a spiral notebook binding twelve times." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He leans forward, takes it, looks at it for a moment.
"A cheap coin probably only grants cheap-ass wishes, right? Mm..."
There's a folded sheet of paper in the back pocket of his jeans; it looks like it's been through at least one laundry cycle. He rolls it into a long, thin cylinder and looks at it, holding the coin.
The end of the cylinder catches fire. The coin is no more.
"...Huh," says Alice, pinching out the flame. "I just did magic." |
Author: self_composed | Bella grins.
She looks down at the book again.
"Careful with stars, star wishes go wrong, if you get a star consider just never using it, etcetera etcetera... third-coins are enough to grant fantastic skill at a mundane thing, like speaking a language. You could break your arm and become decent at the piano, Alice." A page turns. It's not a very thick book, and Elias was liberal with his illustrations. "Seems like the square 'second coins' are where it's at for efficiency though. You can get them without doing actual injury - stepping on a Lego would do it, I bet - and they can do some really decent stuff if you apply them right..." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "See, I totally want your magic powers," he says cheerfully. "Ooh, what kind of stuff?" |
Author: self_composed | "Break stuff, change stuff, conjure stuff out of nowhere, Elias apparently once made a neighbor he didn't like come over all warty forever, heal rat-bite-sized wounds apparently." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Awesome." |
Author: self_composed | "Yeah. I'm going to make a lot of those jobbies." Page turn. "This is his 'justice theory' on how it works. Which is silly, as it clearly works by fucking magic, but okay. Oh, he had several theories. Justice theory. Trading the equivalent of parts of your sentence in Hell for smaller and more manageable units of power than you can get for selling your entire soul." Page turn. "Celestial sphere theory. Artifacts from the Tower of Babel. I had a weird howevermanygreats-grandpa."
She turns another page.
"These are little profiles on some other coinmakers Elias knew..."
Page page page; apparently those don't much interest her right now.
"...And this one is a treasure map. Elias says, 'Dearest descendant, what remains of my legacy is hidden, but you may seek it if you have by your own efforts earned the power to do so and if you can disentangle this cipher, by magic or by intellect." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Oh my fucking god," says Alice. "Okay, so what we've learned today: you have magic powers, and I have an underground lair with a secret fucking passage – it's kind of fucked up that he built it so you'd fall two floors straight down, by the way, what's up with that – containing an actual fucking treasure map. When did we turn into the kids from The Magician's Nephew?" |
Author: self_composed | "This afternoon. We turned into those kids sometime this afternoon," Bella says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He laughs.
"So, are you gonna take a crack at the treasure map? Maybe there's another hex there and I can get magic powers of my very own without you having to stick your arm in a cage full of rats." |
Author: self_composed | Bella shudders. "Yeah, I'll poke at it - maybe Elias wasn't very good at ciphers and I can figure it out by looking up the history of cryptography on the Internet, who knows, I can try making some squares if I have to, I'll use the pentagon I made if necessary." She pauses. "I should've milked that broken leg for a few more of those. Damn." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "You could break it again," Alice suggests philosophically. "I mean, you fixed it the once, so you know it works. Don't jump down the rabbit hole again, though, you might land on your head this time and that's harder to fix." |
Author: self_composed | "Well, that's exactly the problem," Bella says. "Most of the ways I could break my leg on purpose are very scary things that I don't really care to casually do. I have a decent pain tolerance - I have to, I really do get hurt a lot, but I usually get hurt by accident. Once I had a broken leg I could stand to move it around a couple times. What do I do if I want to re-break it without risking landing on my head, though?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...uh," says Alice, because he can see a really obvious solution but he's not sure it's one she's going to like. |
Author: self_composed | "Hand you a hammer?" Bella asks, suddenly quiet. "And ask nicely. I guess." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yeah," he says, also quiet. "That's what I was thinking." |
Author: self_composed | "These are the most fucked-up magic powers ever." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Pretty much, yep." |
Author: self_composed | "Yeah, I don't think that's a project for today," Bella says. "I will pull out my old Legos and walk around on them some and see how far I can get that way." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Your call," says Alice. It's not usually the kind of thing he would bother to say, because it's just so obvious, but in this case he feels like establishing it very clearly. |
Author: self_composed | Bella nods.
"If I go on a magic treasure hunt," she says, "and there's a hex in the stash... and if I gave it to you... what would you do with the fucked-up magic powers?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...well, it kinda seems like my three wishes are star territory," he says. "Except the first one, I could get that if I just wished him off a cliff. So I'd probably just screw around with magic a lot and then give you the leftovers, because if I learn how to make magic wish coins out of my pain, there will be leftovers. I cannot think of enough superpowers to use up all the hexes I'd be making." |
Author: self_composed | "There is probably some nonlethal solution," Bella says. "For instance, squares and up can make stuff. Can probably make - gold, which could be sold, even if it can't make non-counterfeit dollars. Fuckton of money versus fuckton of money is a different fight than fuckton of money versus dependent." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He shrugs.
"I'd kind of rather wish him off a cliff, but sure. I care that I get out way more than I care how." |
Author: self_composed | Bella looks at the cipher. There is a map drawn on the two-page spread, but the map seems to encompass the entire Pacific Northwest, and she's going to need to figure out what these blocks of symbols mean to determine where on the map the stash is. Sigh. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "You wanna put your magic book away and go see if Hilary will let us in her kitchen?" |
Author: self_composed | "Yeah. I guess the rest of this is a project for later."
It occurs to Bella as she gets up and puts the book in her knapsack: "I can stop being so careful! It's a net benefit if I fall down the stairs, except in the unlikely event that it kills me instantly or causes enough brain damage to make me unable to do more magic - and merely not being careful going up the stairs is not scary." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Hey, awesome," Alice says cheerfully. |
Author: self_composed | Bella trots up the stairs.
Generally trotting is reserved for people who aren't her!
And yet she does not fall. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Laughing, Alice trots after her. |
Author: self_composed | "Where will we find Hilary?" asks Bella. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Kitchen, I bet." |
Author: self_composed | Bella twirls once at the top of the stairs, thwacks her arm into the doorframe, and half-chokes-half-laughs as she displays and then pockets a square. "Kitchen it is!" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice giggles. In fact, when they reach the kitchen, he is still giggling.
"Goddess of cake!" he says, sticking his head in. "Hi can we cook stuff?"
