2019-08-19 - State of Play

A busy man like Byron Thorne is difficult to schedule for, if not just because, much like herself, he tends to work at all hours of the day, with an equal propensity to be absorbed in the wheels and cogs of his various enterprises.

But eventually, a break is welcome and well-deserved, and as Isabella has not had an opportunity to visit the Boardwalk since her arrival from the United Kingdom two months ago, they decide to meet up at one of the location's staple food stalls. The Fried Fish was somewhat of a childhood summer tradition, even before its management had changed over to the younger generations of the Velez family - always handy for a quick snack before running back to the water. For as long as Byron could remember, at least, the twins were particularly attached to the beachhead, Isabella especially.

The day is hot, humid and bright, as if Summer had decided to rebel against the inevitable encroachment of Autumn. The skies are endless and clear above their heads, and the breeze wafting in from the Pacific is cool, but not enough, in the end, to blunt the heat in any noticeable fashion. The Boardwalk is inundated with familiar sounds - families enjoying the weather, high school students determined to enjoy what remains of their vacation, and plenty of sea birds cutting across the blue, distant gray-white specks that caw and swoop down towards the water on occasion. There'll be other bodies spotted on the beach, milling figures who are too far for the eye to discern the finer details of, playing in the water, or baking under the sun, and all seemingly oblivious to their hometown's true, insidious nature.

He would find her standing by the side of the chest-height counter that wraps around the open-air restaurant, a handy divider between the rest of the outdoor space and the kitchen, already enjoying a cold drink and an elbow draped against the edge, a leg bent, a hip cocked, the loose pieces of her dark-brown tresses spilled free against the ocean breeze, the rest held to the back of her head with clips. She is dressed for the weather, and while around Byron's company, most probably underdressed in comparison; shorts that lived its prior life as a pair of jeans, the legs frayed and cut off high on the thighs, a tanktop and open-toed sandals that make the most of the array of three toe-rings that she splits among those delicate appendages. She has a hoodie tied low around the hips, in preparation for the much cooler sunset to come, and her Ralph Lauren aviators are perched on her nose. No jewelry, of course, with the exception of the moonstone pendant that she is never without, its superior adularescence capturing the light of the mid-afternoon sun, and sprays the front of her top with sparks of iridescent color.

She spots him immediately, but that isn't difficult - the handsome and perpetually sharply-dressed entrepreneur tends to stand out in the crowd, even without Isabella's advanced degree of environmental awareness.

"I haven't been here in years," she tells him in lieu of a greeting, her voice pitched in a quiet murmur, contralto carrying wistful nostalgia. She can almost see their younger selves along the shoreline, splashing over and around the rolling, incoming tides. "When people think of the beach, they always think of other places - Tahiti, Boracay, the Maldives...California. It's the sand, I think. It's not so fine or powdery here. But I love the fact that it's so rough...imperfect. It's more interesting that way."

Green eyes sharded with gold lift from the top of her sunglass' frame, smiling at Byron. "How are you, hot shot?" she wonders, folding her arms on the counter.

The Fried Fish Stand was Byron's first place of employment when he was still twelve; shortly after his father had died. He'd come here often enough, it was close to home, even if having the luxury of wandering the boardwalk aimlessly is now lost to him. Often when he drives down here, he's with a client, usually a potential tenant, to show them just what Gray Harbor has to offer. It's a nice summer day, the kind of day that would draw in these potential tenants.

While he's not dressed in a full suit jacket getup, having removed said jacket and had it neatly hung in the backseat of his car, he is wearing a white buttoned down and dark slacks, complete with navy blue tie. Dark sunglasses shield his eyes from the sun. Even though he's not completely put together, he still offers a striking professional image.

"Not gonna lie. When I think of the beach, I think of those places too. Probably because I did a long stint in L.A." Byron says, his tall frame leaning against the counter before he slips a bill down onto it, knowing exactly what he plans on ordering, "A serving of" baby, "popcorn shrimp. And a cup of horchata. Large." Returning to the conversation, watching Isabella through a tinted gaze, his shoulders lift into a shrug, "I ruined another suit." She may have heard, "Destroyed my worm doppelganger. " Some of this was brought up the night before, but they hardly went into details. He flashes a smile at the person behind the counter, before he asks, "What about you?"

"Yeah, I heard. You know if you dressed down once in a while, you wouldn't keep ruining those - they can't be cheap." Isabella's good humor is irrepressible, a wry twist on her mouth angled Byron's way before lips purse around a straw. She, too, has a cold drink, but it's juice - quite possibly the only sweet thing she consumes on the regular, unable to resist the draw of summer fruit. "You won't spontaneously combust, I promise, and it's not like you'll be less attractive doing it. I have it on good authority that people around here think you'd rock a burlap sack just fine if you had the inclination."

She can order food now that Byron's joined her, having patiently waited for her friend before she asks for the same thing; her love for the ocean extends to its bounty, and crustaceans are some of her favorite things to eat. "I heard about the worm incident from Alexander and Doctor Minerva Komisar, both of whom I saw recently. Elias Weber, too. How are you doing after that? Are you alright?" There's a critical inspection of him from where she stands, though considering his clothing, if he is injured, the evidence of such toils would be impossible to see.

