Bella fixes French toast for breakfast to salvage stale bread, and, having seen Charlie off to work, hops in her own car and makes for Alice's house. She arrives at nine-thirty, and goes up to the doorbell and rings it.
"Hm." Walk, think, walk, think. "Transgressions. Not, like against the law, though."
"...Transgressions," he says. "That's a good word. I like that word." He writes it down.
She checks the time.
"Should be almost there. You look for - whatever, and I'll keep an eye out for neon."
Walk, walk, walk. Bella checks the time. "If I'm right about how fast we're going this should be about it." She looks around. "I'm seriously disappointed in the lack of neon signs. Come on, Elias."
"No bet," Bella says. She starts to pat things. Trees, that one big rock... She starts up a hill. The hill eats her.
"What'd I tell you," Alice says to the hill, and sits down with his back against a tree trunk right next to it.
There is an honest to goodness treasure chest in the middle of it.
Okay. That's pretty straightforward. Place is otherwise empty. She picks up the chest, finds it heavy, and drags it instead, back out of the hill.
"Beg pardon?" Bella says. "No, there was no tea, I just grabbed the treasure chest and hauled it out. Let's see what's in here."
Bella opens her mouth, then closes it, and then takes out her phone. "Do you have any form of timepiece on you?" she asks.
"Okay, that's interesting," says Bella.
It has five compartments in it, and there are plenty of triangles, plenty of squares, about fifteen pentagons, and no hexes.
And one star.
"'Cause I wanted to see if I could do that or not," he says.