"Hi!" says the aforementioned goddess, turning around to cast an amused glance over both of them. "I don't know, can you?"
Unlike the lady of the house, Hilary does not wear gowns for casual occasions. She is wearing a dress, but it's a cheerful blue gingham thing that makes her look like she belongs in a household product ad from the 1950s. The pink nail polish, ruffly white apron, and subtle but exquisitely applied makeup only bolster this impression. |
Author: self_composed | "Hi, Hilary! It's good to finally meet you. I can cook, but not as well as you. May I raid your recipe file?" Bella asks brightly. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Sure. Bella, right?" Hilary beckons them both in with a sweep of her arm. "Charlie's favourite daughter. Doesn't like snails. Fond of my cake. Want to help me make one? No snails, I promise."
Alice leans against the counter and listens to all this with a big, big grin. He likes Hilary. |
Author: self_composed | "Has he got more daughters I'm handily defeating without even knowing it?" Bella asks archly. "I would love to participate in snail-free cake." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "If he does," says Hilary, "he's keeping quiet about 'em. Laney, make yourself useful and get the book, there's a dear. I don't really keep a recipe file," she explains to Bella. "I have books, and then I... innovate. Feel free to take notes."
"Cake book?" asks Alice. "Or the other cake book?"
"Well, that depends," says Hilary. "How adventurous are we feeling today?" |
Author: self_composed | Bella produces her brand new blank notebook and pen. "I'm feeling very adventurous today," she says earnestly. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Other cake book it is," says a very cheerful Alice. |
Author: self_composed | "So one of these cake books comes to us from the sunken ruins of a ghost ship in the Bermuda Triangle, is that it?" Bella inquires. "And the other was obtained at the library fundraiser for fifty cents?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Well, one of these cake books is called Piece of Cake," says Hilary, "and the other one... is that one."
Alice closes a cupboard, turns around, and holds up a small, glossy recipe book. The cover is a high-quality photograph of a black forest cake topped with whipped cream coloured to resemble flames, on a red background, under the title Devilish Desserts. |
Author: self_composed | "Oooh," sighs Bella. "I probably don't even have the equipment to make some of those at home, let alone the skill." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "You probably don't," Hilary agrees. "Laney, any preferences? Why am I asking you, you never want things. Bella!" She makes a gesture that causes Alice to hand Bella the recipe book. "Pick something that looks tasty and/or frightening." |
Author: self_composed | "Ooh." Bella take the book and flips through. "Oooh-ooh-ooh. Are we ingredient-limited at all?" She stops at a page with a towering layer cake, cut open to reveal stripes of crumb and frosting under a thick coating of white rosettes. "Maple Caramel Coconut Butter Cake," Bella reads. "Wow." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "The sky's the limit," says Hilary. "We're freshly stocked."
Alice peers over Bella's shoulder at the picture. "I like that one," he announces. |
Author: self_composed | Bella laughs aloud. "This thing has three kinds of frosting in it! Let's do it!" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Excellent," says Hilary, clapping her hands. "Battle stations! Laney, put the book up."
Alice obligingly attaches the book to a convenient contraption on the door of the fridge and adjusts the clamps until all parts of the recipe are visible and the book isn't going to fall out anytime soon.
"Bella," Hilary continues in the meantime, "would you be so kind as to get me a large and a small mixing bowl out of that cupboard?" She points. |
Author: self_composed | Bella fetches mixing bowls as instructed. She bumps her head on the cupboard and does her best to be discreet in pocketing her new square. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Careful there," says Hilary. (Alice snickers.) "Thank you, just set them down over there." She drifts over to the fridge and starts calling out ingredients to be assembled, carefully specifying where each one might be found. Alice hops to it. |
Author: self_composed | "Sorry, I'm just really terribly clumsy," Bella says. "I don't know if that's one of the things my dad mentioned." She helps find ingredients too, humming to herself quietly. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "She has to sit out of gym in case she breaks something," Alice volunteers.
...And glances over at Bella, thoughtfully. |
Author: self_composed | "I might try getting back in when we switch from volleyball to badminton!" Bella says brightly. "Badminton's probably pretty safe!"
Not for her, but she can probably convince Ms. Finch if she immediately fixes any bruises and scratches she collects. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Knock yourself out," says a grinning Alice.
"Less casual sadism, more butter," says Hilary, handing him a block of butter and a knife. |
Author: self_composed | "Knocking myself out would be an undesirable outcome," hums Bella, fetching shaved coconut from the fridge. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "All right, I will make the caramel," says Hilary. "Can you two manage the first round of dry ingredients by yourselves?"
"Probably," says Alice. |
Author: self_composed | "I think so," Bella agrees, looking at the recipe. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Then get to it!"
"Yes ma'am," says Alice, laughing. He moves over to where things such as flour have been lined up next to the large mixing bowl. |
Author: self_composed | Bella starts scooping measuring cups into containers. In the presence of the cake deity, she even bothers to sift the flour. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Hilary busies herself at the stove with butter, sugar, and the mysteries of the cosmos. Alice pours things and fetches other things and lends his supply of muscle power to the task of stirring. All in all, it is a very cheerful kitchen. |
Author: self_composed | When the cake's several layers are each in the oven, and the various frostings are in their bowls and in the piping bag ready for application, Bella leans with a happy sigh against the counter. "Well," she says. "That's that, for the next thirty to thirty-five minutes." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Job well done," Hilary agrees. "And would you look at that," she opens a drawer with one hand and picks up a pot off the stove with the other, "leftover caramel and three spoons. Dig in, kids." |
Author: self_composed | Bella laughs gleefully and takes a spoon - and a big scraping of caramel from the bowl, too. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice waits until Hilary has taken her spoonful before he grabs his. Of course, that means he gets to go all the way around the bottom and end up with a glob of caramel on his spoon that looks like it is about to fall off any second.
Nom! |
Author: self_composed | "I don't think I ever got to the point of seeing your favorite book," Bella remarks to Alice. "I became distracted by that other book and then we wandered off." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He swallows his current mouthful of caramel and says, "That is very true! Wanna go give it another shot? With less falling this time?" |
Author: self_composed | "Yes, I'll have to be more careful given the state of your floor," chuckles Bella. She licks her spoon clean and puts it in the dishwasher. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yep." He sticks his spoon in his mouth again, pulls it out nearly free of caramel, drops it in the dishwasher, waves to Hilary, and leads the way out of the kitchen. |
Author: self_composed | Bella follows him up to his room, trying to lope like she hasn't spent her life fearing falling. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | This time, he kicks old laundry aside to clear a path from the door to the desk under the window, then reaches up to grab a book down from the shelf above the desk.