Even if Byron dressed down, much of his clothing would still be priced on the higher end for what they are. "Do I run into earworms or anything when I'm out for my morning run? Do I get pulled into a dream when I'm working out at the gym? No, it's always when I have business to do." He continues, "Did I get attacked when we were cleaning out Lilith's shop or when some of us were testing our abilities." This is something that was brought up last night that Byron had managed to ignore completely rather than respond. Especially not in Alexander's company. "No. It's always when I'm downtown or when I'm there in an official capacity." A pause, "I invited Erin Addington on one of Tobin's boat tours once when were attacked by acid pooping seagulls and crashed on some mysterious island. I was dressed to impress that day." The whole burlap sack thing, gets a lift of his brows, "Whether that's true or not, no one's going to take you seriously wearing a burlap sack."

After Isabella orders, Byron slips another bill o the counter to pay for her meal, before they take their food and drinks to wander the length of the boardwalk.

"You kept yourself busy. After the worm thing, I had a lot of shit to clean up in the bathroom. Played a bit of phone tag with Hyacinth Addington as well." If she's inspecting him, he looks perfectly fine. Out of everyone there that day at Addington Park, he was one of the few that came away mostly unscathed. He recalls Weber's name coming up in some family tree or other, even mentioning the book shop at that point. "Were you able to learn anything from any of them?" Unlike Byron who doesn't plan on doing anything with what Alexander found out about his family tree, he knows that this was important work to Isabella.

The idea of testing out their abilities and limitations always draws an uneasy silence from Isabella, green eyes and their shades pointed towards the direction of the beach as she listens; she can't help but do so, however she seems perennially hampered from dissecting these instances with her typical straightforward opinion. She drains her juice instead, rolling the condensated receptacle between her fingers. The detail about the adventure with seagulls and their acidic guano does earn him a glance, the look of her...well, there's some amusement there, but there's a comical grimace on her expressive features. "Eugh," she declares, and the man's reticence to appear as anything other than fashionable earns him a small laugh.

He's already paying for her and she winks at him quickly. "I'll get the next time," she tells him. "Though between you and me? I think you should take the compliment as you find it." There's a straightening of her body, leaves her pushing away from the counter once their food is delivered, and walks alongside him - a companionable distance, their shadows crossing over the wooden planks of the Boardwalk.

"Elias?" she wonders. "Yeah - I know I've been gone for over a decade, but you'd think I'd be able to recognize him when I saw him again." She and Isidore spent plenty of time in Likely Stories. "But I didn't." Lips quirk faintly in reminiscence. "No longer a squirt," she murmurs to herself. "Though whatever he did tell me makes things even more strange. I had no idea he was so attached to his family history, but apparently the Webers always owned it, no matter what it said." She angles her eyes over at Byron's taller form, peering at him from the tops of her sunglasses. "He mentioned that before his family settled in Gray Harbor, they were a Northeastern family. They fled specifically because of the Salem Witch Trials and while they tried to hide their roots here, the rumors were pervasive." She uses a toothpick to fish out one of the popcorn shrimp in her small cardboard cup, chewing on it thoughtfully. "And since the Archivist oh-so-helpfully constructed Alexander's side of the family tree in front of us, we know the name of the woman who married Preacher Lindon Baxter, who purportedly burned two Baxter women, two Addington women and two Whitehouse women as witches. Dorothy Weber, a woman who came from a lineage proud of their ties to the occult and witchcraft."

She fishes out another shrimp. "I asked Elias whether there was a possibility that she wouldn't have known about her heritage, but he told me the chances were that are pretty remote. Everyone in the family knows. They always have. So how did a woman with a lineage like that marry a man with clear religious leanings in a time when parents had a significant say in things like marriages, when her family was forcibly uprooted by religious persecution?" She clips her teeth delicately on the edge of her toothpick. "It's weird, Ronnie. Even if she died before the time the photograph was taken, it doesn't really explain how the union happened in the first place. Wouldn't the parents have objected strenuously? I would theorize that maybe it didn't matter so much then, but Elias was pretty clear that the family heritage is important to the Webers. They're proud of it. Anyway, he's going to look into it some more, now that he's curious." She hesitates. "I haven't read him in just yet, about what's going on. I'm waiting to see what he finds before doing that, if anything."

When she makes it known that she'll be picking up the tab the next time they did anything together, Byron's easy grin is already on his lips. That is, until they part, so he can pop one of those tasty shrimps into his mouth. "That was my first." He comes out to state, "The dream on Tobin's boat? That was the first time being sucked into a dream with others." He quickly tacks on, "I think it was a lot of people's first time." The comment about the compliment, however, brings back the grin he had earlier, "You know I always do, Izzy."

The lightly sweet taste of the horchata is refreshing for a warm day such as this. The boardwalk is always packed during the summer months, being filled with families, children and many a sun worshipper. Perhaps, in his younger days, when children were so excited to learn to read, Byron probably spent a lot of time at the book store. Then like all things, he grew out of it, just like with tabletop boardgaming. He knows of the Webers enough, however. "Yeah, I remember hearing that they were a family of witches." Children talk and spread rumors. But then there are a lot of 'weird' families in town. "You are right though. If Lindon Baxter was burning witches, why in hell would he marry one? Or one from a possibly known occult lineage?"

