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CONFERENCE REQUESTED
“Crystal,” Edwin begins ominously as he appears in the middle of her goddamn bedroom without knocking. “What is the meaning of this?”
(She should invest in, like, anti-ghost wards or something for her room. She’s been meaning to check out the magic shops in the area anyway and surely they’ve got something to keep out the Dead Boy Detectives. Shit like that must be in high demand.)
“Get out!” She throws a pillow at him for lack of any better options. She wasn’t in the middle of anything, just trying to pick what show she wanted to fall asleep to. It was just the principle of the thing. Then she spots the piece of paper held in Edwin’s hand. “Is that my fucking report card?”
“Has the number system changed significantly in the past hundred years?” He asks, ignoring her. He begins pacing around the room, staring at that piece of paper with a deceptively calm expression on his face. “Did the number five suddenly become larger than nine when I wasn’t paying attention?”
“That’s satisfactory!”
“To whom?” Edwin demands. “What is satisfying about this? Frankly, anyone satisfied with marks such as these -”
“Choose your next words carefully.”
“And these comments from your teachers…”He continues, shaking his head. Crystal gets out of bed, finally, and tries to snatch her report card back, but that incorporeal fuck is real good at dodging her hands.
“No one said anything bad!” She doesn’t think they did? She paid enough attention to the report card to make sure that she didn’t actually fail anything before she had tossed her report in the trash. Did Edwin rifle through her garbage? Gross.
She thinks mostly her teachers were grateful she was showing up to school at all and that she wasn’t the center of the latest drama going on between the students. She remembers - the way she remembers everything about Old Crystal, like it happened to someone else - she decided on a whim to come to school and started a rumor that Prescott Levine cheated on Ursula Kensington. She of course started that rumor by making Prescott actually cheat on Ursula with her best friend so that they would have a falling out and she could get Helena in the friend break up. Her mother was a film producer and was always getting them cameos in her movies and let them meet the hottest actors.
Crystal shudders at the memory. With her powers and her parents’ infamy, there were more straightforward ways to meet hot celebrities. Did she really have to pick the most hurtful way possible?
“‘Could pay more attention’” Edwin reads. “‘Could take more care when submitting assignments’. ‘Needs to pay closer attention to directions.’”
Edwin just doesn’t understand because he didn’t know her before. Doesn’t understand the standard she had set that she was being compared to. Those were the nicest things any teacher has ever said about her of their own volition. The comments on her old report cards, when she had cared enough to make any changes, were practically calling for her to be made a saint. The only person Edwin had to compare to her is herself - New Crystal - and whatever insane standard he had made up for her that he expects her to reach.
“Those comments are barely anything!” Crystal argues. Ugh! She was just about to get her hands on him when he phased right through her entire body. She shivers. The only way Crystal can describe the sensation is basement cold and she knows for a fact that he didn’t have to make her feel that way. He did it on purpose to be a fucking prick! “It’s not like you were perfect or anything. You never day dreamed in class?”
“No,” Edwin sniffed like a liar. “I was above such things.”
“Yeah fucking right.” Crystal says. “Let me see one of your report cards then. I’m sure it’s still chiseled on a stone slab somewhere.”
They continue bickering until Charles shows up to drag Edwin to a meeting with a potential client - the ghost of a man who was cursed to be a dog is still a dog even in death and he would very much like to be a man again - and Crystal thinks that is the end of that.
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to her, Niko Sasaki commits betrayal the likes of which the world has never seen before.
She tells Edwin about the parent-teacher conferences.
Now, Niko didn’t set out to ruin Crystal’s life on purpose, which is the reason why they’re families will not be sworn enemies for the next ten generations, but it was real fucking close.
Crystal had known that Niko was volunteering to help out with the conferences as a part of one of the clubs she’s in. Crystal’s not sure which one it is, but it’s probably not Anime Club, Gardening Club, Tarot Reading Club, or Kendo but that doesn’t really narrow it down all that much.
Niko apparently mentioned it off hand to Edwin during one of their TV nights and he had latched on to the idea like a dog with a bone or a detective with a clue or Charles with a record store.
Which is how they ended up here. She feels like she’s going insane.
“My mom is Black, Edwin!” If she couldn’t stop them from going through with this bullshit, she could at least stop them from accidentally doing a racism. “You are not going to whitewash my mom . If you do actually go through with this, you are going as my dad and Charles,” she points at Charles, who’s been watching Crystal and Edwin argue about this for an hour now with an unchanging look of amused delight on his face, “Is going to be Niko’s mom.”
“It’s still kind of weird,” Niko chimes in from where she’s been sitting on the floor, knitting little outfits for Charles’ and Edwin’s soul spheres. At least, that’s what Crystal thinks she’s probably doing. She hasn’t looked at her directly since Niko plunged that knife into her back. “Seeing that Charles isn’t Japanese, but it’s better than Edwin doing it.”
Charles is excited because in his words, he “doesn’t usually get to be the girl.”
“Why does anyone have to be the girl?” Crystal asks while Charles is in the other room making their disguises. She’s asking partially because she wants to know and partially because Edwin’s already had his gay awakening and she wants him to get any other awakenings he needs to have out of the way before she dies and he spends another hundred years avoiding the issue.
She doesn’t really catch much on this particular fishing trip because all Edwin does is shrug and say, “I’m not a particularly skilled actor and I find it easier to behave unlike myself when I am in a form that is quite unlike myself.”
Crystal nods, holding her chin in her hands and wishing she had one of those little detective notepads. Maybe Edwin has a spare. “Hmm, I see. Niko, add Drag Race to the list of stuff we need to show Edwin to see if he feels something.”
“Got it!”
“I know what drag races are. Charles and I had to attend the annual London Wild Hunt for the Case of the Heady Horseman.” The what?
“No, mate, she’s talking about drag queens!” Charles shouts from the other room. Thin walls in their office, huh?
“Oh, like Ms. Tickles and her girls?”
“Yeah, yeah, Tessie. She’s a laugh!” Charles says as if he’s not saying a completely insane thing. “They’re going to be having a show soon. Tess with all of her drag daughters. We should go!”
“Yes, it has been a while since we caught a performance.”