It's quite a small book.
The title of the book is: Repent, Harlequin! said the Ticktockman. |
Author: self_composed | Bella plucks the book out of his hand and opens it up. "What's it about?" she asks. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | ...He cracks up.
If she looks at the first page, she will find out why:
There are always those who ask, what is it all about? For those who need to ask, for those who need points sharply made, who need to know "where it's at," this: "The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purposes as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs.
Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it." Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" |
Author: self_composed | Bella giggles. "Can I borrow this?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Go for it! If there's a book that is my brain, it's that book," says Alice. |
Author: self_composed | "I don't know what I'd say if I had to pick a book to represent my brain," Bella says. "I like old literary fiction, but it doesn't mirror me, it's just fun to read." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "You have, like, a hundred books that represent your brain," Alice points out, perching on a corner of his bed. "Literally." |
Author: self_composed | "Oh. I guess that's perfectly true," laughs Bella. "For some reason that didn't occur to me. They're in the background." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He looks across the debris field at the brick chimney set into the opposite wall.
"...Now that I know you can fall through that thing, it's kind of creeping me out," he says. |
Author: self_composed | She sits on his bed, safely away from the bricks. "I don't think putting another barrier in front of it would even help. It's magicked to let me in." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yeah, let you in and then let you fall straight to the basement," he says. "Were there any skeletons of previous descendants down there?" |
Author: self_composed | "The only thing in the room was a weird sourceless probably-magic glow, and the book and the hex." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Great, now I'm imagining that the floor down there eats skeletons," he says. "...Stop me if I'm creeping you out." |
Author: self_composed | Bella laughed. "I don't think so. I think Elias Frobisher just didn't have a lot of descendants who happened to wander into the house. It's a two-story fall - it could kill me if I dove headfirst, but it wouldn't be too likely." She shrugged. "For practical reasons he wasn't really concerned about being injured, himself - maybe the point of the fall is specifically so what happened to me was possible." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Well, it's definitely one way to make sure whoever finds the book would use it," he says, rubbing the back of his head and looking half-suspiciously, half-admiringly at the chimney. |
Author: self_composed | "It does seem like it could backfire, though. Anyone can use the coin and there was only the one in there. I could have wasted it fixing my leg if I'd been a slightly different person." She glances at her backpack, currently on the floor. "I guess that's what the stash is for." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yeah, something like that."
He grins. He can't help it.
Actual magic powers. |
Author: self_composed | She grins back, and giggles, and then laughs aloud. Not at all maniacally.
A little bit maniacally. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "You're totally gonna take over the world," Alice predicts. |
Author: self_composed | "Maybe," sings Bella. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "You are. I'm falling in love with you again," he declares. |
Author: self_composed | Bella laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and bites her own hand to keep from laughing, and a triangle appears between her first and middle fingers. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice actually hugs himself with glee. |
Author: self_composed | This just sends Bella into another paroxysm of giggles. She gets another triangle out of biting her hand, then chomps harder and gets a square. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | ...It's kind of...
Where'd he put that notebook she gave him? He gets up to look for it. |
Author: self_composed | Bella watches this with interest, releasing her hand from her teeth. She puts the coins in her pocket, which now contains enough that the glow is visible through the material. She frowns at this, and then puts her accumulation in the thicker backpack. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "So," he says, digging in the laundry drifts near the chimney, "will it creep you out if I say it's kinda hot when you do that?" |
Author: self_composed | "Nah," Bella says. "It would only escalate to creepitude if you started swatting me without me signing up for that - whether you were doing it because it's hot or to try to steal the coins or because I annoyed you or whatever." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Okay, good. 'Cause it's kinda hot when you do that."
There it is! As he predicted, under a couple of shirts that he kicked aside while he was clearing a path to the desk for Bella. He holds it up triumphantly, then swings by the desk to grab a pen. |
Author: self_composed | Bella cranes her neck slightly so she'll be able to see what he writes, but if he's not interested in showing her she's not going to make a fuss. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "What, you wanna watch?" he asks, following the movement. "Sure."
He looks between the desk and the bed for a moment, and then takes option c) none of the above and sits on the floor at her feet. |
Author: self_composed | "Mm-hm. If you don't mind." Bella peers over his shoulder. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Nah, go for it," he says easily, tipping his head back to grin at her upside-down. "That's the point, right?"
At the top of the very first page of the notebook, he writes: but why is it hot? |
Author: self_composed | Bella mulls over whether to be helpful. He doesn't have any practice at this yet. "Would it be hot if I did the same things and no coins happened? Or if the coins happened some other way?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...yeah," he says. "But not as hot, either way."
So that's two lines dropping down from the main topic. At the end of one he writes: you were laughing; at the end of the other, his pen pauses. Then he goes back up and draws a third line. The two other subpoints, apparently, are it hurt and you're gonna take over the world.
He goes back and crosses out 'laughing', replacing it with having fun for a more general case. Then he circles 'you're gonna take over the world' and draws a question mark beside it. |
Author: self_composed | Bella grins and supervises. The next question is whether those things, too, are hot in themselves - and whether they all add up to the correct amount of hot - but maybe he's got a different idea, or he'll come up with that one himself. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I'm not sure about this one," he says, tapping 'you're gonna take over the world' with the end of his pen. "I mean, it's true and it's hot and it's obviously related but I'm not sure it's exactly the right thing. You know?" |
Author: self_composed | "Mm-hm," Bella agrees. She thinks, tapping her cheek with one forefinger. "Maybe that I can now take over the world, or that I'm the sort of person who really might, or something about what you think I'll do with it once it is all mine?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I have no idea what you're gonna do with the world when you've got it, that's like half the fun," he says with a laugh. "But I think it's more the first one. Like..."
He crosses out that item and writes beneath it, you have magic powers! |
Author: self_composed | "Would any magic powers do the trick?" Bella laughs. "If I were a Japanese cartoon character and I changed into a frilly costume by saying something like, I don't know, 'luminous star mysticism awaken!', and then I could use the Japanese cartoon equivalent of a Care Bear Stare..." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice cracks up.
"That would be hilarious. And also kind of hot. But not as hot. By the way, if I ever get magic powers of my very own, you are getting Care Bear powers."
