the first occasion

[deepest_magic]

The house just northeast of Forks proper is very big, quite abandoned, and really easy to just walk right in if you're of a mind to. There are signs that people have been camping in it while hiking, but currently it is unoccupied by visitors, squatters, or any animals larger than a squirrel. There's been a fair amount of furniture but fewer small possessions left behind: couch, piano, dining table, wardrobe, armchair, kingsized bed. It's in extremely variable states of repair.

Comments

[neverbeatme]

Elizabeth takes one lemon square. "If you were hungry and all you had to eat was fish and you didn't know when you'd be getting more," she suggests.

[deepest_magic]

"I said I couldn't think of many, not that there were none. You might also want to eat all the fish you possibly could if you did not have a refrigerator or trash pickup."

[neverbeatme]

"If you like fish more than you like any other things," she says next, nibbling on her lemon square.

[deepest_magic]

"I think 'enough fish to put you off lemon squares' is probably less fish than 'all the fish you could possibly eat'."

[neverbeatme]

"I guess that depends what you mean by 'possibly'. I mean, there's such a thing as 'enough fish to put you off more fish', and some of the time that might even be less than enough to put you off lemon squares."

[deepest_magic]

"Oh, I was taking possibly pretty literally, like, until you couldn't swallow any more fish. I wonder if you could die of too much fish? Probably not unless you choked on a bone."

[neverbeatme]

"I was originally going for a looser definition."

[deepest_magic]

"You know what would have made that one fairy tale really anticlimactic would be if the disappeared guy just choked on a fish bone instead of vanishing mysteriously."

[neverbeatme]

"Wait, which fairy tale? Or do you mean the one that actually happened?"

[deepest_magic]

"The one that reminded me of the disappearing kid from the house, remember? I mean, after we changed it."

[neverbeatme]

"Right, I remembered the missing kid, but I didn't remember the fairy tale as well," she says. "I guess missing kids are more memorable."

[deepest_magic]

"I guess."

[neverbeatme]

"They're definitely spookier," she says. She looks at Charlie. "You know the one we're talking about, right? Bella said she heard about it from you."

[sundayfish]

"Not many kids go missing more than an afternoon in Forks. I remember."

[neverbeatme]

"What happened?"

[sundayfish]

"Well, nobody knows. If you want the whole story - kid's name was Delaney Hammond, had some unfortunate middle names I can't quite remember, he was a year behind me in school but may've been he was held back. Family moved in, he vanished, ugly rumors started flying around - parents took a while to report it, could've been because he was the sort you'd expect to wander off without permission. May have done, anyway, but he didn't come back. Family and their chauffeur were inconsistent about where he'd been the last time they saw him or whether he'd have gone anyplace in particular, mother seemed sort of relieved for some reason - but there was no physical evidence to speak of, case is long cold."

[neverbeatme]

"It's even spookier with the details," Elizabeth observes. "But thanks. What kinds of ugly rumours were they?"

[sundayfish]

"That he'd been driven away by bad treatment or that one of the parents had done him in or that he'd been kidnapped for ransom - they were rich, they could afford that eyesore of a house - and they hadn't paid and didn't want to admit it."

[neverbeatme]

"I wouldn't guess one of the parents did it," she says thoughtfully. "Because that wouldn't explain why the mom was relieved, even if she really, really didn't like him or something, she would've had to have been worried they'd get caught unless it was the dad that did it and she didn't even know, but that seems unlikely. The ransom theory has the same problem, but less of it. Driven away by bad treatment explains why the mom was relieved, though, if she wasn't the one treating him badly but wasn't brave enough to do anything about it herself."

[sundayfish]

"I do think he ran. Wouldn't care very much to guess why with nothing solid to go on based on things happened when I was scarcely older than you."

[neverbeatme]

"And he's probably not going to show up now, any which way."

[sundayfish]

"Wouldn't expect it. No."

[neverbeatme]

"Yeah."

Now she's contemplative.

"So what happened afterward? Did they all just move away?"

[sundayfish]

"Yeah, soon enough they packed up and went to - can't remember where."

[neverbeatme]

"Huh."