You’re telling Crystal that Edwin and Charles are friends with drag queens and NONE of them told Edwin he was gay or Charles that he’s bisexual? They just let them out loose in the wild to let them figure it out themselves? That just seems irresponsible.
Crystal gets up to see Charles. She wants more information about these performances and Edwin will filter his descriptions through his Edwinian manners and she wants all the details.
(“ It’s Edwardian, Crystal.”
“I know what I said.”)
When not being used to house Edwin’s massive Christmas county - consisting of Christmas-ville and its rival town across the river, Tinsel Township - the space is designated as Charles’ office. He barely uses it, preferring to lounge around the main office space and get underfoot like a particularly spoiled cat because Edwin hardly has the heart to chase him away.
(Something that surprised Crystal to learn when they had arrived in London was that Charles was a cat person.
One of the first things he did was greet the local alley cats, who celebrated his return like he was their Cat King. More than once, Crystal’s entered the office to see Edwin at his desk researching some esoteric arcane ritual for shits and giggles and Charles lying on the floor with a cat loafing contentedly on his chest or making biscuits on his belly. It was always a different cat. Apparently they have a schedule.
The stray dogs also loved Charles, but none of them hung around him like they were marking their territory like the cats do.)
Charles mostly uses the room to work on their disguises, something that Edwin is weirdly bad at. He was cajoled once during a game of truth or dare to show them his failed attempts and, like, have you ever seen those medieval cat paintings? Or that 80-year-old lady who tried to restore that fresco of Jesus? It was like that.
So Crystal knows that Charles is making disguises right now and she knows the disguises are going to be of Niko’s mom and Crystal’s dad and she also knows that her dad is a public figure. She knows all of this information.
Still, the feeling she gets when she walks into that room and sees Seth von Hoverkraft -
She shrieks. Loud enough to wake the dead.
“Ahh!” Seth von Hoverkraft yells with Charles’ voice.
“Crystal!”Niko shouts.
“Charles! What’s happened?” And there’s Edwin stumbling into the door frame behind her. Still, she doesn’t take eyes off of her father, her hand covering her mouth to hopefully stop any other embarrassing sounds from escaping her mouth.
“Hey, hey, Crystal, it’s just me.” Charles takes off the sunglasses that contain the disguise, pushing them up to rest on his head, and walks up to Crystal to rub her arms in comfort. “I’m sorr-”
“No, no, no,” She pulls away from Charles, shaking her head and putting her arms between them. She does not look directly at his hurt expression. That look is like being punched in the stomach. “No. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I was just startled. That’s all.”
“Still, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you would react like that.”
“Why did you react in that way, Crystal?” Edwin asks, a detective-y lilt to his voice.
Great question. She’d love to know the answer too.
DISRUPTIVE
Crystal didn’t exactly have a normal upbringing. Her parents were these infamous, world-renowned artists that found their niche in some strange hybrid of traditional art, mixed-media, and large-scale performance art. Crystal, after That Whole Mess, found an interview with the two of them where they actually described Crystal that way, but, like, in a list of their latest “projects”.
When they couldn’t find a way to involve her in their art - as a model or an actor or an element in the composition - they mostly left her alone. Groceries were scheduled, tutors were paid for, and lawyers were on speed-dial for any problems Crystal found herself in.
They used to send her to school, real proper school in Los Angeles, but they had to pull her out of it for being, in the words of the District Superintendent, “a nightmare” and she ended up banned from ALL Los Angeles schools, public and private.
(“Did I kill someone? What the fuck happened?”)
Her parents liked it, actually, though they tried to hide it.
Their wild child.
That’s what they named the chapter that was dedicated to her in their joint memoir.
Every month, Crystal sorts through her memories to try to piece together this person that she was so that she avoid becoming her again. She makes a whole day of it. She goes into her ancestral mind garden, her great-great grandmother bakes cookies, her great-great-great aunt brews tea, and they all come together to yell at the screen as they watch Crystal’s memories.
“It’s a metaphor,” said the First about the mind theater through a mouthful of popcorn as they watched Crystal flirt with her best friend’s boyfriend to prove that he would have cheated on her anyway, “But it’s also literal. Don’t think too much about it. Think a little more about how you treat your friends and your taste in men. Baby, this is terrible. That boy is terrible.” And they haven’t even gotten to the demon yet.
Crystal thinks she found it during one of these watch parties. The moment that turned Old Crystal into a monster.
It was 2nd grade and she was still kind of a normal kid. She was a little asshole, but not a particularly remarkable one. She didn’t know how to share, threw tantrums, and threatened anyone who bothered her with legal action, including her teachers and the principal. Normal kid shit, you know?
But then her teacher, Mrs. McGrath - a 66 year old woman who talked about her retirement every other breath - called her parents and set up a meeting with them.
At the time, Crystal just rolled her eyes. Teachers have tried that before and they could never get a hold of them when they were in Brunei, Jakarta, or France or wherever.
But this time they came.
They had called Crystal down to the principal’s office in the middle of the day and when she walked into the room, there they were: Maddy Surname and Seth von Hoverkraft, in the flesh.
Crystal watched the way her little face lit up, the way she threw herself at them, and the joy that filled her whole body when her dad picked her up and put her on his lap and she knows that Old Crystal would have been chasing that feeling her entire life until she let a demon into her body and he stole her mind.
Later, she found out that they came because they were in the area and because they needed some material for their memoir. They asked for one of Crystal’s drawings from art class and she saw it encased in resin and then thrown off of a building as a commentary on the fragility of childhood and the transient permanence of material.
So when she sees Seth von Hoverkraft, that shriek - the one that her friends have become so conditioned to thinking is fear, is danger - was the escaping of an instinctual, childish joy.
SHOWS IMPROVEMENT
Crystal was so vehement that she was fine after she saw her father’s disguise that first time that she now insisted that Charles and Edwin attend the parent teacher conferences.
"I'm fine," she lied. "I was just startled."
Still, Edwin finds himself having fun. He is capable of such a thing, contrary to what Crystal, and poor Niko sometimes, believe.
Charles knows he’s having fun and that’s the important thing.
They put on their disguises and Charles really put his all into creating them. Edwin’s disguise is a near perfect recreation of Seth “von Hoverkraft” with a few subtle changes to differentiate him from the real thing for Crystal’s sake. Charles made him a touch lankier, hair a little curlier and a shade or two lighter, he is missing a couple of moles, and his eye color is hazel now rather than green.