But he draws a little arrow out from between 'have' and 'magic' to specify that the magic powers are also: (sexy!) |
Author: self_composed | Bella snickers. "Please be careful trying to give me extra super-abilities, even if they're just silly things. Elias concentrated his warnings around the stars, but the hexes can apparently go wrong too if you don't know enough about what you're doing."
She turns her attention back to his notebook. She wants to see what he does next. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I promise not to turn you into a Care Bear," he says cheerfully, and looks down at the page again. After a thoughtful moment, he circles 'it hurt' and 'you were laughing having fun' and draws a double-ended arrow between those two. |
Author: self_composed | "Perhaps disappointingly, I don't have your kink," Bella tells him. "I'm pretty darn sure of that. But triangle- to square-level pain doesn't ruin my sense of humor, and even fucked-up magic powers are still magic powers." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yeah, I know," he says. "But it matters that you were getting hurt and having fun at the same time even if you didn't like it the way I would." |
Author: self_composed | "Huh, okay," says Bella agreeably. "Anything else?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Mmmm." He drums the pen against the paper. "Dunno." |
Author: self_composed | "You seem to like it when I have opportunities to decide things," Bella remarks. "Magic powers - not to mention taking over the world - both provide more of that. Any magic power would provide that, but the wishes are flexible - and I have to choose to make a tradeoff to get them each time, not just buy them in rolls from the bank and decide how to spend 'em." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...huh," he says. "Yeah. I mean, not the tradeoff thing exactly, but part of what makes them sexy magic powers is that you can do anything you want with them. And the fact that they're made of pain is a pretty nice bonus."
Something occurs to him.
He rips a corner off the page, reaches into Bella's backpack, grabs a triangle, and wishes the tiny scrap of paper on fire.
"Okay, so apparently it doesn't matter if you give me the coin or I just take it," he observes, putting it out. "That's probably good to know." |
Author: self_composed | "That does matter," says Bella, frowning and pulling out her notebook. "I'm going to make a long, long list of nice generic things to do with coins of all sizes, and find some way to wear them on my person at all times, so if it looks like I'm going to get mugged I can deplete the supply, usefully and instantly." She shakes her head. "But I have to sleep - at least until I have a hex to drop on making that go away - and should probably try not to keep too many of the big ones around. Someone who doesn't know what they're dealing with won't likely think to wish on a random glowing coin, but if they do, anything good-sized could be trouble." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "How big a coin would you need to lock up your backpack so only you can get into it?" he wonders. "Or, like, a box or something." |
Author: self_composed | "I'm not sure. Possibly a pentagon, but it might take a hex - I don't know how Elias did the secret room, but I don't need quite that much sophistication necessarily. I don't want them in my backpack, though. They have to be touching me so I can use them, and I'd like them accessible in an emergency - if my car skids on the ice, I want to undo that right then, rather than dig around for a square in my bag in the backseat. I need a necklace or a bracelet or something." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "You could make it, like, invisible to people who aren't you?" he suggests. "And if I get powers and you end up buried in hexes, you can keep those all locked up in one place." |
Author: self_composed | "Invisible necklace," agrees Bella. "Yes, that's a good idea. I think I can do that with a pentagon. If I can't, I'm in trouble, since I don't have a hex." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "But if it turns out that making the necklace invisible doesn't make stuff you put on it afterward invisible too," he continues musingly, "you'll be kinda screwed what with the glowy red things hanging from your neck on an invisible chain. It's a shame you've only got the one pentagon or you could just try it. See? This is why I should have magic powers." |
Author: self_composed | "I think I saw something about..." She scoops out Elias's book again, and flip-flip-flips, and stops. "Here. If I wish for something that my coin of choice isn't big enough to handle, it just doesn't work. If I wish on a pentagon for a chain that I can make coins appear directly on and that will extend invisibility to those coins, then I'll either get that or it won't work." She taps the book a couple times. "I wonder if that's why stars fuck up so much - they are big enough for anything, so people don't have to be thoughtful about the exact wish?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat |
Alice draws a little heart on the bottom of the page, separate from previous material, and writes you're smart beside it.
"That makes a lot of sense," he says. |
Author: self_composed | "I think having the invisible chain is pretty important. If I haven't thought of something more important, or a better solution to the same problem, by the time I leave here today, then I'll use the pentagon for that." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | 'You're smart' gets a little arrow pointing to the addendum, you think of things, which in turn gets another little heart.
"Sounds like a good plan," he adds, somewhat redundantly, out loud. |
Author: self_composed | Bella smiles. She is not immune to flattery and has never troubled to render herself so. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He looks up at her, spots the smile, and grins. |
Author: self_composed | Bella picks up her backpack and starts counting the coins. She has one pentagon, and three of the squares and two of the triangles. She wonders if she can get heaps of the triangles just by putting a lot of pepper in her food.
Just to see if it would work, she tries wishing for her invisible and invisibling chain on a square. It remains where it is. "Okay, so that is going to take a pentagon," she says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "The necklace?" he hazards. |
Author: self_composed | "Yes. I don't doubt I could make a plain chain with a square, but the permanent invisibility power is apparently a big deal." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "It would be," he says, shrugging.
...A thought strikes, and he giggles.
"Does the book say anything about what kind of coin you'd need to wish for, like, a bunch of small things at once?" |
Author: self_composed | Bella flips to the Helpful Charts section and scans it.
"Elias seems to prefer a strategy of handling small things one at a time with small coins, like his rat bites," she says. "But if you need to do a lot lot of small things, you probably want to cover that with a permanent skill or power from a pentagon or hexagon. And if they're really small, you might be able to handle a bunch in one shot with a square. Why?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Read the book first," he says. "I don't wanna spoil it. You'll know when you get there." |
Author: self_composed | "Are you aware," Bella says, "that I don't like mysteries?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "It's a really short book," he says. "You could probably get to the right part before the cake's even done." |
Author: self_composed | Bella looks at him, and then puts the magic book away and pulls out Alice's favorite instead. She opens it up again and begins to read. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice tilts his head back and watches her upside-down.
This is a poor long-term strategy, though, so after a minute he turns all the way around. |
Author: self_composed | It is a short book, and Bella does read fast.
