Issue 1 Downtime

An expanding creep of books, notes and photographs has spread through Nailah's living room. The Sphinx is sitting right in the middle of it, poring over them and taking notes here and there. The pictures are mostly of tombs (though with Egyptian archaeological sites that's hardly surprising) but the texts, as far as ones in English go, all appear to be focused on burial rites, reconstructions of the Book of the Dead and here and there less philosophical and almost more 'factual' takes on the meta-physical nature of life, death and souls.

"It's going to be difficult to walk here before long, you know." Samantha said as she wandered in, clad in feathers.

"I'll move it to the lighthouse when it's finished." she says without looking up, almost cutting Sam off by accident. Apparently she's not paying enough attention to adjust entirely for her premonition.

"...a little forward thinking right now, aren't we?" She murmured, taking a seat on the couch.

"Sorry..." she says, looking up and putting down her notes and rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"No worries, I didn't mean to interrupt anything."

"It's gotten a little much, hasn't it?" she asks, looking around.

"Well it's obvious you've got a project underway, aye?"

"Maybe not quite that tangible yet. Suppose I'm just looking into things right now."

"What's sparked this?"

"I'm wondering if I might be able to help Miss Rourke."

"I'm not certain how much of this would apply. She's not exactly dead in the classic sense."

"Besides, most of the work on ghosts focuses on getting them to move on."

"Not necessarily. And I did manage to send her a couple of things as 'offerings'. Stan might call her a mutant with severe phasing issues, but you know that's not all there's to it."

"Perhaps not."

"She's not one of mine, or she doesn't feel like she is. Mind you, I'd be rather disturbed if a girl her age managed to end up one of mine."

"She certainly has the attitude for it, at least. But I doubt she's meant to move on just yet anyway. There just has to be a way to draw her closer to this side of the veil again."

"She's certainly not made it easy for you, has she?"

"No. Though I think she's not really as bitter as she wants everyone to think."

"Did you know she tried to cover for Miss Crusek?"

"She did? Over what happened in the library?"

"Aye. Wasn't sure exactly why, as Miss Crusek is rather sure Miss Rourke hates her."

"Who knows; they're teenagers. We're probably missing half the story anyway."

"They're at the age where we're never right, aye?"

"Pretty much..." she sighs.

"And we had to skip the years where they'd take what we said as gospel."

"I distinctly remember signing up as a college professor, not surrogate parents." she jokes. At least she tries to make it sound like one.

"Aye, but you know the sort of parents a lot of these children have."

"I do. Still, that doesn't mean I'm any good at it either."

"You'll have time to get better," she smiles faintly.

"You'd hope so..."

"If anything, it's a bit reassuring."

"Sure, let's go with that." she chuckles.

"Haven't seen her in awhile. Do you think she made it back?"

"Who knows... She didn't seem too keen on sticking around one way or the other..."

"Can you blame her?"

"No, I suppose not." she sighs.

"We're not those people yet, and it's no use worrying about when we will be."

"Of course not. Plenty of time..."

"And she told us as much as she safely could, aye?"

"Probably, yes. I guess it just hasn't been a good week of trying to be a parental figure."

"You're doing what you can with Miss Rourke, love."