Charles’ disguise is wholly original. Niko’s mother is not a public figure and she told him beforehand that Charles looking like her actual mother “would be kind of incredibly weird. Sorry.” Charles took it in stride and based the design off of some popular Japanese actress.
“Hey,” Charles said as he was finishing the designs. “I think I ended up making her look kind of like that Principal lady. You know, the one who pardoned you and made Night Nurse our handler. Is she Japanese?”
“She is a trans-dimensional being who has authority over the afterlives of countless dead children. So, no, I do not believe she can lay claim to one ethnicity or another.”
The whole event is very novel to Edwin. Parents were not very involved in education back when he was in school. St. Hilarion’s would give parents some general updates about their children’s behavior and progress. If there were any problems of course the parents would be notified, but the thought of every parent of every child coming to the school to speak with every teacher seems like a waste of time to Edwin.
Or, at least, it seemed that way until he saw Crystal and Niko’s grades.
Not that Edwin would ever admit this out loud, but he still finds himself confused about this whole new educational system. In some ways, he is grateful for when Charles started finding himself equally confused. Charles is much more comfortable asking questions and he’s more likely to receive answers without first being teased for not knowing something.
He knows everyone means it in jest and he wouldn’t be a very good detective if he was embarrassed of asking questions, but when it comes to things like “goodness, when did boys and girls become allowed to attend the same school? Is that appropriate?”Edwin finds that it’s less of a headache to just let Charles ask.
Even in their disguises, Charles and Edwin do not have reflections so it is up to each other to make any sort of final checks to their appearances.
Charles fixes up Edwin’s clothes, straightening the lapels of the burgundy suit jacket he saw Crystal’s father wearing in a magazine editorial. The entire outfit is lifted from that editorial, as is Charles’ outfit. Obviously, it had been Crystal’s mother who had been wearing it, but it suits this form that Charles had created quite well. The editorial apparently wanted to create formal-informal dichotomy so while Crystal’s father sported a three-piece suit in a garish color with tastefully coordinated accessories, Crystal’s mother was wearing on over-large cardigan over a cropped shirt with a design of a smiley face with an ‘x’ over each eyes, loose ripped jeans that seemed about two-sizes too big, and a pair of canvas sneakers.
Charles had shown him the other outfits in the editorial and Edwin deemed this set to be the only ones suitable to be worn in public, let alone a school.
“You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Charles,” Edwin praises, brushing a loose strand of dark hair behind his ear. The woman beams up at him, because Seth von Hoverkraft is much taller than “Niko’s mother”, and all Edwin can see is Charles.
Absently, Edwin can hear Niko and Crystal making comments to each other, but he pays them no mind.
(“Ugh. Gross.” Crystal wrinkles her nose. “I forgot that we were going to end up seeing Edwin and Charles being all lovey-dovey as our parents.”
“I’m going to be honest. That’s the main reason I told Charles that I didn’t want him to come as my actual mom.” Niko admits. “There are some expressions I’ve never seen my mom before make and that’s one of them.”)
They walk to the school together. Niko walks arm-in-arm with “her mother” - they decide on calling this disguise “Naoko”, which is Niko’s mother’s actual name but written differently somehow - while Crystal leads the way while “her father” follows a few paces back, back perfectly straight and arms held behind his back.
They split up. Edwin has a list of teachers he simply must speak with and Niko has her own list of teachers she wants Charles to meet. Knowing there was no way of getting Niko’s teachers to speak with “Crystal’s father” about her grades and progress, Edwin gave Charles a list of questions to ask and prays to the God he halfway believes in that he actually asks some of them.
They start with Mr. Pryce, Crystal’s English teacher. He appears to be in his forties and like he takes great care in keeping fit and healthy. Crystal’s grades in this class were acceptable, but barely, and Mr. Pryce’s comments for Crystal were the most interesting to Edwin.
“Very thoughtful and clever, but needs to direct her thoughts in the proper direction.”
He also has a strong handshake, which Edwin can appreciate. “Mr. Von Hoverkraft.”
“Mr. Von Hoverkraft is my father.” Edwin makes no attempt at an American accent. This was a battle Crystal had given up on very quickly. “Please, call me Edwin.”
I am killing you in my mind, Crystal’s voice says in his head. I am throwing rocks at you and stabbing you with sticks.
Apologies, Crystal, he thinks unapologetically in her direction. This is new, Edwin notes. Her powers must be expanding. Fascinating. But I refuse to be called “Mr. Von Hoverkraft” for the entire evening. That cannot possibly be his real name. I do not care what his birth certificate says. It was clearly forged.
I am holding crabs up to each of your fingers and letting them grab at them with their pincers.
Very creative. I do hope I see that reflected when we meet with your art teacher.
I AM KICKING YOU IN THE BALLS.
Mr. Pryce, ignorant of the conversation taking place in Crystal’s and Edwin’s minds, releases “Seth’s” hand with a nod, but still says “I thought your name was Seth?”
“It is,” Edwin continues blithely. “However, I prefer to go by “Edwin” when dealing with matters concerning Crystal’s education. I hope you can respect this.”
Edwin is a terrible actor and he can’t quite shake off “himself” when in the form of “Seth von Hoverkraft”. He’s hoping that his and his wife’s reputations as eccentrics will be enough to excuse any mannerisms that might indicate that “Seth” is in actuality a hundred-year-old teenage ghost.
It is, apparently, because all Mr. Pryce does is nod and say “Alright then.” He goes to sit behind his desk and Crystal and “Edwin” take the seats across from him.
“Crystal is a lovely girl,” Mr. Pryce starts. “And I really mean it this time. She’s made a real 180 across the board since returning to school. The time away was good for her and I’m sure you will hear much the same from any of the other teachers you meet with tonight.”
“Edwin” only nods while Crystal fidgets in her seat.
“Now, as for her grades,” Mr. Pryce pulls up something on his desktop computer. “She’s doing well, but there’s always room for improvement.”
“I had wanted to ask about the comment you left on her report.”