"Well," she says. "I think Harlan Ellison was terribly annoyed with being hurried along - and I think he would have written a different story if his circumstances were instead prone to leaving him waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for someone who didn't care about his wasted time." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Probably, yeah. But I like the way he wrote it," he says cheerfully. "So yeah, I wanna make a rain of jelly beans." |
Author: self_composed | "Property damage," Bella says. "Possibly injury or death, if there are too many of them. Certainly disruptions of schedules, some of which are actually important - there is a reason ambulances are allowed to speed. Gosh, with results like that, who wouldn't want a rain of jellybeans?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He sticks out his tongue. "Ruin all my fun, why don'tcha. Well, it doesn't matter that much to me if I rain jelly beans on people or not. I could rain jelly beans in the middle of nowhere and confuse the hell out of the next hiker." |
Author: self_composed | "You'd probably do some damage to the local ecosystem, but at that point I'm just nitpicking," shrugs Bella. "But... The combination of you having this kind of idea and how impulsive I have seen you be doesn't add up to 'this person definitely needs magic powers'. I don't think raining the jelly beans in the woods was your first idea. I might want to extract some kind of agreement that if I give you a hex to turn into coinmaking abilities you run anything pentagon-sized and up by me first." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...Okay, but we'd better make some kind of magic instant checking-my-stupid-ideas-with-Bella system, because if I'm off in Nevada or whatever and I have an idea I like that much, I'm not waiting for you to answer your phone. I'm just not." |
Author: self_composed | "Sure, you can make us some hexes and bam, instant telepathy," Bella says lightly. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice blinks.
And smiles, slowly.
"Oh, I like it," he says. |
Author: self_composed | "Purely communicative telepathy," Bella says. "At least as concerns the contents of my brain departing it. Select notebook contents are it in that department; my thoughts are mine." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He waves a hand in a gesture of agreement/dismissal. "Sure, but you'd be okay with you reading my mind, right?" |
Author: self_composed | She blinks at him.
"If that's something you want to hand me, I'm not going to complain about it," she says slowly. "Provided you word it in such a way that we don't wind up creepily sharing dreams or anything - I want to be able to put that sort of thing on pause, is what I'm saying." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice laughs.
"No shit," he agrees. "My brain is definitely a place you'd wanna be able to back out of in a hurry. But I mean, it's the same as the notebook thing," he lifts his up and wiggles it a little, "but better." |
Author: self_composed | Bella nods cheerfully. She taps her own notebook with her pen and starts writing Charts of her own, for ways to quickly use up any coins that are in danger of being stolen, and depleting excessively tempting stashes. Me able to read pinball wizard's mind, is one of the items under "hexagon", along with "flight" and "no need for sleep" and "todo: look up list of X-Men". |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Whatcha doin' up there?" he wonders. |
Author: self_composed | She shows him the list in progress. The pentagon list has "languages (various)" and "musical talent" and "(after masochistic magic-generator exists only) remove clumsiness?" and "cook like Hilary!". |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Wolverine," he says when he gets to the entry about X-Men. |
Author: self_composed | "That's the one with the retractable claws? Do you really want to go around with claws in your arms all the time?" Bella asks. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Well, that would be kind of cool, but I was thinking more the healing factor," he says. "So you can just hurt yourself over and over and not use up a bunch of wishes fixing it afterward. ...I guess maybe I want that more than you do." |
Author: self_composed | "Oh, a healing power," agrees Bella, pulling back the notebook to write that down and point an arrow from it to the very top of the list. "That would be useful, but yes, more for you than me." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "And probably you'd want to be able to, like... hold it off," he adds. "So you didn't have to keep your arm in the cage of rats or whatever, and in case you break your arm in front of a bunch of people and don't wanna be hauled off to a lab or something." |
Author: self_composed | "Right," Bella agrees, adding a "(voluntary postponement option)" note next to the item. "But having this list is mostly not useful until we have surplus coins in these ranges, which will take until I get into a spectacular accident, or we find Elias's stash and it has a hex in it, or it doesn't have a hex in it and we engineer that level of harm." She says the last with gritted teeth. "Or I chicken out and try to take over the world with squares and occasional pentagons, even though that would be harder and less fun." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I hope it has a hex in it," says Alice. |
Author: self_composed | "Yes. I also hope that it has a hex in it," Bella says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I mean, I can think of lots of ways to get around not having a cage full of rats handy," he says. "But you probably don't wanna do any of 'em." |
Author: self_composed | "No, go ahead and tell me, I might as well try to get used to whatever one of the ideas is best in case there isn't a hex," Bella says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...Do you actually want me to sit here listing ways I could hurt you really badly," he says—phrased as a question, but delivered without the intonation that would make it one. |
Author: self_composed | "Start with whatever's tamest, we'll see if I squeak and run away," sighs Bella. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I am bad at tame," says Alice, inarguably. "Okay, well, first one that comes to mind, I could just get a knife and keep cutting you until you hit the right level of hurt. Which we'd know because you'd be raining hexes instead of pentagons." |
Author: self_composed | "Do you know enough about anatomy to avoid me bleeding out?" Her voice is level, though she doesn't look thrilled about the topic. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Probably," he says. "Which brings me to option two: fire." |
Author: self_composed | "That one sounds even harder to keep under control," Bella says, scrunching her eyes closed tightly. "I think I can listen to one more possibility and then I want to stop." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Well, I don't mean set you on fire," he says. "Chemical burns sound any better?" |
Author: self_composed | "Yes, actually," Bella says. "Or maybe extreme cold. Liquid nitrogen or dry ice or something." She manages a very weak smile. "Coin requires pain, not utter terror." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "It's harder to get that stuff, though," he says. "And liquid nitrogen does not hurt as much as a cigarette burn, I'll tell you that right now." |
Author: self_composed | "Well," she says. "That's good to know. I don't think a cigarette burn would do more than a pentagon, though."
She swallows, and picks up Elias's book and glances at the Helpful Charts, then puts it down again. "I wonder if the cake is done," she murmurs. "And ready to be frosted, even." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Sooo we're done talking about hurting you, then," says Alice. "Okay. I bet it is, actually. Wanna go check?" |
Author: self_composed | "Yes, I do," says Bella. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Okay."
He stands up, tosses his notebook and pen on the desk, and heads for the door, kicking laundry out of his way as he goes. |
Author: self_composed | "I was under the impression that Hilary's title was 'housekeeper', not just 'cook', though she'd certainly be worth retaining as the latter - does she keep out of your room or are you just very, very fast?" Bella asks, following. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "She gave up on my room," he says. "The parents let her. Once in a while when my dad wants something to be pissed off about he sticks his head in and yells at me about my floor." |
Author: self_composed | Bella snickers quietly, and trots down the stairs towards the kitchen, sniffing the air for maple-caramel-coconut-butter-cake. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Grinning, he follows.
