2019-12-28 - Say It Ain't So

Magnolia Jones lives on the third floor of a building on Spruce that is almost all commercial, and so the fact that she manages to both live and work in the building is a bit of a miracle of modern living. Her office is at the back corner with a view of the alley and ill-kept parking lot. The door is classic blurred glass with SNEAKERS INVESTIGATIONS etched in and her name underneath. Family knows that it just takes a knock or two to get her to answer the door after hours, and Levi knows that he can add a bellow if he needs to. However Levi prompts his sister to open the door, she does so wearing an apron that might as well be from one of the SAW movies with all the tomato sauce splattered over it and a bit of wet spaghetti stuck to her cheek.

The knocks that Levi manages are a little weaker than usual, but he managed to make himself heard and that's what counts! When she opens the door, he looks her over critically, but his mouth pulls upward into a half-smile. "Looks like the spaghetti won tonight, huh?" he remarks. He is...well, let's just say he's not looking his best. His face is paler than usual, and he's wearing a ton of layers, way more than would be called for even though it's cold. But he's here, darn it, he's here!

Magnolia slaps her brother with a deadly squint. "No one wants your sass, Oliver Jones." But even with the scorn -- loving scorn -- in her voice, she catches on quick to her brother's not-quite-rightness. She steps back, letting him in without a flourish. "You look like you're about to forge into the Great White North, Levi." She waits for him to get all the way inside before she shuts the door.

Just inside the door is the so-deemed office area with its receptionist couch and a desk where Magnolia does her actual work. Just to the left is an archway that leads directly into the kitchen and that's where the squeak comes. Lark -- tall and gangly for a first grader with blond hair like her mother and bright eyes -- points at her uncle upon sighting. "Interloper!" Then she disappears back into the kitchen with a scamper.

Mags just cuts Levi a look. "She's been watching Lord of the Rings. Congrats, you are also a goblin. High-five." She holds up her hand for him -- hopefully he won't care about the spahgetti sauce.

"You love my sass," Levi counters, though he also does not take too much time to get inside into the further warmth. The comment on his attire, however, elicits a nod. "Yeah," he replies as they go, "I had kind of a weird day." And indeed, he does not shed his outerwear for the moment -- and even then, there's a shiver that runs through him as they go.

He suppresses it after only a second or two, however, and presses on, right into the office area where his niece is waiting for him. Or for anyone who might encroach on her territory, but still. He hisses with a grimace, making a swipe for her in keeping with his new role, but as Lark escapes the room it dissolves into a laugh. He doesn't leave Magnolia hanging, either, returning that high-five readily. "I've never been more proud of her," he continues, reaching up to wipe an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye. "And I hope you made enough to share, because I'm starving."

"I do love your sass," Magnolia agrees without even a beat of hesitation. Then she waits as Levi eases into the office, gets his bearings. Lark is squeaking out of the kitchen -- which is a massacre sight of boiled over noodles now in a strainer in the sink and an overcooked pan of spaghetti sauce. Lark has drawn a rather impressive unicorn in the puddle of spaghetti sauce on the floor. Levi has surely seen worse.

"Alright, take a seat, and then you can start telling me about your day." Magnolia gestures him into a seat at the IKEA table. Lark is peeking around the corner that leads into the hallway where the simple bedrooms reside, and she grins broadly -- at least two teeth missing in that smile -- at Levi. Then she's disappeared again, presumably retreating to her room to prepare for the next assault on the goblin siblings. Magnolia ignores her daughter as she gets down anohter bowl and starts to plop noodles and sauce into it to pass over to Levi.

"Good God," Levi remarks as he comes into the kitchen to survey the scene of the crime, but it's a very half-hearted 'good God,' considering he has, indeed, seen worse. And probably participated in worse at some point. He lets out a huff of laughter as he sits down, resting his forearms on the table. He still does not remove his coat or gloves, however, even when Magnolia starts to serve him a bowl of spaghetti. He makes a quick face at Lark, baring his teeth, before she's gone again.

"Well," he begins as he looks up to Magnolia, "I was coming out of the book store about to go meet another teacher for some drinks. New guy, a coach. But right when I stepped off the curb, I ended up in this freezing hells cape with a bunch of other people. Byron was there, too. It was a game, where you had to make it to this archway, but if you stepped off the path you couldn't move. And I kept messing up, and every time I messed up I got colder and colder. Finally I just couldn't move at all. I seriously thought that was it for a minute. I still haven't warmed up yet."