Taking another bite of shrimp, he says after some chewing, "Unless those who he persecuted weren't being persecuted for merely being witches." He turns to Isabella when he says this, "Maybe they were people who opposed him. Maybe they pointed out that the Weber woman was a witch." As unlikely as any of that sounds. "It could be anything really."

Then he brings up something that has been of some interest to him ever since he'd heard of it, "What do you think of people with the ability to find these doorways? You mentioned that Sid was able to." Sid was obviously able to do everything. "Can these same people pull you into a dream?" In Byron's mind, there's hardly a difference between a dream and the Veil.

When Byron reveals that he is a late bloomer as far as Dreams were concerned, Isabella hesitates, her mind traveling back - deep into the wells of those long memories and back to the early days of her childhood. The toothpick in her hand gets an absent fiddle, but her sunglassed stare is elsewhere, turned towards the water as they walk.

They reach the rails and that's where she stops, to lean against metal warmed by the sun and bracing a foot on one of the lower rungs, an arm loosely draped on top. Her attention returns to her friend and the remains of his earlier good humor, faint traces on a face considered devastatingly handsome by many. Under the sunlight, the changes he had undergone over the years are more visible, illuminated in sharp relief and rendered all the moreso by just how casual everyone else appears in direct contrast to his stylish and put together self. This is the way he usually is, how he presents himself to others without fail - which makes so much of last night not like his usual, and a slightly worrisome comparison.

"Two Baxter women, two Addington women, and two Whitehouse women," she enumerates. "You know how that reads to me?" She stabs the point of her toothpick back into her shrimp, lifting it up from the rest to examine the crisp, golden batter. "It reads like a recipe. A formula."

She lets the comment hang in the air before she exhales a breath, and pops the morsel in her mouth. "No use speculating over it now, though - like you said, it could be anything. I'd rather wait to see what Elias finds."

What do you think of people with the ability to find these doorways?

There is a true and concentrated effort to keep her eyes on her food, though her body slinks backwards in a lean against the railings, tilting her head back at last to look at the clear, endless sky above their heads. "Both of us could," she tells him quietly, half-in the present, and half-entrenched into those old memories. Sid - what he could do, especially, was a subject she largely stayed away from, unless it slipped out of her unconsciously because she can't help but think of him, the gnawing sense of his absence even more profound now that she has returned to Gray Harbor. Somehow, it was easier to talk about him with Byron, who knew him and befriended him...but only a little.

"I haven't tried in years, but I know deep in the marrow of my bones that I still can." She could never forget how, no matter how much she has desperately tried to deny the existence of her abilities. "I could always tell when Sid was about to go through, also. And...it might depend. It might depend on power, and it might also depend on the depth and ability to be able to connect with another person. You and I both know that Sid had the power....and he was..." She pauses. "....deeply connected to me."

Beyond connected to her. She was part of him. He was part of her. Together, they were whole. Together, they were complete.

"So to answer your question, I know it's possible. I just don't know what the exact parameters are, other than what I've experienced with him before."

Now that Isabella brings this up, Byron is quick to agree, "You're right. It does sound like a really twisted recipe of sorts. Which makes the idea that Lindon Baxter didn't kill them because they were accused of witchcraft, but because of something else nefarious." A subtle hand lifts to push the frame of his sunglasses along the slope of his nose, "Now I gotta wonder what Elias Weber is going to find out after doing some research.Maybe those Northeasterners had good reason to chase the family off." It's a cruel thing to say, but in his mind, it very well may be the truth.

Hearing more about the adventures of Sid and Izzy, Byron comes out to admit, his lean frame resting back against the rail, "If only I was better able to hone my abilities way back then. At some point, I knew I had them." Probably when he was around twelve, even though he possessed them for far longer. "Tobin would always say that it was dangerous to use and then I'd sit there watching Sid play around with it all." There's a slow turn and shift in his posture so that he can regard Isabella more directly. "I won't say that I wasn't jealous, but I saw how the both of you shone. Like Tobin. Hell, like Lilith." Like a lot of people, he thinks in his mind. But not himself. He does well to hide this annoyance, his tone coming out light, perhaps just a touch self-deprecating. "After I'd left and had forgotten almost everything here, though from what I'm told, some people never forgot." It must be his lack of shine, "Once I got back, it felt like I was being hit by a sledgehammer when things that I touched..." A pause and a shake of his head. While his brow may have furrowed behind dark glasses, it's gone now, that grin once more on his features "It was an eye opening experience." In his mind, the mixture of being told just how these powers were dangerous mixed with the fact that he'd been gone for so long, enough to forget about them... this is what's putting him at a disadvantage. This had set him back. He knew that there were so many things that others are able to do, that he himself, has never done. Never knew he could do.

"That's what I'm thinking," Isabella murmurs, before tilting her face towards her friend as he leans right next to her shoulder-to-shoulder. "Alexander mentioned there were dark tendrils coming out of the image of my ancestor. If the Weber marriage doesn't make a lot of sense in that context, then maybe it makes more sense in other ones. It might not have been a trial."