When they reach the kitchen, Hilary is arranging the various layers along the counter.
"Just in time to be ordered around some more," she says without turning around. |
Author: self_composed | "Yes ma'am!" Bella says smartly. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "That's what I like to hear! You get to handle the caramel. Laney, you can haul cake around."
"Sure," he says cheerfully. |
Author: self_composed | Bella handles caramel. She stubs her toe once, and her hands are covered with caramel; if a coin appears, Alice can't see where. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He does notice the toe-stubbing, and spends a brief moment wondering if she managed to make any coins out of it. There aren't that many places one might have appeared. Maybe she didn't. Or maybe it went to a place that is conducive to creating more coins and wow he is stopping that train of thought right there. Luckily, he has cake-lifting to distract him. |
Author: self_composed | Frost frost frost. Ice ice ice. Hum hum hum. If Bella's new coin exists and is making her uncomfortable, this doesn't show on her face. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Good! That means he can just forget about it. Forgetting about it is a great plan. |
Author: self_composed | Bella isn't very good at icing rosettes like those that go on the outside of this cake - it's not a task friendly to slippery hands or shaky arms - so she lets Hilary do that, but she watches the technique carefully. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | So does Alice! |
Author: self_composed | And with all the roses in place, the adventure cake is complete.
"Mm," Bella says. "Is this for after dinner?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yes it is," says Hilary. "And you can take some home, too, if that strikes your fancy. In the meantime, who wants to help me make spaghetti?"
"Me!" says Alice. |
Author: self_composed | "Is spaghetti a multi-person job?" Bella asks. "I'm happy to help, especially if this is fancy Hilary-the-cake-goddess spaghetti, but I'm not sure how extra hands would be useful." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "It is fancy spaghetti," she says, "and I'm sure I can find a use for you."
"By help she mostly means get in her way and learn things," Alice translates.
"That too." |
Author: self_composed | "Ooh, learning things," says Bella. She has her notebook in her pocket. She removes it from her pocket. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I don't know why your father won't let you do this the rest of the time," Hilary mutters, presumably not to Bella, as she fetches another cookbook.
"Because he is kind of an asshole?" suggests Alice.
"No comment." She puts the book in the book-holding contraption. |
Author: self_composed | "You're not allowed to cook when he's home?" Bella asks. She peers at the recipe. Huh, fennel seeds. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Nope. Too girly," Alice says succinctly. |
Author: self_composed | Bella blinks.
"Housewifery is traditionally girly. Chefs are traditionally men." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I tried telling him that," says Hilary. "And yet."
Alice shrugs. "Maybe he thinks I like it for the wrong reasons." |
Author: self_composed | Since Bella herself has critiqued some of Alice's behaviors on the grounds that he likes them for wrong reasons (among others), she doesn't have a good reply there, at least not when Hilary's around.
She just sighs an exasperated sigh and hopes there's a hex in the stash. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Making spaghetti with Hilary is both fun and informative. She clearly gets along very well with Alice, and he is clearly very fond of her.
At last, it's all done and ready to eat.
"Laney, would you go grab your mother for me? Bella, help me carry everything to the table?"
"Sure," says Alice, and departs. |
Author: self_composed | Bella ferries dishes, inhaling appreciatively. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Hilary handles the enormous pot of spaghetti herself, perhaps because she fears that Bella might drop it, and arranges the plates; she lets Bella take care of setting out cutlery and bowls of sauce. No place is set at the head of the table, but there are two places along each side, to a total of four; apparently, Hilary gets to eat with the family tonight.
By the time they're finished, Alice is back with his mother in tow. |
Author: self_composed | "Hello again," Bella says cheerfully. "We made spaghetti and an evil cake." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Oooh," says Mrs. Hammond. "Well, I'm glad you've been keeping busy."
She takes her accustomed seat, as does Alice. Hilary sits beside Mrs. Hammond. |
Author: self_composed | Bella places the last fork and sits down. She splashed a little sauce on her hand during the cooking process - earning her a triangle and an early taste - and she knows exactly how nice this is going to be. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | It is exactly that nice.
"You're the best, Hilary," Alice declares after his first bite.
Hilary beams. Smugly. "I know." |
Author: self_composed | Bella giggles around a mouthful of spaghetti and nods enthusiastically. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Dinner ensues. Apparently everyone is too busy with the deliciousness to talk much, because the conversation is almost nonexistent.
When all plates are empty and no one is eyeing the pot for seconds, thirds, fourths, or fifths, Hilary gets up to go fetch the cake. Contrary to last time, she serves it right at the table, which means everyone gets to request the size of their slice.
"Judith?"
Mrs. Hammond eyes the cake with mild trepidation. "Ooh, just a little one, please."
"There you go. Laney?"
He measures out dimensions in the air that amount to twice the cake his mother got.
"Done deal, you glutton. Bella?" |
Author: self_composed | "Mmm... I can take some home, you said. So somewhere between those two sizes." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Your wish is my command," says Hilary, causing Alice to giggle uncontrollably. |
Author: self_composed | Bella takes only a moment to grin at Alice before taking her first bite of cake. And oh, it is an evil cake. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | It is evilly delicious.
Hilary takes a slice about the size of Bella's and sits down again. |
Author: self_composed | Om nom nom nom.
"This is the best thing," Bella announces. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "It's pretty fucking good," Alice concurs. His mother rolls her eyes, but doesn't caution him about his language. |
Author: self_composed | "How much of it can I bring with me?" Bella asks. "I'm sure my dad will love it too." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "In that case, half," says Hilary. "Of what's left." |
Author: self_composed | Bella is very pleased with this.
She finishes her slice and looks at Alice to see if he's still working on his. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Yes.
And then, very shortly, no. |
Author: self_composed | "Up we go again?" Bella asks. She doubts that rules about asking to be excused apply when Mr. Hammond is gone. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Sure!" says Alice. "Bye guys!"
With a general wave, he departs the table. "Have fun," Mrs. Hammond calls after them, to a snort from Hilary. |
Author: self_composed | Bella snickers. And goes up the stairs.