Magnolia gets her own bowl, and then a third. The third is placed at the far side of the kitchen. "Alright, Elven Warrior -- "

"I'm a dwarf now!"

"Dwarven warrior, here's your spaghetti." Then Magnolia retreats back to the kitchen table just as Lark peeks out to grab her food and it disappears into the hallway. The PI shrugs her shoulders at Levi. "She's weird." Now she sits across from him, stirring up the spaghetti with her fork. She blinks up at him as he starts to unpack the Dream, and she almost chokes. "Levi, seriously? How did you get out?" Because obviously he's not dying from hypothermia. "Did you see a doctor?" Her lips tighten together briefly. "Byron was there? Is he okay?" All the questions.

"You know, dwarves are very familial and social creatures and always eat dinner together!" Levi calls after his niece as she runs out of the room. That's the only attempt he makes to get her to come eat at the table, though -- and actually it's probably better she doesn't for the moment. "She comes by it honestly," he says as he eyes his sister meaningfully, before letting out a laugh.

It fades a few moments later, and he nods. "Yeah," he says, "I went to the hospital when we came back through. They said I was okay, I just need to...you know, not be out in the freezing cold for hours for a while." His tone shifts a bit there, dryly, before he continues.

"All the players -- I guess it was some kind of messed up game -- they all made a human chain and grabbed the rest of us that weren't making it to the arch, then just pulled us out. Me, Byron's girlfriend. They're both okay, though. And that guy who writes the column in the Gazette. Ask Iggy? He was there too. Everyone ended up okay, but man." He shakes his head, before he stabs his fork into the center of his pasta like it owes him something. "I've never seen one like that. I never thought...you know. Before." That he was going to die, probably.

Lark has no reply for her Uncle Levi -- which might be scarier than an actual answer might be. Magnolia angles a look at her brother with a rueful smile. "Hey, at least she's making friends with the elves." Which might mean Magnolia's boyfriend Kevin is an elf. Or a hobbit. Who knows.

"I bet the hospital wondered where in the hell you got hypothermic to begin with, but this is also Gray Harbor... so maybe they just assumed it was just... Gray Harbor." She frowns as she folds her arms in front of her meal, for now forgetting the sustenance. She frowns at the recap. "Lilith," she says helpfully when Levi mentions Byron's girlfriend. Her lips press together, and she rubs slightly at her opposite upper arms. "Alright... and you didn't see any of, you know, Them?" Dark Men.

"And that is what every mother wants for her child," Levi replies very seriously, though despite the rest of the conversation, there's still amusement there. "So you must be doing something right." He takes a bite then, chewing appreciatively before he continues. "Yeah. They were definitely side-eyeing us, but maybe we weren't even the weirdest group they had in today." It's not that far out of the realm of possibilities.

There's just a tiny wince when he's reminded of Lilith's name, and he nods. "Right, Lilith," he says. "Of course. I feel like my brain's still frozen." A hint of frustration creeps into his voice there -- though it would probably make sense to his sister, considering that he doesn't like to feel like his mind is not as sharp as it is. As for the Dark Men, he doesn't mention them by name, either, but he just shakes his head. "I don't think so. There were things there. Weird skeleton birds and ice creatures. But not them. Not that I saw."

"Parental goals met, huh?" Magnolia offers him a quick smile before she actually starts to spoon in spaghetti into her mouth. She chews through her own bite as she listens to Levi, watching him with fretful, serious blue eyes. Then she slowly begins to nod. "It's okay... you've always been a little slow. Now you're just glacial." Her smile quirks again before she sobers, nodding again. "Okay... then... that's good." She scrapes around her fork a moment.

"You know, um... since we're on the subject of dreams..." She looks up. "Dad visited me in a Dream a couple months ago. I think... it was Dad. A ghost of him, maybe... I don't know."

"Ha ha," Levi replies, though it does take the edge off that frustration and pushes it into amused annoyance, which was likely the point. "Always the joker." But he nods, swirling another bite of spaghetti onto his fork, this time with a little less force. "Yeah. Lucky."

He quiets as he eats, though he does look up to her at the pause. When she continues, his eyebrows raise. "A ghost of Dad?" he repeats, as though he hasn't heard her right. "Really?" He frowns, brow furrowing a little bit as he considers what she's told him. "What did he say?" he finally asks, just a bit hesitantly. "I mean, what happened? In the Dream?"