She is silent when Byron speaks, observing him with the sidelong look she favors him; not just his words - never just - but the way expressions flit past the composed and near-flawless exterior and the inflection of his confident baritone. There's a faint, wry twist to her mouth when he, too, goes back to his childhood, whatever regrets that he harbored at the time. Following his best friend's advice, while watching her twin take the opposite track. She knows because she had been there, wondering right alongside him how Sid could do the things he can - move objects and find the ones that were lost, make wounds feel better and breathe life to light, scattering humid summer nights with iridescent blue butterflies constructed from his own imagination.

When she speaks, her voice is quiet, turning to look over at her friend directly in the eyes; she can see them, picture them as clearly as if there weren't an expensive pair of sunglasses barring her view of them. "Power is expensive, B," she tells him. "I think Tobin's mom knew that. My mother, too. She kept warning us, but we never listened." She hesitates, before she continues. "There's always a point when the bill comes due, and when it does, it might cost you more than what you're prepared to give."

After a moment, she tilts herself to finally and fully face him; their height difference has become all the more noticeable in the onset of their adulthood. "Is that what was bothering you last night?" she ventures, as always so straightforward with her questions. "You feel like you've been left behind?"

Once talks of powers and abilities come up, the Weber and Baxter union fades from Byron's mind. "Do you really think that Sid is.. gone," There's only the briefest pause there, "because that was the price for his using his powers?" He then quickly adds, "Or do you think it's because he ventured into one of those doors?" Which Byron knows is not part of his power set. He only knew that he was capable of these mental abilities, only coming to realize that there was more that other mentalists could do. Nothing else had ever turned up. No healing. No telekinesis.

Byron knew full well that power was expensive, but when would such advice ever stop him from going for what he really wanted? Of course, he doesn't say anything and simply nods along to the warning, his own shielded gaze now staring off into the distant, absently observing the beautiful bay all around them as he takes another sip from his drink.

Then the big question comes up and he's annoyed that she'd even ask, because it's not something that he's willing to talk about. "I was annoyed about many things last night. Nevermind, that Easton Marshall was brought up in conversation." That said, Byron often played off the summer bullying as part of his business tactics. He rarely often talked about to what degrees the bullying may have reached, unless he hit a breaking point. Most people never see that point, it's what separates the ready with a smile Byron that they all knew with the more tense individual he'd grown up to be today. That was a part of him all along, just better hidden.

"I find it interesting that I'm now his landlord. That wasn't my plan, of course, I'd forgotten about him." He doesn't forget. Not things that upset him. "Then only remembered when I came across his name in the tenant listing after I'd acquired the Bayside Apartments." Tossing another popcorn shrimp into his mouth, he chews, before deciding to give her some sort of answer to her question. First comes that shrug. It's a carefree enough response, not committing to anything, "Rebecca Carr, for some reason, knew how to do something I'd only learned about recently. In the past few months even. So I find it all incredibly fascinating, the ways and speed at which people learn about their powers and /hone/ their powers." He's lived in Gray Harbor for all of his childhood and at least for a three years since his return and there were still things he never knew he could do.

Do you really think that Sid is...gone?

The waves splash violently on the shore, and seagulls scream as they whip across the air. Families play on the sand and lovers walk hand-in-hand along the coast - all good things, better things, beautiful things. Things that make life worth living, but at the present moment, ample distractions from the way Isabella does not answer that single, glaring, important question posed to her by the only other person in the city who could claim to know Isidore Reede in any significant way. She finishes her small cup of popcorn shrimp and turns so she could join him in watching the water, folding both her arms, this time, over the metal frame.

She can probably sense his annoyance and she chooses to focus on that instead, glittering green irises sidling to the corners to look at his profile from within her periphery. There's an air of expectation - it wouldn't be the first time at all that they've argued or fought, but when it doesn't come, she's left with that lingering note of skepticism, plain on that expressive, lightly-tanned visage. Easton, and how Byron had purportedly forgot about him. The look of her flattens faintly, but never one to impose herself within the private landscape of others, she leaves that issue alone.

The noncommittal shrug does soften her demeanor - an answer that's not an answer, but it tells her just enough. "Which one, the memory projection?" she asks. To her, that is an old trick, one of her favorite ones as a child, but she can't disagree with Byron's observations as to how quickly Rebecca learned without some sort of advantage. "It's not as if you didn't have any other things going on, B, and this shit..." The rare expletive, from a young woman not prone to using them. She makes an emphatic gesture with her free hand. "...ought to be relatively low in the list of every day priorities. Maybe if you had more hours in the day, you could catch up to the likes of Doctor Komisar. " She shifts, one foot taking a step sideways, putting some distance between her bodies; her right pinky lifts to hook into her sunglasses to withdraw them from her face and watch Byron, intently, under the light of day.

Her eyes rove over his partially-obscured features - directly at him, but not just. Beyond him, around him, but not through him - she does not even attempt to touch his formidable mental defenses. Long minutes tick by, punctuated by the steady beats of her heart, and when she finally moves again, she returns her sunglasses to the bridge of her nose and leans forward against the rail. Her foot returns to press against the lower rung.

"With you, I don't think it's an issue of power, or the capacity to learn," she finally says. "In your case, I think it's just an issue of time. At the moment, you can't say that your minutes are your own, what with calls coming in from everywhere that you have to answer, spinning different plates with one hand while juggling balls in another."