Back in the privacy of Alice's room, Bella says, "I shouldn't stay very late. Charlie'll worry. But let's think if there are any more urgent pentagon-level things to do besides the necklace. And..." She takes off one of her shoes and peels back her sock, revealing accumulated triangles. She puts them with the others. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Nice," says Alice, perching on a corner of his bed. "Okay, so what kind of stuff would be urgent?" |
Author: self_composed | "Well, for example," Bella says, "it might turn out that the cipher is really complicated and takes me weeks to crack, or heavy-duty magic that I'm not currently ready to generate. You might want the pentagon for emergencies during that time. I'll give you some squares and triangles either way. In case you need them," she adds softly. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | That... is way more unexpected than it should have been.
Alice smiles.
"Thanks." |
Author: self_composed | "How long is he going to be gone?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "'Bout a week." |
Author: self_composed | "Mkay." Bella closes her eyes. "I wonder if the triangles can make any amount of progress on the cipher? If so I can probably do the whole thing with a pair of tweezers pulling out leg hairs or something. I honestly know nothing about cryptanalysis." She picks up one of the triangles that she brought into existence near her foot, and pulls out Elias's book and turns to the cipher/map. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice watches curiously. |
Author: self_composed | Bella tries a series of wishes regarding the cipher on her triangle. Wishes for this letter to be decrypted - wishes for the cipher key - wishes for a hint, a clue, for a single pixel of same to appear on the page.
The triangle stays put.
"So much for that." She puts it away and takes out a square. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I wonder if it's even solvable," says Alice. "...I wonder if you could use a wish to check. How big a thing is the answer to a question?" |
Author: self_composed | Bella flips to Helpful Charts. "I'd be really surprised if he went to all this trouble to lie to someone he'd never meet," Bella says. "Hmmm... all the purely information based stuff that's listed is pentagon and up. Vocabulary words for magically acquired languages, and whatnot." She tosses the square into the air, and catches it. "What seems like a good test question? What do you want to know?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I dunno," he says. "Why not just ask it that one and see what happens?" |
Author: self_composed | "You want me to test the square's information gathering powers by asking it if it has any?" Bella asks. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "No, but that's awesome and you totally should!" |
Author: self_composed | Bella laughs. She tries it.
The square continues to exist.
"Argh." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "So much for that," he says, but he's laughing. |
Author: self_composed | "A pentagon ought to be able to give me permanent cryptanalysis expertise," Bella reasons. "Maybe the square can do a temporary version of the same thing, even if it can't answer direct questions." She tries this.
The square disappears, and she blinks, and dives for her notebook. "I have no idea how long this lasts - pen, pen - where's a - there -" She finds a pen and starts flicking her eyes rapidly back and forth between cipher symbols and her growing list of notes. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice shuts up and watches.
...It's really cool. |
Author: self_composed | Bella is muttering to herself rather madly. "Not enough for good frequency analysis - original spacing? Is it English-based, even? Numerical symbols..." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | It is really cool. Alice is not even sure what he's feeling right now, but he likes it. |
Author: self_composed | The temporary skill wears off before Bella has even transcribed the entire alphabet of the cipher. Her pen stutters to a halt.
"Okay," she says, clearly not liking the disappearance of the skill. "So. If nothing else, there's that. I can afford to blow the pentagon on the necklace because I don't need a pentagon in particular for the cipher..." She looks at her notes. "Even if it would be more efficient that way." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I dunno," he says. "One pentagon from me would be more efficient than a shitload of squares, but you are obviously not into the idea of breaking your own leg and you seem to make squares pretty easily, so it kinda seems like they're more... fuck, what's the word... cost-effective. If all you wanna do is read that one map." |
Author: self_composed | "Right." She shudders. "I just really don't like the feeling when all the knowledge goes out of my brain... and I don't know how many times I'd have to do it. Ten times? That's probably still better than handing over a hammer. Thirty? Not sure." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Huh," he says, and thinks about it.
"...Can I try?" |
Author: self_composed | Bella smacks herself in the forehead. Not even hard enough to get a triangle, but still. "Yes. Yes, please do." She hands over one of the remaining squares, the in-progress decryption, and the cipher. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice makes a wish.
"Whoa, rush," he says, and starts writing. Unlike Bella, he doesn't say anything, but he frequently draws things—charts, diagrams, sketches of parts of the map. Sometimes he writes new things down directly on top of old things. It's kind of a mess. He keeps the actual decryption reasonably neat, though, except when he makes a mistake and has to scribble something out. |
Author: self_composed | When he slows down, Bella hands him the last square, and starts biting her hand again. She gets squares about half the time, triangles the rest of it. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He grabs it and wishes again. Torn-out notebook pages with things scribbled on them are starting to accumulate around him, and the cipher is nearing completion. |
Author: self_composed | Bella continues supplying him with squares as necessary, biting her hand as much out of anticipation as out of a desire to generate wishes.
She's probably going to develop all manner of self-destructive habits. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Near the end, he does start muttering to himself.
"Then why the fuck is the map so big? Probably because he's an asshole." Another, much cleaner sketch, narrowing down to an area that encompasses Forks, the house, and some wilderness. And then, before his latest dose of cryptography juice runs dry, he grabs another square and draws a map. Perfectly precise, showing just enough of the surrounding area to matter.
The map has an X on it.
Alice drops his pen.
"Fuck me," he says, rubbing his head, "I feel like my brain just got hit by a bus." |
Author: self_composed | "In a good way?" Bella asks, peering at the map. The X is within driving distance, but it might be a day trip. "Tomorrow's Saturday and your dad will still be out of town. We can go then." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Sure," he says. "And I dunno, it's not hot or anything, it's just weird."