“Yes, that was what I was getting at.” He pulls out her most recent essay, the one that she had fought tooth and nail to hide from Edwin. She was unfortunately successful. “If you would like to take a look, Crystal wrote a very insightful analysis on Marlowe’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’ in the middle of what was supposed to be a research paper on the historical context of Orwell’s 1984.”
“History is a continuum,” Crystal mumbles. Edwin wants to snap at her for talking back - he has no clue where that impulse came from because he can tell it’s not his usual sort of snapping at Crystal - but Mr. Pryce just laughs.
“It is, but I dare say that a poem written in 16...84?”
“1681” Edwin corrects.
“Right, yes, a poem in 1681 does not have much impact on the possibility of the creation of a totalitarian surveillance state several hundreds of years later. If it does, you did not make your case very well, Crystal.”
“...I’ll keep that in mind.”
Mr. Pryce laughs again. “Good. Don’t give me a reason to mark you down.” His eyes flick to something behind him before his attention returns to Crystal and Edwin. “I’ve got another parent I need to speak to, rather urgently I must confess, but to sum it all up, Crystal’s improvement is borderline unbelievable, but I hope it continues. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, can make connections that other people cannot, and has a way of cutting very cleanly to the heart of an issue with a few detours. Be mindful about where you direct your focus, but I’m looking forward to working with this person you are becoming.”
With that, he stands and holds out a hand for Edwin to shake. “Thank you for coming tonight, Edwin. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to write me an email.”
Edwin takes this as being kicked out. He had wanted to ask a few more questions about the curriculum and their new standards for grading, but he does see a rather long line forming so he just accepts the handshake. “Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Crystal. I appreciate the attention you’ve been paying to her development. And,” he says in a low voice, “while I know that Crystal used to be quite the handful, I do hope the administration has been “sparing the rod”, so to speak, when it comes to discipline.”
That brings Mr. Pryce up short and Edwin can feel his whole body freeze through his hand. “Er, we don’t hit students here, Mr. Von Hoverkraft.”
“Oh, no?” Edwin says, wrongfooted. “Good.”
“Come on, dad. ” Crystal says, grabbing his arm roughly and dragging him to the door. “Didn’t you want to meet with my math teacher? The line’s probably really long too. Good luck with that, by the way,” she says to Mr. Pryce.
“Thanks, I’ll need it.”
DOES NOT WORK WELL WITH OTHERS
“They don’t hit students anymore?” Edwins asks Crystal. “Not even the Headmaster?”
Apparently not. Corporal punishment is not considered acceptable anymore, triply so if the child is not your child.
Now, Edwin does have a few hang ups on modern day social mores and certain things he’s stubbornly old-fashioned about, but he’s really trying to see what the good things “the future” has to offer.
Charles is the first good thing he thinks of, obviously. Charles is someone he couldn’t have - in any way - back when he was alive.
There has been some truly excellent fiction published while he was away. People are all together more open with each other and accepting of different people and views. Niko has shown him how to play The Sims recently and he can somehow feel individual neurons activating when they play together.
And, he thinks as he sees all these people who had come here tonight with their parents, this was…nice.
His parents were distant figures, not cold necessarily, though they would certainly seem that way to any modern onlookers. The Paynes were not the sort to dote on their children. Edwin had two older brothers - Edmund and Edgar - and two younger sisters - Evelyn and Evangeline.
(He knows it was silly that his parents - Edward and Eve - named them in such a way. Family friends used to joke that Edward's surname was actually "Payn" before they had gotten married and they added the "e" afterwards.
Whenever the occasion arose when he needed to list all of his siblings, he had to stop in the middle to sigh because saying it out loud made it sound all the more ridiculous. Charles asked if Edwin was “fucking with him” the first time, but he said it with a smile so any embarrassment Edwin might have felt faded away with the rising of the sun.)
Edwin was the only one fool enough to crave some sort of…affection from their parents past an appropriate age.
“Whether or not Father is proud does not matter, Edwin,” Edgar had advised him when Edwin was around ten years old, after a particularly obvious expression of disappointment played out on Edwin’s face. “He’s never going to show it one way or another. Do not cause yourself unnecessary hardship by expecting otherwise. You are a Payne. You were raised well enough. Just do not do anything that would disappoint yourself and Father should not have reason to be disappointed in you.”
Easier said than done, all things considered, when one grows up with two older brothers so perfect that one cannot be helped but found wanting in comparison.
As the third son of a prestigious family, Edwin found himself in the strange position of having almost no expectations for him and also the highest expectations possible. Edmund was set to inherit the family estate and all that entailed and Edgar was destined for a future as a high-ranking officer in the armed forces.
Edwin, as an individual, needed to make some kind of name for himself, but in terms of his family’s legacy, there was no need for him. Edmund and Edgar already cemented the Payne family’s future as a respectable family of good breeding. Whatever marriage matches that they could make for the girls will only further secure that reputation.
So any accolades Edwin received were extraneous and any embarrassments would be forgotten in the light of his brothers’ achievements.
His mother had said to him once, in that matter-of-fact, clipped way of hers. A few decades later, he dusted off that memory and it occurred to him that there was a chance that she had meant that to be comforting. He did not find the sentiment comforting at the time, but at that point was better at hiding his expression so he merely thanked her for her insight and exited the tea room. He never asked to take tea with her again after that day.
Not because of what she said, but because he died shortly afterwards.
So he watches these parents, who showed up because in some way they cared about their children’s futures, and he does not feel any sort of longing or sadness, but he does wonder what that would have been like.
PREPARED, CONTRIBUTES
Charles, meanwhile, has spent the past week or so leading up to the conferences practicing his American accent.
“My mom speaks English fluently,” Niko said proudly when he was doing his research on how to put together the disguises. “She has a bit of an accent, but I wouldn’t recommend you try to fake it.”
Charles recalled the way the boys at school would fake Indian accents around him and took Karate Kid off of his list of research materials.
Edwin was sort of laughably bad at making these disguises. Any other illusion-type magic he’s great at like every other type of magic, but anything related to changing human appearances is out of his reach. Charles doesn’t mind picking up the slack. This is fun for him. He was always a bit good at art and a lot good at people watching and this kind of magic is the perfect combination of the two.