Byron didn't really expect her to respond to his inquiry. He knew she didn't know the answers. No one did. But if Isidore was missing because he entered a random door leading into the.. the Veil. But that was Carver's word for it. Does he really want to use Carver's terminology? Nevertheless, if Isidore was missing because he entered a doorway, well, Byron has no way of finding such doorways, so in his mind, it's a moot point. Surely, others are able to and they will, but that has nothing to do with his own abilities.

"Low key?" Byron asks, shifting on his feet as he continues to lean against the rail. "Do you know how helpful these powers could be in business?" It's not as if he hadn't used his powers for just that. In his mind, his skill set was always a powerful tool when he realized its capabilities. When she brings up Doctor Komisar again, his brow raises. Perhaps he hadn't been paying attention, but aside from the glow, which everyone and their mothers seem to have a strong inclination towards, he never realized that he'd need to play catch up with that one.

"What I do," He starts, "I'm good at. They've come in handy time and time again." And if only he had someone to teach him to use his powers at a younger age, it could have possibly saved him from a world of pain and suffering. But he had no such person in his life. "I sense emotions. I inflict emotions on others. I gather information from items alone, looking into someone's past in that way. As well as deleting said information whenever it would prove more useful to do so." A pause, "Those were the tools I've used since my return home. I remembered that I had some of these powers and I worked to become more proficient in them. The electricity? I could always sense it. Sometimes blow a fuse or lightbulb out by accident. Others, sending unintentional static shock through a handshake. But I never realized just how powerful it all was until I was forced to use it."

He continues on, "I spent time to better hone those skills as I found them useful to me. Now I realize that I'd neglected or... been blind to other things that I could potentially do and it baffles me to see someone who only recently came into her power, using it as if she had it all along." Which is what Byron had possessed growing up.

As always, whenever Byron talks about Isidore, what he can do, what happened to him, Isabella is wordless and evasive; even now her fingers clutch into the metal grille in front of her, feeling her fingernails bite into her skin, the skeletal touch of an old remembered fear raking down her back - how the old injury feels as if it's on fire on her left shoulder, where the white line of a thin, surgical scar is visible, marring her smooth tan. There is a part of her that prevails upon the most stubborn parts of her to face him, to look him in the eye and confess her sins, but the prospect of doing that would mean...

Do you know how helpful these powers could be in business?

She can't help but laugh anyway, and it's a relief; she seizes the way tension unwinds from her body, clinging to the unexpected excuse to do so like a lifeline. Eyes burning with her expended mirth peer at him from the tops of her aviators, her grin broad and sharp enough that it chases out that elusive dimple from her left cheek. "Ah, Ronnie," she breathes at the last. "Never change." The brow raising has her lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "I've seen her work, when I visited her the other day to ask about the shooting," she supplies, regarding Minerva. "I spent over half my life connected to Sid." And in ways that not many people would or could understand. "I know what it looks like when someone's really put in the investment to master what they have. " She hesitates, before continuing. "I'm relatively certain she's up there with Alexander."

That sense of persistent discomfiture returns when Byron goes into detail on his abilities, and while she doesn't stop him, can't help, really, but listen, if not just because she genuinely cares about him and what is happening in his life, and what occurs inside of himself, the visceral urge to reject such notions is intense, and her brows stitch together in a visible effort to fight it all down so she could focus on the conversation. "There's so much we don't know about this," is what she says at last. "So I wouldn't consider that too much of a failing, B. It's not even about learning at your own pace, or anything like that. There's just no manual out there that we can refer to whenever we want to figure something out." She closes her eyes, her twin's remembered words slipping through her mind - that most of it was about the journey, the discovery, and all of its inherent dangers.

Sid, in the end, for all of the most recent emphasis on their Baxter blood, was still a Reede. Exploration, this intrinsic need to venture into unfathomable depths in search for answers, ran as thick in his veins as it did her own.

"I don't think that means that Rebecca Carr is some sort of savant, either," she says, looking up at Byron. "It's new to her, so it stands to reason that the first thing she'll learn is the one thing she needs the most, and from what I understand, she's been through the Veil, came out of it with the bones, having nary a clue as to what all of it could mean, or what this city actually is. I think after all those circumstances and her relative inexperience with them that she would be inclined to reach for an ability that would enable her to convey what she has witnessed clearly, even if she's not conscious of it herself." She searches his profile sidelong. "Need is just as capable motivating someone as it is in putting some powerful blinders on a person, but I don't know. What do you think is going to happen, now that you're aware that your potential might be less confined to what you just described?"

"And you don't think there was ever a time in my life where it would be better to show someone something than tell them?" Byron asks, already turning towards Isabella. His tone isn't confrontational. In fact, there's a hint laughter within it. Not a mirthful laughter, but a laugh all the same. Those words come out quickly, almost in a defensive sense, but thinking back on it, he's always been secretive to his dark childhood. Even if he had that kind of power, he would never have used it in such a manner. Turning around in full, he leans forward against the rail now, his drink resting in the crook of his arm, the one holding his box of shrimp, which this free hand slips into his mouth once again. Chewing commences.

Her laughter, however, sets him back at ease, the agitation in him lowering into a mere simmer. "I'm not sure it was meant to be." He openly says, though it's not clear whether he's talking about his use of these other abilities or something more. "I would say that I just don't have it in me to do those things." The low light of his own glimmer, "But Carr doesn't shine the way the rest of you do either." His shoulders lift into a casually dismissive shrug.

