the divulgence

[instar]

Bella assembles everyone (in the garage, out of politeness to Ax, who is standing in grass clippings that Andi took from two houses down for him) after she has organized her notes on Yeerking.

"I have tentatively concluded that the benefits of telling Renée outweigh the risks. We already use her house as a base of operations, and not having to work around her would be much easier, especially now that we have three people who don't officially exist to hide. She exists - and her official existence is an adult; she can drive us places and so on. She can excuse me and Andi from school, if Charlie morphs her he can be out in public as long as they coordinate and not have to pretend he's not our parent, she can make sure we have enough food in the house - and I guess for Ax we experiment with commercially available forms of hay, there aren't going to be grass clippings in Phoenix so readily available - to sustain extra people. She's flighty but not terrible with secrets. I do think we might want to avoid teaching her specialized vocabulary like 'Yeerk' or 'Escafil' or whatever, because that seems like the easier slip for her to make, but I think we should tell her what's going on. Charlie will be able to convince her that we can't just turn over the issue to the authorities."

Comments

[instar]

"So there could be some peripheral perks too," she murmurs, writing still.

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah. Unless she gets arrested for it, I guess."

[instar]

"Give her an alibi," shrugs Bella. "Convince her to go someplace where she'll be noticed, make it look like he fell down the stairs."

[aeskhyne]

"Could work. Tricky, though, the falling down the stairs part. And she almost never goes anywhere."

[instar]

"Does she have people over? Anyway, she has an excuse to change her behavior around now - her kid just ran off."

[aeskhyne]

"True."

[instar]

"I bet you can plan a perfect murder what with telepathy and morphing and being missing presumed dead. They are useful tools. Anyway."

[aeskhyne]

"I bet I can too!"

[instar]

She laughs. Slightly. She goes on writing.

[aeskhyne]

Trouble goes off to think about murder some more.

[kindestgarden]

Renée shows up at the house at eleven-thirty.

[hold_infinity]

Robin, being one of the few people in the house who is officially both alive and in Forks and happening to be nearest the door, answers it.

[kindestgarden]

"Robin, hi," says Renée in a subdued voice, "how are my girls?"

[hold_infinity]

"I'll get them," she says, "come in, sit down."

And she heads for the last known location of a Swan twin.

[instar]

Bella heard the door and is already collecting Andi. They follow Robin down the stairs.

"Hi, Mom," says Bella, and she goes to shut the front door. "Dad -"

[kindestgarden]

"I know, I know, my poor girls -"

[instar]

"Mom," says Bella, "I still don't like to be interrupted. And it's more complicated than you know. Dad isn't actually dead. He faked it."

[kindestgarden]

"...What?"

[instar]

"The short version is, aliens exist, one was possessing him, the others would notice if he just stopped showing up to alien meetings, we killed it but Charlie has to look dead for them not to be tipped off. Other, nicer aliens also exist and gave us powers and there is one of those in the garage."

[kindestgarden]

"...What?"

[instar]

"Trouble had an alien possessor too but we cut a deal with her and he ran away from home to avoid detection," Bella adds, "and he's here, as is Ethan, they both helped with un-possessing Charlie."

[pandion]

"Also we can all turn into animals," Andi adds helpfully, "want to see?"

[kindestgarden]

"You know what, yes, yes I would like to see. If this is some kind of prank -"

But Andi is already changing, and she stops before describing the consequences of pranking.

[morphbox]

<Hi, Mom.>

[hold_infinity]

Robin looks from the barn owl to the barn owl's mother and shrugs.