He’s passable at other kinds of magic. He’s got about an 85% success rate of the spell doing what he wants it to do and the other 15% isn’t going to get anyone killed. He’s better in getting a handle on magical objects and once Edwin determines that it’s not going to steal his soul or something (how would that work? Charles is his soul so would he just be…haunting the thing or…?), it goes right in the bag of tricks for Charles to pull out when the time is right.
Charles placed Naoko’s disguise he placed in this really pretty jade hairpin that he had been saving for the right disguise. They had gotten it as payment for solving the Case of the Missing Kneecaps (a.k.a. the Infamous Puppy Debacle). Edwin, on the other hand, is stuck wearing sunglasses indoors like a prick but that’s Crystal’s parents’ whole thing so it worked out.
Niko has to help out with directing parents who came without their children to the proper classes, but she gives him a really detailed map and schedule of all the people she wants him to meet. It’s color-coded and there are these really adorable doodles next to each teacher’s name that indicates what they teach and whether or not they are arseholes, Charles’ words, not Niko’s.
Niko's grades aren't perfect, but the teachers have nothing but nice things to say about her, which was to be expected. If there is any criticism, it’s that Niko is easily distracted and has trouble with deadlines, which was also completely predictable. He dutifully still asks a couple of the questions that Edwin left for him but Naoko is in and out of their meetings in less than 2 minutes.
“Thank you so much,” Charles says to Niko’s science instructor using his English accent. He was really excited to try out his American one - Niko assured him that it was “aces, really” - but during his first meeting of the night with Niko’s physical education teacher, he spoke to Naoko really slowly like she was stupid and asked to wait for a translator.
“That will not be necessary,” Charles said, doing his best Edwin impression. “I am more than capable of conversing with you regarding my darling Niko’s progress in this course.”
The teacher got really red and stutter-y. He spit something out about Niko being good, but a bit clumsy and then shuffled them out of his office as quickly as possible, making something up about not making his next conference wait even though they were the only ones in this corridor.
“What a prick,” Charles said, doing his best Naoko impression and failing. “Naoko” isn’t real. She can call someone a prick if Charles really wants her to.
The rest of the evening was perfectly lovely. It must be nice, Charles thinks, to hear your child be praised this much. He wishes the real Naoko was here to see this. The thought makes him vow to enjoy it in her stead.
The woman from the gardening club was very sweet and gifted Naoko with a basket of tomatoes that he had to carry around all night until he met with the cooking club advisor, who snatched up the tomatoes eagerly because “that bitch never forgave him for the thing with the chicken.”
After meeting with all of Niko’s teachers and club advisors on her list, Charles heads to the auditorium to watch the performances from the school band and the music club.
There’s no appreciation for ska in the modern age, but he appreciates how music has changed over the decades and is always open to expanding his tastes. He never could get behind EDM, but jazz, R&B, rap, rock, punk, metal, house, whatever else they come up with, he’ll give an honest shake at. If there’s one thing that’s actually kind of nice about being a ghost is all the music he’ll get to listen to now. That’s something he still gets to feel.
The school band is honestly pretty good, good enough that it would’ve put them at risk of being possessed by a ghost band like from the Case of the Haunting Has-Been, and he finds himself nodding his head to the beat and dancing along in a way that he hopes is appropriately middle-aged.
Another parent walks up to Naoko, someone’s dad, and gets close so they can hear each other over the music.
“Which one is yours?” He asks.
Charles shakes his head. “None of them. My one’s a volunteer running around somewhere. Just thought I’d give them a listen.”
“You were dancing so enthusiastically I figured you were here for your kid.”
Charles shakes his head. “Nah, just appreciative. How about you? One of them yours?”
He nods his head. "Yes, but I'm also just appreciative." He points towards the stage, getting a touch closer so that Charles can follow his line of sight. “The bassist, Zack. He’s hoping the music thing will help him with the girls.”
“Well,” Charles thinks back to his memories of going to gigs with people who aren’t Edwin, Crystal, or Niko. “The girls do love a bassist.”
“I was a bassist.”
“Oh, yeah?” Charles grins up at the guy, tilts his face a little closer so no one else can hear. Charles would hate to embarrass the poor lad in front of the girls he was trying to impress. “You teach him all your moves, then?”
“Not all of them,” and then, well, the guy steps in even closer. “I could show you the rest of them some time if you’re interested.”
Wait. Hold on.
Shit. Was Naoko flirting with this guy? Charles really needs to stop doing that. It gets him in so much trouble sometimes. But this didn’t really register since middle-aged men didn’t ever come on to him.
(Well.)
“I’m married!” Charles blurts out, taking several steps away, holding out his hands.
(That lie, hmm. There’s a feeling there. Charles will have to unpack that later.)
A couple people turned their heads towards them. Sorry, Zack, he thinks.
The guy - he didn’t tell Naoko his name! What is this guy playing at? - glances at Naoko’s hands and quirks an eyebrow. “I don’t see a ring.”
Shit. Right. Charles didn’t include that because “I’m widowed!” Wait, no. “I’m divorced?”
Okay, lots of people are looking their way now. In a way that does feel very Niko actually, Charles darts his eyes around the room, taking note of the guy’s just really awkward expression now, and says “I gotta go!”
Charles runs off, pulling his cardigan closer around him so that he can hide his partially exposed midriff.
He finds Niko directing traffic away from one of the math classrooms. The door has a sign with the words ‘No one’s here! ’ in Niki’s handwriting. “Mr. Chambers got really sick and he had to go home! Sorry! If you want to speak with him you’ll have to send him an email.”
To Charles, she says, “Edwin made him cry a bunch and I have to keep people away from here until he can pull himself together.”
Delighted and temporarily distracted, Charles asks, “What did he do?" Wait, no, not why he's here. "No, wait. I’ll let him tell me. It’s better when he does it. "Niko, some guy hit on your mum!”
“Aww.” What?! “Wait, do you mean someone hit on you ? You better not tell Edwin or else he’s going to try to send this guy to the Shadow Realm.”
Charles knows that. He’s not stupid. And when did Niko find out about the Shadow Realm?
“No, hang on, can we go back to your reaction to some bloke hitting on your mom?”
“Well,” Niko leans in closer so he can hear her whisper. “Charles, firstly, you’re not actually my mom. And my actual mom has been dating for a while now. I don’t need a new dad or anything, but she can have a new husband if she wants. I want her to be happy, you know?”