Last night, Alexander had asked if he were interested in learning more, something which he ignored. Something that he wouldn't want to admit, especially not in front of Clayton. "Who knows. You're probably right. I don't have the time to focus on any of that." Though with what he'd already said, despite his busy schedule, he had almost perfected what abilities he knew how to do. "I've already done it once." He starts, eyes cast forward, though he's looking at nothing. "Projected an image. A still image. Not a memory or an entire scene, into Lilith's mind. Just to see whether I could do it or not." His voice quiets, "That's the first time that I've ever done anything like that." Again, his mind goes back to the thought: Imagine if he had these powers before.

Turning once more in Isabella's direction, this smile plays at his lips, "Let me concern myself about this, Bella. We have other things to worry about."

And you don't think there was ever a time in my life where it would be better to show someone something than tell them?

His rebuttal is sound, and while he may laugh, to her, it is fierce - and more indicative of what he has suffered before than any subtle, Byron-like way that he has conveyed to her in the past. He'd find her startlement ripple over her fine-boned features, can practically see Isabella's green-gold eyes widen from where she stands. As if he'd slapped her, or pressed a fist into her solar plexus in an effort to drive all the air out of her lungs. For a very long moment, she is silent and still, some part of her twisting at the ache that delivers - like a razored, deadly thing, cutting up her insides into ribbons; a bloody reminder as to how, as far as the parental lottery was concerned, she had hit the jackpot while most of her peers hadn't been so fortunate.

"Maybe," she tells him quietly, finally. "You tell me. Would it win against your need to hide all of that from everyone?" She flips the empty cardboard cup in her hand, turning around again so she could look at the water with him. "We were together constantly, and I didn't know. " Not until later and by then, Detective Thorne was dead. Her jaw tenses faintly at that - the kind of inaction that came with not knowing, it grates. It was almost impossible to bear.

His own subtle unstraining has her looking over at him again, watching the faraway cast of his eyes and can't help but marvel, once again, at this side of him that he rarely ever shows to others. It's almost uncomfortable, incongruous to the image she has held of him after all these years, despite knowing him better than most others who didn't occupy his inner circle. But at the same time, there is relief in that, in a way, encapsulated within the commonalities that two fractured people can only find with each other, and those similarly situated. The unease remains, as it often does whenever they talk about the concept of exploring the outer limits of their abilities, though she doesn't address it; instead, she shifts and nudges the curve of her shoulder against his, head tilting towards his direction at the hesitant movement.

"How'd you do?" she asks, about the attempt to project into Lilith's mind - and utterly unsurprised that she would be the first he would trust.

Her friend's easy smile returns, as if the last few minutes hadn't happened, and the line of her mouth tilts upwards, half-exasperated at this thing he says all the time, as if to absolve her from all responsibility regarding him: Let me concern myself about this, Bella.

"You don't understand," she tells him simply and with her usual, stubborn confidence. "I want to."

I have to.

She exhales a breath and leans back away from the railing, arms stretching out and feeling joints pop on their hinges, groaning softly. "Well," she begins. "Luckily I survived the ghosts of angry Addingtons shooting me because I think there's more to the entire Ghoul situation that we might think."

While in his mind, Byron may have been thinking back on those dark childhood memories, he didn't expect Isabella to bring them up outright. He doesn't even care to hide his annoyance, not at her, but at the situation as a whole. He even leans more heavily up against the railing in front of him. "I wasn't even thinking about that." He lies. Badly. "But... I have no idea. I have no idea how differently things would've turned out if..." If what? Breathing in deeply in this attempt to keep his temper in check, his words come out quieter, lacking most of the harshness that they just held. It's not that the old Byron never lost his temper. There were times where he had blown up, exploded in this anger which he could no longer hide. This is just one of those sore topics coupled with his inferiority complex. How things could've been different. "It doesn't matter anyway. Does it? Nothing we say now will ever change the past."

When talks go to his own attempts at projecting, not an emotion, but an image into Lilith's mind, there's that shrug again. "She saw it. I even passed the image onto Tobin right after." That humor returns to his tone, "For all the ridiculousness that one can send over to others, this would've come in handy when we were still kids. Imagine the things we could project." Whimsical things. Things that only a child's mind could create. Such wasted opportunities.

He won't stop her from wanting to help or concern herself with his well-being, but he hated feeling this way. So far behind everyone else. He was just as competitive as she was, though it was rare that he'd ever ask for help.

"Speaking of the Addingtons," It's a change of subject, "How are you feeling about the fact that we'll be paying them a visit shortly?" There's this moment where he casually leans his own frame against hers, feeling the pressure there.

Of course he didn't. Nobody does, even those who know her best, even those who should know better. Isabella Reede was a provocateur by nature - always bold, always seemingly unafraid to charge through the fraught, perilous minefields between herself and another if not just to get to the heart of a matter in her own way. It's infuriating, galling and more than just a little bit contradictory, and hypocritical even, considering how she tends to react when someone crosses her warzone unannounced. But hey, she has never claimed to be perfect - she is woefully accepting of the fact that she isn't.

If what, indeed? But after watching him for a few moments, she slowly lets it go, though the image of him and the way he halts himself before he describes an avenue that had been available to him before will linger in the back of her head for days to come.

