1.6 To Be Queen

"I know you died in the water," Mab says gently, "but that's no excuse to go breaking people's sinks."

The medium's colsoling voice usually gets through to the restless ghosts, whereas the terrified and angry screams of the houses' owners do nothing.

She's kept a distance from her neighbors, but most of them seem to like her anyway. Mab feels more at home here in Hidden Springs than she's ever felt anywhere. Children wave enthusiastically at her. She's their ghost catcher.

Memories of Barnacle Bay sometimes seem vanishingly remote. She's caught up in the present, in her new home, and her responsibilities as a mother.

Other times, the pain and frustration of her past bubbles to the surface and is expressed in paintings.

Finley reaches school-age.

As does Junpei.

Hidden Springs only has one school.

Alpine-something-or-other.

Junpei imagines some of his classmates are definitely sim/dryad hybrid abominations, because look at them, they have to be. One day they will obviously make their move. Perhaps one day SOON.

Every day, Mab meets her kids on the playground after school. She lets them have fun for a while before walking them home.

Mab would have a panic attack if this were the schoolyard in Barnacle Bay.

Luckily, her children have no problems with their classmates. They're her children, and in this weird town that makes them cool.

Finley talks her mother's ear off about all the friends she's made. Junpei, by contrast, is neurotic and slow to trust strangers. Mab sees him playing with Finley, or playing alone.

She hoped he might show interest in scouts, given how much he enjoys the outdoors and identifying everything in it. But being bound to the structure of the scouting club sounds like a terrible idea to him. He'd prefer to explore on his own.

How does he keep stuffing these big rocks into his pockets???

The twins are old enough to stay home alone without a babysitter, but the burglar alarms Mab could finally afford to install only do so much to ease her concerns.

They've put themselves to bed by now, right? They're staying away from the stove like she asked them to, right...? And did they take their showers and do their homework?

"My friends Reisa and Achilles and, well, actually everybody else at school has a Dad," Finley points out. "Where is my dad?"

"That's an interesting question, Finley."

The little girl frowns, determined to get to the bottom of it. "I think he has to look like Junpei."

"Junpei looks like Junpei."

"But-"

 "You don't have a dad, sweetie. Get dressed for school."

Finley shares Mab's odd responses with Junpei.

Junpei considers the evidence. "Maybe I'm adopted, and you're a clone."

Finley rolls her eyes. "I don't think so."

"You're just jealous because I'm adopted, and you're the clone."

"What?! Being adopted would be way worse!"

"You're not just a clone, but a special genetically engineered one. When you're fully mature, you'll grow huge claws and shoot rainbow lasers out of your eyes. First you'll go to the science center and turn on your creators, but then, NO ONE in town will be safe!"

Finley heaves a big sigh. "There's something wrong with you."

Junpei is the first off the bus after school. He runs in the door yelling, "No one will be saaaafe!!" and disappears into his bedroom. Mab wonders if she should be concerned.

Finley lingers in the front yard, using her cell phone to continue chatting with friends still on the bus. "Hey! Did you see? My Mom painted our mailbox all rainbow."

Finley stays out there for a good long while, networking with her friends...

Eventually she has to come inside and homework it up with Junpei.

"Are you done talking about my laser eye rampage?" she whispers.

"Never," he whispers back.

Another night, another haunting.

 ...And a false alarm, from the Facq residence.

"There's nothing here, Charles."

"Oh, I know. I was hoping to ambush you into an interview."

"You're still paying my fee for the hour."

"I'll be fired if you don't say something quotable! Pleeease help?"

"Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it's lightning that does the work," Mab says. "Mark Twain."

He writes this down. "Mark... Twain..."

Mab glares. "So what's with the... new... place?"

"Oh, I hate the wallpaper too! But Sarala and I have two children now, and the old house just wasn't big enough, and she keeps saying she'll pick out some nice new wallpaper but she never gets around to it! You see I live with great hardships."

"Uh huh. I'm going now."

Before going home, Mab stops at Han's Cafe & Ice Cream Parlor. At this hour, she's the only customer, but she just doesn't think she'd have made it the rest of the way home without a cup of coffee.

