Beach Day

44: Kepler Pouts About Oranges

The plan is to put the hunt off until the twenty-sixth. Christmas Eve and Christmas are going to be stressful enough. They don't need to worry about running off to find Priscilla Cain and see what her deal is while they're supposed to be doing religious and festive activities. It's going to be fine to postpone it. Not everything needs to be a nonstop freight train of becoming and saving, as horrible as it feels to indulge in her personal life right now.

It's so much easier to ignore what happened at her grandparents' house when she throws herself into preparation and weapon-making (or as close as you can get to it in a motel room where you only have tools your cousin nicked from his father's garage for you). There's certainly a lot to do, and she tries her best to divide the load. She has Matt finalize the plan of attack, not that there's much to do— studying weaknesses, trying to convince Drew of the "haunting as grief and rage" theory. It makes sense, she thinks. In this particular case, it feels more like a generational curse that isn't really a curse at all, but something inflicted and a supernatural effect that sparked from that because human emotion can carry tremendous power. Drew doesn't buy it all the way, Tiff knows that. At least he doesn't try to argue with her about it.

It's a simple scene by the time night comes around and the hyper-focus starts to wear off into lightheadedness. She sets the crossbow she has been trying to modify to the side. That's what happens when you spend hours in the parking lot, trying to make some sort of atomic battery from things you have on hand, hours inside with a hammer and nails, hours squinting into the springs and mechanisms of the crossbow to try to make them a little more efficient. Her aunt calls it "a concerning amount of hyper-focus." Tiff calls it being productive for once.

She sets it to the side, leans back in her chair, and pushes her glasses back up in her hair. The bruise hasn't faded at all. It's still sore, still tender— she took out her contacts when she got back here and hasn't bothered to put them back in. She'll try again tomorrow.

She should get up and walk around for a minute. When was the last time she had a drink of water, again? When was the last time she used the bathroom?

It's not a blessing or a curse, she doesn't think. It's just a way of being, and she doesn't know how to break it. Crisis-mode productivity is better than nothing.

She stands, stretches out, and looks around. It's a scene of relative normalcy: Matt and Aunt Esther hunched over notes, Drew trying to fix and adjust the armor that Matt gave him, wrapping paper and small presents on the bed, cheap stockings shoved to the side between a nightstand and a wall, Kepler on his back on the ground like an overturned beetle. Americana once more.

Her aunt looks up from the notes and gives her a knowing tease of a grin. "Have you finally returned to us from the land of gears? Or are you heading back in?"

"I think I'm probably done for tonight," she chuckles. "It's going to take more time to finish it, so I might tackle it tomorrow— but I feel weird, so I think that means it's quitting time."

"Weird how?"

"Not weird as in sick." She rolls her eyes a little. "Weird as in lightheaded from doing one thing for so long."

"Well, it is nine at night," Drew points out. He stops checking his watch and goes back to what he was doing.

"I suppose it is." Esther sighs, straightens up, and stretches to crack her back. "How about Drew and I head out to pick up some dinner? What do we want to eat?"

"On this? The holiest of nights? Christmas Eve Eve?" Tiff pauses for the sake of timing. "A pizza. Maybe."

"I feel like Chinese is the traditional option."