Nothing we say now will ever change the past.

"Agreed." This is all she says in response, ultimately, a single word that leaves her lips, equal parts commiseration and compromise. "We can learn from it, though." So sayeth the archaeologist.

There's a hint of a smile, at the description of bridging an image from one mind to another, but that, also, is both nostalgia and melancholy in one expression. It had been a favorite trick. The little tricks were always the ones she liked the best.

Their childhoods left behind, as they must, Isabella's lean has her indolently pressing against the frame next to him, elbows braced against the top and tilting her head back to watch the sky. Dark hair flutters from the loose bind it has been arranged in, webbing over her face and curling against her shoulders and throat. "When they were taking the Ghoul away, he was screaming about the Addingtons, and who they really are, and what they really do. And how people have branded him a killer, but that everyone knows who the real killers are."

His reminder of the meeting has her exhaling a breath. "If we can't manage to separate Margaret from her brother, we're going to have to be prepared for the possibility of her trying to use us for her own purposes," she tells him. Though she's already covered her thinking on that the night before. "And that whatever she's hiding probably encompasses a few decades' worth of nightmares." His casual lean has her looking up at him, his shadow slanting over hers, drawing a faint smile from the corners of her mouth. She leans her head closer to his, to drop her voice in a quiet murmur, as if to prevent the very wind from carrying her words. "Apparently it's not so far-fetched that the Ghoul was allowed to run wild and kill the way he did and that a member of the Addington family probably had something to do with it. Who they really are, and what they really do, he said."

After a pause, she continues. "Alexander suspects Margaret's also the one responsible for burning down my great-aunt's funeral parlor. That she orchestrated the fire that killed my grandfather's sister, and Andi Johnson's relative. He saw something while he was investigating that leg. A powerful looking woman by an expensive car was watching it burn down, accompanied by a man." There's a wry tilt to her mouth, the devil's mischief in her eyes as she watches her friend sidelong. "In that same conversation, he mentioned the Addington Sawmill and how it seemed to have a disproportionate number of accidents, so guess what I did after I heard that."

Now that they've moved on from his childhood trauma, Byron's defenses lower for the most part, even if his mind can't help but go back to those 'What If..?' thoughts. Even now, as they stand here, the conversation already shifting. He always tended to dwell on things in solitary silence.

"I remember that image." He says in a neutral tone, brows lifted as if surprised that the woman in it could very well be Margaret Addington. "That was the first time that I experienced this projected images." He'd mentioned before, probably, that it was with Alexander. After the shock of just having the mental connection with someone, followed by the intensity of the projected image. That was enough for him to cut off Clayton from ever doing something like that again. "The moment when I realized that there were still things out there that I had no grasp of." One of those moments where that sense of envy returned to him, after being proud of everything that he could accomplish.

"So that could possibly be Margaret Addington? I guess it would make sense." He then remembers something, half-turning now to look on her, "Is this why you're wary of Old Margaret? I'd sensed it last night." He didn't need his mentalist powers to gauge her thoughts on the Addington matriarch.

She had wondered what he meant, the day he helped her escape the hospital - how Alexander had looked away from her after speaking about the one time he did something that Byron had asked. Her childhood friend handily fills in the blanks, and the brief furrow of her brows - visible when he looks down at her that way, clears up significantly. "Ugh," Isabella sighs, her arm shifting upwards to cup her cheek, chin braced against the heel of her palm as she regards him from the tops of her sunglasses. Amusement is stitched upon every line of her, but something affectionate also. "The two of you. You know, I'm not all that wholly convinced that what's between you could be resolved by a no-holds barred fistfight." She inclines her head, eyes lidding faintly. "I know the two of you better than that, though," she murmurs, largely to herself.

There's a faint wrinkle of her nose; she had been inebriated, projecting more than what she normally intends and slightly away from her usual brand of brassy and occasionally misplaced confidence. "Hopefully she's not keeping track of the bloodlines," she mutters - not just for her sake, but Alexander's also. "But that's part of it." She tugs on a lock of her own hair, twisting it between her fingers. "I did some background research on the Addington Sawmill, pretending to be a reporter from a Seattle newspaper covering small businesses in neighboring towns and cities to ask for their opinions about the most recent economic legislation put out by the state. I got shuffled off to a lawyer immediately. Alexander mentioned that he never did much investigating on the mill, itself, because he didn't want any Addington attention if it can't be helped. It's pragmatic, in the end, considering their influence. Didn't really stop me from trying, though."

A shoulder lifts in a shrug. "Not like I found out much, except for the glaring fact that it's practically a fortress. I don't mean physically, but the family's definitely making sure that place is impenetrable."

"As much as it would be entertaining to knock Clayton around some." Byron has no qualms against physical violence, despite, his upbringing. Or because of it. "That won't repair anything." This is merely a slip up on his part. He often would pretend that Alexander were delusional thinking that Thorne held anything against him, despite some of his own snipes regarding the other man. But the reasoning to this runs deeper than most would even realize. Despite his already stating those words, there's this dismissive vibe to it all now, "I think you're overthinking things." He's quick to say, "How would /you/ like it if someone invaded your mind?" Nevermind that this is what mentalists do.