After a brief pause, he clarifies, "I mean it doesn't hurt or anything." |
Author: self_composed | "Tomorrow it is," Bella says, taking back Elias's book and comparing Alice's analysis to the original. "That took fewer squares than I expected. Nicely done." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Thanks, I guess," he says. "I used up an extra one so I could draw the map that well. I figured we didn't want to end up in the wrong place because I scribble." |
Author: self_composed | "Right," Bella laughs. "Tomorrow morning? I'll pick you up at nine-thirty, ten?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Sure!" says Alice. "Whenever you feel like, just call me before you get here. Do you even have my number? You don't, do you." |
Author: self_composed | "I don't," she agrees, and she turns the page in her notebook. "What is it?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice grabs the pen and writes it down for her. |
Author: self_composed | "Cool." She tears off a page corner and writes her number on it for him. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Oh, thanks," he says, and puts it on his desk under a previously lonely paperweight. |
Author: self_composed | Bella counts her coins. She has the pentagon, and one square left from hand-biting, and ten triangles. She's still got one shoe off and one shoe on; she stands up and kicks the wall smartly a few times, then massages the toe, yielding in all four more squares and another triangle. Then she hands him two squares and four triangles. "If you need them. Keep them inside your socks or something where they won't be visible but you can still use them." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Okay," says Alice, pocketing them for now. "Thanks." |
Author: self_composed | "In case the treasure's already gone," she mutters, "or it doesn't have any hexes in it. In which case these denominations are what we have to work with until I make one heck of a hack into my brain." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...Until what?" |
Author: self_composed | "Until I work up to handing you a hammer, or holding still while you brandish some form of acid, or whatever," Bella says, gritting her teeth. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Or—whatever," he agrees. "I'll keep working on better ideas for that." |
Author: self_composed | "It's going to hurt like fuck to get the right coins, whatever we do," Bella says, shuddering. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Man, you really don't like that idea," he observes. |
Author: self_composed | "Well, yes. In this respect, I am a normal person." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I wish I'd been the one who fell down the chimney." |
Author: self_composed | "That would have been more convenient," Bella says. "In several ways." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yeah. Like, right now you'd be making a list of all the superpowers you want." |
Author: self_composed | "I did already make a list like that," Bella says with a small smile. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yeah, but differently." |
Author: self_composed | She nods. "Of course," she says, "if you got the powers in the first place I wouldn't feel nearly so entitled to the possible fruits of your, er, labors. Whereas I think I have some claim if a stash of coins left to me provides you the ability to produce said fruits." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...it's the same either way for me," says Alice. "I mean, if I get wish powers, I'm giving you my extras because I want to. Not because I owe you them or something." |
Author: self_composed | "Right," Bella says. "But I probably wouldn't give anyone else wish powers if I didn't expect to get something from it. I feel pretty okay about profiting from something that's mine and would probably be vaguely guilty if it were not ever mine and you were just giving me a lot of wishes made out of pain all the time." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I like pain," Alice points out. "Like, I don't want wish powers to have wish powers, I want wish powers so I can hurt myself in creative ways and not end up in the hospital for it. The part where you end up sleeping on a hoard of hexes like a sexy dragon is just a bonus." |
Author: self_composed | Bella giggles helplessly at this mental image. "Okay," she manages. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice grins back at her. |
Author: self_composed | "I wish it said what was in the stash. I was hoping the cipher would say, but I guess not. Maybe he expected to go back to it and add or remove coins a few times between writing this book and his death." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Oh, well. We'll find out tomorrow, right?" |
Author: self_composed | "Assuming we find it, yeah. Your map is really good, but it covers a wide area and the point of the X probably handles a good few hundred square feet. Maybe it'll be obvious when we get there," she shrugs. "Or a square can make it glow or something." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He finds himself, just for a second, looking forward to the possibility that they might need another pentagon to get into the stash.
Then he decides that that's not what he really wants.
"Or you'll fall down another hole," he says instead. "Hopefully not one that's like a hundred feet deep." |
Author: self_composed | "Oh, that's possible too," Bella agrees. "Elias did definitely go to a lot of trouble to make all this only go to a descendant." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...I feel like there's a joke in there about descendants falling down holes..." |
Author: self_composed | "I'm not seeing it," says Bella. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Descending," says Alice, and makes an appropriate hand motion. |
Author: self_composed | "A-ha. Cute." She chuckles. "I wonder which side of the family I'm descended from him through? Both my parents are from here, but all the grandparents have died or retired elsewhere, now..." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Not a clue. Can you find out?" |
Author: self_composed | "I guess. People who do genealogy as a hobby probably have something to do besides quiz their elderly relatives. But I kind of suspect that if this house - and therefore its secret passage - was here long enough ago that Elias was still writing the way he did, then he was living an unconventional and magic-assisted lifestyle. He may not appear in resources like that. I suppose I could just see if I can find any Frobishers." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "It's not exactly a dime-a-dozen name," he agrees. |
Author: self_composed | "Speaking of names," she says. "Why 'Alice'? Is it after the character in your favorite book?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Pretty Alice, Alice Cooper, Alice in Wonderland..." |
Author: self_composed | "Interesting. My parents just picked my name out of a baby name book, and I like Bella better than Isabella 'cause it's shorter. My dad calls me Bells, and I'd go by that in general if it didn't sound too affectionate for random people to use." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I mean, I'm not really that attached to Alice," he says. "I just like it. I could be Marilyn or Lesley or Francis or Brian or Cindy or, you know, whatever." |
Author: self_composed | Bella nods. "Do those have relevant associations too?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Marilyn Manson. Marilyn Monroe. Cinderella. Cindy Lou Who. The rest of 'em I just thought up on the spot." |
Author: self_composed | "I think I'll stick with Alice and Pinball Wizard and, where applicable, 'belligerent idiot'," says Bella. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Works for me," he says cheerfully. |
Author: self_composed | Bella picks up Elias's book and flips to the profiles section she hadn't previously read much into. "You can call me Bells if you feel like it." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I might," he says. "Can I call you other things?" |
Author: self_composed | Bella is not at all sure what other things those might be. "Such as?" |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Dunno yet! I'll tell you when I think of something." |
Author: self_composed | "Well, I will approve or disapprove things case by case." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Okay." |
Author: self_composed | Bella peers out the window.
It is dark.
"I should probably get going," Bella says. But first, she scoops up all her coins, clutches the pentagon, and wishes.
To Alice's eyes, the coins all disappear at the same time. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...Your coins are invisible," he reports. "And it's kinda hot when you do magic, too." |
Author: self_composed | Bella laughs again. "Why's that?"
She doesn't have to go right now. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "I dunno. I think it's the taking-over-the-world thing again. Like, you can do magic, how is that not hot?" |
Author: self_composed | "Dunno. I have never seemed hot to myself, and I've never seen anyone else do magic, and I do not have a crush on Elias Frobisher." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "...I don't either," he says. "Okay, different emphasis: you can do magic, and that is definitely hot." |
Author: self_composed | "I guess at this point we're rehashing known territory," Bella says, packing up her backpack. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | "Yeah, I guess," he says. "See you tomorrow?" |
Author: self_composed | "Bright and early," says Bella. And off she goes with a little wave. |