Is this what other people feel when they talk to Niko? Sad, unenlightened people? The thought just feels so foreign to Charles. He thinks about his own mother, alone now, and buries down these feelings until he’s somewhere he can deal with them.
“I guess,” Charles says aloud. “I’m going to go find Ed, er, Seth and Crystal. Do you know where they are?”
Niko gives him a look but doesn’t press further because someone tries to go into Mr. Chambers room despite the fact the lights are off and Niko’s standing right there.
“Oi, mate, can’t you read?” Naoko asks.
Once the guy is gone, she shrugs, “Last I saw them, they were headed for the science labs, but that was a while ago.”
It’s as good a place as any to start. Charles goes in search of them, trying to look as unapproachable and unavailable as possible.
SHOULD WORK HARDER
During a recent case, Charles came across their suspect’s report card while they were searching his room for the missing cursed pocket watch. Crystal was there to get her psychic readings.
He finds the report card crumpled up in the guy’s mattress and what he sees makes him wince. “Bloody hell, if I came home with these grades, my dad would’ve beat me until I could recite the alphabet backwards.”
Instead of laughing like the lads would do because they thought he was joking, Edwin and Crystal just get really quiet. Crystal stays awkward, but after a minute, Edwin smiles because he remembers that Charles’ dad is dead and in hell now.
Contrary to the impression he gives off, Charles actually got decent grades. He couldn’t afford not to. Charles didn’t always know what would set his dad off, but bad marks were guaranteed to make his dad go ballistic.
His dad would go to his conferences when the stars aligned and he didn’t have a shift at the hospital and he’d make Charles go with him. His teachers would always say nice things, but they could never say only nice things. They would say that he was smart, worked well with others, worked hard, asked good questions, but none of that mattered when they always followed up with something like “he can get distracted sometimes” or “he’s a bit talkative when he’s sitting near his friends” or “he’ll get on an unrelated tangent on occasion” and that would be enough. Charles shudders to think how his dad would have reacted to something actually bad.
After a couple years, his teachers wisened up to what was going on and they stopped voicing their criticisms and they stopped calling home when Charles was involved with some prank or another. Someone must have noticed that Charles was never in school after conferences.
No one bothered to, you know, do anything about it, but it was still nice to realize that they were doing something to try and protect him. Then Charles started going to St. Hil’s and they didn’t really do the parent-teacher night because they were too posh for it or something and he didn’t really have to worry about setting his dad off because of that anymore.
But not everything Charles did when he was alive was because of his dad. Charles tried hard to get good grades because he liked the look on his mum’s face when she saw he got good marks. “Good job, beta. I’ll make your favorite tonight” and then she’d kiss his cheek if it wasn’t hurting and she’d smile at him and it’d be good because she had a way of smiling that could trick him into thinking it was all going to be okay.
And he liked it when she called him beta, liked the way her voice hits those syllables. No one else called him that. It felt like something that was only for them, like maybe they could be in India or anywhere else besides this house. Some place where a mother could call her son beloved in her language all the time, out loud and in the light of day, instead of in a hushed voice looking over her shoulder.
Is she lonely? She must be. He checks in on her more often, but he hasn’t gone to visit in person since right after his father died and went to hell. He’s seen her have some friends over. There have been some nights where she hadn’t come home, gone out somewhere.
But mostly she sits home alone and watches TV. Some nights, the TV will be on, but he can tell she’s not looking at it. She’s looking at the photo of Charles she was able to put on her wall after her husband died.
So, maybe it’s a bit too soon for anyone new in her life, but maybe one day.
Charles will have to watch the new guy like a hawk because his mum doesn’t have the best track record with men, but he wants to see her smile again and maybe next time it won’t be a trick. Maybe it’ll really be okay.
GOOD ACHIEVEMENT
Niko needs to sit down, but as soon as she sits, someone else is giving her something else to do.
The night is winding down finally and Mr. Chambers has pulled himself together enough to go home so she doesn’t need to stand in front of his room anymore. Niko’s almost disappointed. This was the only job she had today where she was allowed to stay put.
But then Mrs. Summers, the advisor in charge of the student council, waves her off when she starts to help put away the chairs and tables they had put in the gym so parents could berate their children privately. “It’s okay, Niko. You’ve been running around all night. You’ve done more than enough,” she levels a glare at Emmett and Patricia, who were half-heartedly putting away the chairs. “I believe I saw your mum with Crystal and her father by the main entrance. You can go home now.”
Mrs. Summers didn’t need to tell her twice. She grabs her stuff from the student council room and waves goodbye at the teachers, custodians, and secretaries before running out of the building.
Before she can make it out the door, she’s stopped again by Mr. Takahashi, her Japanese language teacher.
Drat, she was hoping to avoid him all night and she was successful until right this second.
“Niko-san,” he says in Japanese with a smile. He’s a nice guy, really, and a great Kendo coach. His class was rough for her not because it was difficult, but because it was more difficult than she was expecting. “I’m glad I caught you. I was hoping to speak with your mother tonight. I had heard from a few of your other teachers that she was able to come.”
His accent is so weird, a strange combination of England and Tokyo. Is that what she sounds like to her relatives back in Japan? They’d always make fun of her for sounding so American even though she swears she’s saying everything right.
“Sorry,” Niko replies. “There were a lot of people she needed to see and it got a bit overwhelming. She went ahead back to her hotel.”
“Ah, I see. That’s a shame.” He shrugs. “Mr. Perkins texted me saying he needed a translator earlier. I hope your mother was able to get around alright.”
Ugh, what a jerk. “My mother speaks perfect English, Takahashi-san.”
“Of course she does.” He rolls his eyes. “Well, I hope that we will be able to meet the next time your mother is able to make it to one of these events.
“Of course.” Niko bows her head instinctively. “I’ve got to go. Crystal is waiting for me. Have a nice night, Mr. Takahashi.”
“See you tomorrow, Niko.”