Magnolia looks down at her bowl, a bit shamefaced. "I should have told you earlier, but I... just wasn't sure it was real, or if I should do anything about it." She looks up at her brother. "It was... strange. I woke up in this forest... but it was all dead and dull. I couldn't really make sense of the sky, and everything looked like it was washed out. Dad was there... he was dressed just like he was the night he went out with Charlie's mom. Suit, button up, that stupid Stone Temple Pilots t-shirt that Mom could never get him to throw away." She traces her fork through the spaghetti. "He said that I needed to dig it up. White dog house on Elm street. I asked Byron to go check it out." Now she forgets her food altogether, hauling out of her seat. She crosses to the kitchen sink, and opens the cabinet under it. From inside, she pulls out a metal box with a handle on top. It had been wrapped in duct tape that has recently been cut away. "He dug up this."

"It's okay," Levi says quickly -- and if there was a little bit of hurt lurking somewhere over the fact that she didn't tell him immediately, it's banished by that sincere statement. He quiets then, his own spaghetti forgotten as well in favor of what she's telling him. He doesn't interrupt, even though he looks like he probably has a couple of questions. Or million questions. It's difficult, but he manages to hold them until the end, when she stands up.

His gaze follows her as she goes to get whatever it is, the frown deepening. He's still curious, but now that curiosity is also laced with concern, especially when she reveals the box. There's some surprise, and he sits back, looking from it, to her, back to it again. "What the hell?" he murmurs. "What's in there?"

It isn't okay, but Magnolia isn't about to have an argument about it. She's sagging back into her seat, and she pushes the box forward. "Tapes... dozens of them. Most of them are all concert recordings starting in the seventies. Dad," she chokes a bit on her words, feeling her chest tighten, "he apparently took a tape recorder to all those grunge concerts he went to. There's even a recording of that one we went to when we were eight... some Nirvana cover band." She lets Levi open the box to find the cassette tapes, all marked with band names and dates. "He buried it under the dog house in the house he grew up in. It said to be opened on his death. He buried it knowing he was going to die, Lev." Her lips tighten a bit.

"But there was an unmarked tape. Kevin's looking for a tape player to we can find out what's on it; Lilith, too. If that was Dad's ghost... maybe there's something on it we are supposed to listen to."

Levi reaches for the box when she pushes it forward -- though there's a tiny fraction of hesitation a scant inch or so before he takes it. After that brief pause, though, he hooks his fingers over the side and pulls it forward toward him. He takes in a little breath before he opens it, and when he does he starts to thumb through the tapes. Despite the rather tumultuous feelings cropping up at the moment, a little smile flashes across his face when he sees that familiar handwriting.

He doesn't look up at her last words, but that doesn't mean he's not listening. No, his focus is all on this right now. "There's probably a tape player at the high school," he says after a moment. "Some of those teachers are old as dirt. I bet I could find an eight track if I tried hard enough." Then he does look up, meeting her eyes as he takes in another little breath.

"Maybe we should leave it alone." The words are out before he really realizes he's said them, and part of him seems like he regrets them, but still, he presses on. "I mean, what could possibly be on that tape that we need right now?"

"How do all of you nerds have random tape cassette players laying around? What is this, some Steven Spielberg movie?" She breathes this out with exasperation. Then Magnolia offers a weak smile over at her brother. "Kevin's dad has one, and Lilith has one at the pawn shop. We were going over there tomorrow... to, well, see if we can listen to it."

The blond hesitates again, licking at her lips. "Why do you think I've sat on this for two months? Almost three." She rubs at her arms again, looking about as chilled as Levi feels. "I don't know, Lev. What if this is important? Wouldn't it be better to know it was a worthless venture?" She looks up at Levi across the table. "I was going to go over to Lilith's tomorrow... to listen to it. You should come..."

"Yeah, well, we're all nerds until you need a cassette player, aren't we?" Levi points out. "But when that happens, you're pretty glad you know us all." Even that little ribbing falls flat, though, when she says that the date to listen is so soon. "Oh. Tomorrow." It's probably an attempt to be nonchalant, but it comes off more wary than anything else.

"I don't know, Mags," he continues. "I have a lot going on right now." Okay, that's a total lie, and as soon as he says it Levi can't even commit to pretending it's true, considering he's on winter vacation with literally nothing to do at all. Except this. A little huff escapes him, more directed at himself, and not really amused, before he says, "Okay, fine. I guess we should at least listen to it, and we can take it from there."

He stands up then, grabbing his plate to take it to the sink and scrape the rest of the uneaten spaghetti off it. Suddenly he's not very hungry anymore. "I'll see you tomorrow," he says as he turns to her again, and he starts to say something else, but then thinks better of it, and just turns away again, starting for the door.