"I know nothing of Margaret Addington, aside from the fact that she's a tough nut to crack. From what I'm learning now about how she keeps her family on a tight leash, I just assumed that this is what the heads of houses do when their families are prone to fuck up. The Addingtons have an image to uphold." Very much the way he does. "And will do everything they can to protect it."

What gets him now is the fact that Isabella played reporter just to learn more about the sawmill. "You know that there are P.I.s who could probably do that for you." He's more talking about Magnolia than Alexander if I'm being honest. Still, he listens. "The Sawmill?" He remembers playing around there as a child, but many children boldly ventured so far into the woods. "What do you mean by not physically? What do you sense when you're out there?" He obviously hasn't visited the place in a very long while.

How would you like it if someone invaded your mind?

A simple question to a more complicated answer, colored by Isabella's own experiences - things she would never willingly divulge, with roots that go deep into the very core of her. She doesn't say anything to that either, instead she stoops low, to snag a rock off the ground, to crumple up the cardboard cup around it and lend it some weight. It is distraction, in the end, when she turns away from Byron, seemingly abandoning thoughts of him and his relationship with Alexander Clayton entirely - or, perhaps, that single thorny query - and aims for the trash bin a few feet away from them.

It sinks neatly into it after a freethrow toss.

She even looks somewhat smug about it: Nothing but net, as those in the court would say, before leaning back against the railing behind her, elbows pulled backwards to brace herself in an angle. "I don't even know if the entire family knows what she's up to most days," she comments, finally, returning her attention to her taller companion. "Erin doesn't seem to know anything and apparently, she's grandmother's favorite. If she doesn't know, I find it difficult to believe anyone else does, and the fact that she keeps her brother in a tight leash tells me that Thomas might be the only one who knows as much as she does, which is why she's tugging him around like a pool boy. Not like I don't see any logic in that - you know what Benjamin Franklin says about secrets." Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

She waves a hand at the P.I. comment. "It's a phone call and it didn't take long," she tells him. "That, I can do myself." It was a simple enough ruse, and she's not about to ask for help for something she is perfectly capable of doing herself. "And what I mean is that nobody in the family wants anyone from the outside sniffing around their sawmill. As far as I can tell, from what little I did manage to glean, politically, bureaucratically and legally? The place is untouchable." She pauses. "I haven't actually visited the property, myself." Her eyes glitter faintly, a wry smile curling upwards. "Not above it, by the way. But we'll see what Her Majesty says in the meeting."

Fingers fish for her phone to check the time, then she slowly extricates herself away from the railing. "Anyway," she tells him, turning that smile to his direction again. "I better get back to work. I'll let you know if Elias turns up anything on his end."

"Erin can't be her closest confidant in the family, could she? Being a favorite is one thing, perhaps even having her groomed to take over the family when the time comes." Byron says, eating the last bit of shrimp from his own box. "If anything, if Erin were the chosen one to lead the Addington family, she would only be told of the family secrets the closer that Margaret Addington believes she is to death." A pause, "Unless she's planning on living forever." There's no smile on his features and his words are said in jest, but anything is possible now in their crazy world.

A lazy gaze follows Isabella litter toss, watching as she makes a perfect shot. "Always the show off." Pushing off from where he now leans, he crushes the little box, his arm lifted to toss the thing into the trash bin. Well, it should have landed in there, but instead it hits the rim, before making its way to the wood plank of the boardwalk. A younger Byron may have embarrassed by the failure, secretly or not, but whether that's an emotion that Thorne feels now, his smile broadens still, crinkling the corners of his eyes as he steps forward to pick up the trash and place it in the receptacle the normal way. "Looks like you win, Reede."

"I have a meeting with Hyacinth Addington tonight," As he may have mentioned before. "Just to keep her abreast on our findings. If you think I'm a difficult person to catch, try setting up a meeting with Miss Addington." There's some horchata left in his cup, so he'll keep that on hand. "Looks like I'll be seeing you at the Addington estate." His free hand lifts into a parting salute, the straw between his lips, as he wanders back to where he'd parked.

The idea of an immortal Margaret Addington has Isabella staring incredulously at Byron, catching his serious expression...and knowing just why; because in the strange world they occupy, nothing is guaranteed. In the strange world they occupy, secrets can literally rise from their graves and kill. In their world, Margaret Addington might be able to find some way to be immortal....for a price.

But the archaeologist laughs, if not just because she knows this, and it is ridiculous and terrifying and none of what they're talking about ought to be possible, because holy shit, this town. This dark, beautiful, terrible, chaotic, tragic Wonderland where anyone in the know is just a little bit mad, if not just because they have to consider the fact that these probabilities could be reality tomorrow.

"Fuck me," she breathes softly, wiping her eyes.

When she watches Byron try and make the toss, she winks - and had this been a decade and change ago, she would be lording over her small victory. But warmth curls appreciatively over the shape of her mouth and instead: "Well, you won the Best Dressed category between the two of us again today," she tells him. "I had to do something to level the playing field."

A nod in acknowledgment regarding Hyacinth, fingers lifting in a wave at his parting salute. As he turns his back and walks away, her light expression fades, leaving something more serious and inscrutable underneath.

A face that, in the end, doesn't linger for long. she turns on her heel herself, and moves towards the shore, once again drawn to the water - these days the only thing that could quell the fiery hurricanes of her nature.