Mr. Takahashi really is a nice guy. She feels bad for avoiding him, but Charles doesn’t speak Japanese and, honestly, his American accent was just barely passable and that’s only because he needed to act as someone who speaks English as a third language. Not that anyone’s cover would have been blown - no one on Earth would assume that “Naoko” was actually a 50-year-old teenage ghost - but it still would have been really strange if Niko’s Japanese mother did not speak any Japanese.
She finds her friends standing at the main gate. Edwin and Charles have switched clothes. Edwin, or “Seth von Hoverkraft”, was wearing Naoko’s cardigan while Naoko had on “Seth’s” blazer, buttoned up as far as possible. “Seth” had an arm wrapped around Naoko’s waist and if she squinted her eyes a little, she could see past the illusion into reality.
She holds back a squee. Edwin gets so embarrassed when she does that because he knows what that means now. She had meant for the yaoi she loaned him to be educational, but Edwin took it way too seriously. He returns her copies to her with sticky notes and his annotations on nearly each page.
I don’t understand the point of this style of censoring, one note had read. It is very clear what is being hidden. No information is actually being censored. Niko, you had told me that this was “tasteful erotica” and I can’t help but feel as if I’ve been lied to.
“Ah, Niko, there you are,” Edwin’s the one who spotted her first, but Crystal is the one who rushes to her side. That’s fine. Edwin and Charles are looking rather cozy where they are.
“Save me,” Crystal begs. “They’ve been so gross all night. I think I saw people taking pictures. My actual dad is going to be in some tabloid for having an affair and it’s not even going to be his fault this time.”
“I thought your parents were poly?”
Crystal shakes her head in disgust. “No, they tried it, but they just turned it into a piece about the pitfalls of modern dating and the selfishness of monogamy. I try not to think too much about it. Come on, let’s go home.”
Crystal leads her by her hand and power walks towards the office. Crystal and Niko’s apartment, or flat, is in the complete opposite direction. Niko smiles and tucks that moment away in her brain. She feels the same, but they can’t move into Charles and Edwin’s office building. It’s not zoned for it or something. Jenny’s new butcher shop/sandwich place is already on the first floor. They can’t get too greedy, now can they?
Jenny’s doing well for herself and she’s gotten great reviews on the sandwich place side of her business. Just being American is enough to lend authenticity to the quality of her burgers and she’s not even “the right type of American” for it.
Once they’re far enough away from the school, Edwin takes off his douche-sunglasses and Charles takes out the hairpin. Besides that, nothing else changes. Edwin’s arm is still wrapped (possessively!) around Charles, who listens enraptured to Edwin’s explanation for how he made Mr. Chambers cry.
“Well, at any rate, he was incredibly rude. I simply do not understand why someone would willingly enter the teaching profession if they have such disdain for their students. ” Edwin finishes. “I’m confident that you will no longer have any problems with that individual, Crystal.”
Crystal doesn’t look very convinced, but Niko is. Crystal didn’t see what became of Mr. Chambers after she shuffled “her dad” out of the room mid-tirade. Honestly, Niko would be surprised if Mr. Chambers was ever seen at the school again after tonight.
Which, well, Mr. Chambers never seemed particularly emotionally fragile to Niko and while Edwin can be particularly vicious when he really wants to, Mr. Chambers is a high school math teacher and you’ve got to be a special type of psycho to do that for over 40 years.
The reaction just seems kind of extreme, is all. She’ll ask Edwin what happened - what really happened - during one of their Niko-and-Edwin Nights.
Crystal had ordered take out while she was waiting at the front gate for Niko and timed it perfectly so that the food delivery person was just pulling up to their building while they were walking up.
“Mmm,” Niko sniffs the bag. “Oh, you ordered from the good Chinese place?”
“Well, I’m not ordering from the bad Chinese place after they took 2 hours to deliver our order.” Crystal rolls her eyes. “They’re on time out.”
“I do not understand why you continue to order food from a place you refer to as the ‘bad Chinese place’,” Edwin sniffs, phasing through the door leading into Jenny’s shop with Charles. Niko and Crystal have to open the doors like suckers, Charles’ words, not Niko’s. .
There’s only one or two regulars eating their sandwiches. Jenny’s nowhere to be seen, probably in the back prepping meat for tomorrow or something, but a very orange cat sits at the register like a queen holding court so the shop is in good hands.
“Hey, there, Miss Ginger,” Charles said, tickling the cat underneath her chin. The cat purrs and rubs her face in the palm of his hand. “Still trying to get on Jenny’s good side, I see.”
“I’ll wear her down eventually,” the London Cat Queen purrs. “Oh! Did you order from the bad Chinese place?”
“No,” Niko apologizes. “It was the good one this time.” She holds out an egg roll anyway.
Ginger sniffs at it and bats it away with her paw. “No, thank you.” The front bell rings and Niko sees another one of the regulars enter the shop - Old Timmy, the street sweeper. “My darling, there is a customer!”
“Stop calling me that,” Jenny snaps at Ginger, but she still gives her a pet.
“I’ll have my usual, Jenny.” Old Timmy shouts from where he’s resting at his usual seat.
“You got it,” she says, ringing up his order. Then, she nods at the takeout bags in Crystal and Niko’s hands. “That from the bad Chinese place?”
“Nope.” Crystal says.
“Damn, okay.” Jenny waves them away and they start the climb upstairs. Niko lingers a little in the stairwell. Watching with interest.
“I had the same reaction, dear heart. Our tastes are so compatible!”
“Ugh,” but Jenny doesn’t tell Ginger to get away from the register and chase her off with a broom so Ginger is most definitely going to count that as a win.
“Pspspspspsps.” Niko whispers.
Ginger, already listening for the signal, takes one last look around the shop before going to where Niko is hiding. “Well,” Ginger says. “Do you think I’ve made progress in wooing my beloved?”
Niko’s learned from Maxine. She’s taken all sorts of lessons from that whole fuck up.
The one lesson that she really should have learned, but didn’t, was not to meddle.
“She’s definitely softened up towards you,” Niko nods. “Just don’t be too pushy. Let her know you’re there, but you need to let her come to you.”
Ginger nods her head in understanding. “Like a cat.”
“Exactly!”
“I can be patient,” Ginger says, sweeping her tail. “I have lived many lives and one spent waiting on the gaze of Ms. Jennifer Green is one worth living. I must admit, though, that I am eager to progress further in our courtship. Soon, I will be able to reveal my human form.”