"He says he's probably adopted, and I'm a genetically engineered super clone," Finley informs her in the morning, before rushing off to school. Junpei is already waiting on the bus.

Mab realizes she'll have to have a serious chat with them.

She sits them down on the couch after school.

"So, I heard you two were fighting a bit."

"We weren't fighting," Finley sighs, playing with her pigtails.

"We made up with a pillow war," Junpei says. "Everything's fine."

"Your hair..." Finley trails off, staring at her mother's new style.

"I want you both to know you're not adopted. Or cloned."

"So where'd we come from?" Junpei asks.

Mab smiles. "I wanted children, so I had children. You are both biologically mine."

"Asexual reproduction wouldn't explain my extremely different appearance, unless males of our species are always blond," Junpei points out. He read all about about how this gross stuff works at the library, and he's pretty confident in his conclusions.

"Well, you know, I'm exposed to a lot of weird stuff with my job," Mab says. "Who knows what kind of affect that might have on things?"

Junpei gasps, excited. "So I'm a mutant? Awesome!"

Finley glares at the ceiling, not appreciating the continued evasiveness.

With that issue temporarily resolved, Mab watches some stupid sit-com about a spy with the kids. It's their favorite show.

On her day off, Mab tries to upgrade some of the appliances.

It feels strange to impose days off, when hauntings happen every day and she's the only person around to deal with them. But if she didn't have a day or two off, she'd go mad.

Finley has a slumber party with two friends. For most of the night she's busy talking to her BFF Reisa Facq, leaving Junpei to entertain poor Accalia Woodard.

Junpei lets Accalia copy from his homework.

He doesn't want to be the only kid in class who got 100%.

Finley gathers everyone for a ghost story. She's good at these. She and Junpei are often making stories up for each other.

Junpei has the opportunity to pull some epic pranks right here, but he refrains.

On Saturday, Mab brings her kids to Mick's Master Karaoke, operated by Genevieve Colby. The Colby family thought there weren't enough chain restaurants in Hidden Springs, and set about fixing that.

Junpei is too shy to sing in front of an audience, so tells his mother the machine could be an evil sentient computer, and he'll be standing over here, ready to call in James T. Kirk to destroy it if necessary.

Mab's grandmother taught her to sing. She really gets into it.

After that it's upstairs for an exciting, cut-throat game of dominoes.

"Fin, I can see you trying to cheat," Mab warns.

Mab pauses in the ladies' room to check her wrinkles.

Once she escapes the mirror, she finds her little darlings are running amok on the verandahs playing tag. So it's time to go home.

Mab works hard to buy the family essentials, like a new fridge that doesn't give bad moodlets.

The twins have noticed the disparity between how they live and how many of their classmates live. Quaint but picturesque Hidden Springs is full of old money too stubborn to leave, and new money seeking to escape big city life.

He appreciates how hard his mother works to provide for them, and dutifully picks up as many chores as he can to help her out.

Finley doesn't mean to be self-absorbed, but she's a little preoccupied pretending to be queen right now. And queens do not do chores.

Sadly, Mab didn't get around to replacing this stove.

Without warning, its temperature spikes, turning the pancakes black.

Instead of jumping at the fire immediately this time, Mab calls the professionals.

"Junpei! Stay away from there!"

Junpei attempts to scare the fire into submission by yelling at it and making faces.

In the end, Mab manages to extinguish the flames before professionals arrive.

What did she expect, living out in the woods on a dirt road?

The old stove was toast, so when Finley and Junpei wake up the next morning, there's a new one waiting for them. Mab picked one up after work.

Fistclench!

Pancakes just aren't Mab's thing.



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Etc.: Should have listened to Masterson about that cheap stove!

Mab's new hair is thanks to a mid-life crisis. 

 

Poor Mab is worked to the bone. Her plumbob is frequently red. She's the only adult in the household and it's a new legacy, so there are lots of conveniences that she doesn't have access to. Aside from the obvious money woes, she doesn't have already-upgraded appliances, nor did she get to accrue lifetime happiness points and rewards during earlier life stages. 

The twins were SO close to having learned all three toddler skills, but in the end they didn't make it. Finley was assigned the computer whiz trait, while Junpei got neurotic.