Wait. “Wait.” Niko starts. “Does…Has Jenny never seen you when you’re person-shaped?”
“No! That would be very forward.” Then, Ginger tilts her head, considering. “Why? Do you think that would help?”
Ginger’s human form is, like, smoking hot in a MILF-y, Hedy Lamarr, vintage cigarette ad kind of way.
Niko nods her head vigorously. “Oh, yeah, totally!”
Ginger sits back, considering, before nodding her head. “Okay, I’ll try!” and in a poof of something that looks like cigar smoke, but doesn’t smell like cigar smoke, the ginger cat is replaced by the Ginger bombshell. Her human form is wearing a body-hugging black evening gown with a neckline so plunging that it becomes a deliberate choice for Niko to look Ginger in the eyes. “Wish me luck!”
She bounces off into the shop.
“Sweetness, I have something I want to show you!”
“Ginger, I’m with a custo- HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK?”
Niko climbs up to the third floor of the building with a little skip to her step and walks into the office in the middle of Crystal and Edwin arguing.
“The good Chinese place has good vibes and meh food,” Crystal says like she’s said a million times before. “And the bad Chinese place has bad vibes and amazing food!”
“The bad Chinese place has a 3-rating for hygiene!” Edwin says, pointing at Crystal’s phone in her hands. “You’ve seen it yourself. How could the food possibly be amazing?”
“The dirt is what gives it the flavor!”
Charles throws his head back and laughs.
Home sweet home.
SHOULD PAY MORE ATTENTION
Before Niko’s dad died, her mother tried to move her back to Japan.
Her parents had been split up for a while at that point, and the real Naoko figured there was nothing keeping them in America. As per the custody agreement, her dad would get her during breaks from school and, well, Japan had less of those.
Niko wasn’t privy to the fights and arguments - legal or otherwise - that led to that agreement, all she knew at the time was for the majority of the year, she lived and went to school in rural Japan. She didn’t have many friends because she was basically a foreigner and for other reasons and she couldn’t join any clubs besides the “going home” club because she had to help out at her grandparents’ inn.
She wasn’t a particularly good worker, too distracted to work in the kitchen and too awkward to work with guests.
It wasn’t a very busy inn, but there were enough tourists to keep them afloat. A lot of people are charmed by the thought of a ryokan in the middle of the forest. It was like something out of a fairy tale. Many guests left swearing that they saw a zashiki-warashi or a nekomata or a kitsune.
Those last two were just cats or foxes so Niko doesn’t doubt that they saw something, but whether it was an actual yokai is another conversation.
Niko was always an odd child. Her mother didn’t really know how to deal with her the way her dad did. She was always staring off into space. Sometimes she felt like she was staring directly at something that she couldn’t see. Shadows would flicker at the corner of her eyes and disappear as soon as she whipped her head around to stare.
Sometimes she felt like there was a sound underneath the sound. Something like humming, something like whispers.
They said the forest was haunted by spirits, but she only ever saw cats or foxes or crows.
She wonders, now that she’s died and come back to life as something, what she’ll see when she faces those flickers head on, what she’ll hear when the noise underneath the noise stops slipping away from her grasp, if only she’d go back home.
Home?
A PLEASURE TO HAVE IN CLASS
“Hey, so,” Niko remembers as she and Crystal are leaving the office. “Did you see it?”
“Ah, yes,” Edwin says like he had forgotten as well. He doesn’t usually do that. Perhaps he was having too much fun. “There does seem to be some supernatural presence lingering around the school.”
“It’s not a ghost,” Charles chimed in.
Crystal rolls her eyes. “Well, we would’ve been able to tell if it was a ghost.”
“Whatever it is, it’s harmless.” Edwin continues.
“We knew that too.” Niko adds. “It wasn’t doing anything spooky or evil, it was just there.”
“Were you able to catch a glimpse of the presence as well?” Edwin pulls out his notebook to start to take notes. “Did it seem more or less active with the presence of all those people in attendance and their various energies?”
Niko and Crystal look at each other. Crystal shrugs. Niko would be the one who would notice.
And she has. “It seemed more active, I think. I see it more often during the school day, but not really after school.”
Niko, well, she likes all of the clubs she’s a part of. Really. Kendo especially has been helpful when they’re working on cases. But during the first week of school, she would hang back to look for whatever thing that’s been hanging around the school and someone would see her and go “Oh! Are you looking for the knitting/anime/football appreciation club? Come on in!” and Niko really didn’t have an excuse for why she was there otherwise and she really didn’t want to say no either because the clubs honestly sounded fun.
Charles was really excited about football appreciation club. He didn’t even notice the hunted look in her eyes when she nodded her head when she came into the office late and Edwin exclaimed “Another one?!”
(Towards the beginning, Charles was feeding her his own opinions about the beautiful game, but over time, Niko was able to form her own opinions (that wisely matched up with Charles’). She would come back to the office to share with Charles what they had talked about and whatever stupid this Roger Kilpatrick was spewing. Charles almost feels like he knows the people in the club and he got the sense he was being over-familiar when he was speaking to Niko’s history teacher/football appreciation club advisor, Mrs. McBride. )
Back in the office, Edwin goes “Hmm, that is interesting” and makes another note in his notebook. “Charles, I require Earthly Spirits and Sprites vol. XII.”
“On it!”
“I’ll do some preliminary research on what this creature might possibly be, but we may have to return to the school to gather more evidence.”
“What if it’s a house ghost?” Charles walks back in, flipping through a horrifyingly massive stained green tome. “Building looked at least a hundred years old, parts of it anyway. Could have grown its own soul.”
“I was thinking along the same lines!”
“You know,” Crystal starts, speaking like every word is being dragged out of her even though no one is forcing her to say this. Niko senses what she’s about to say and starts nodding her head and jumping up and down enthusiastically. “There’s supposed to be,” she sighs, “a school fair next month. It’s three days long and-”
She can’t get out the rest of it, but Niko can. “Friends and outside people are able to go on Sunday, but family is allowed to attend all three days!”
Edwin And Charles look at each other, communicating with each other through some shared language, and they turn back to the smiling Niko and the Crystal who is avoiding eye contact with them. They smile.
“We’ll be there.”