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A few days later, Kas and Petaal disappear.
Isabella decides that they're probably going to Nunavut. She doesn't worry about them.
(She thinks about them, sometimes. That feeling clinging to the back of her neck doesn't go away.)
dark_light
truthwright
After about three months, she gets a lovely postcard from Quebec City.
It says:
It says:
Cloud-pine worked! So much crashing. So much fun.
♥ K&P
dark_light
Neat. Postcards don't really have affordances for return correspondence, but Isabella smiles and keeps the card in her room propped up against the wall on the back edge of her desk.
truthwright
The next one is from Las Vegas, a month later.
Pretty sure you'd hate it here.
K&P ♥♥♥
dark_light
Isabella wonders why. This postcard goes next to the previous one.
She carries on studying.
She carries on studying.
truthwright
San Francisco. Miss you! K&P
Seattle. Miss your tummy rubs! ♥ P&K
Missoula, Montana. Tiny museum full of dead things here! Fun!
Sevierville, Tennessee. Did you know there's a museum for knives? There's a museum for knives and it's awesome.
The postcards are coming closer and closer together.
Seattle. Miss your tummy rubs! ♥ P&K
Missoula, Montana. Tiny museum full of dead things here! Fun!
Sevierville, Tennessee. Did you know there's a museum for knives? There's a museum for knives and it's awesome.
The postcards are coming closer and closer together.
dark_light
She really should have guessed this would happen if Petaal got ahold of cloud-pine and it worked.
(She did not know there was a museum for knives in Sevierville, TN.)
(She did not know there was a museum for knives in Sevierville, TN.)
truthwright
A long silence (three weeks instead of the lately-usual one-ish), then a postcard from Paris.
I know something you don't knoooooooooow
I know something you don't knoooooooooow
dark_light
...Isabella has no idea what to do with that. (There are now enough postcards that they live all in a stack instead of propped up.)
dark_light
"Hi," she says, hugging him. "I got your postcards. What do you know that I don't know?"
truthwright
"Hi!"
He hugs back. Petaal is being a horse, and does not join in the hugging.
"Alethiometers talk to themselves—did you know that?"
He hugs back. Petaal is being a horse, and does not join in the hugging.
"Alethiometers talk to themselves—did you know that?"
dark_light
"I know the answer hand is always spinning. Are they saying sensible things? Did you look at the Louvre one and count pauses on symbols and translate them?"
truthwright
"It said I'm legally dead and some French girl's brother is fucking her boyfriend and the atomic weight of cobalt is about fifty-nine and some other guy has a teenage daughter he doesn't know about and my sweetie's never going to settle," he says. "There was more stuff but I forgot a lot of it."
dark_light
Isabella opens her mouth, and then closes it.
"...Uh, I know you didn't swipe my phone with the dictionary on it, did you get your own at some point?"
"...Uh, I know you didn't swipe my phone with the dictionary on it, did you get your own at some point?"
dark_light
"...You're claiming you're an intuitive alethiometer reader?"
dark_light
"They're so rare as to have serious controversy over whether they exist."
dark_light
"How hard will it be to talk you into hanging out with me all the time reading an alethiometer if I get hold of one?"
dark_light
"Routinely, a lot, in a sufficient capacity that I can get the thing read," Isabella says. "I can do some on my own - I assume - that being the idea of the research - but - damn, I need to go work out my find-a-lost-alethiometer spell now."
dark_light
"No! I wasn't going to develop one until I thought I'd know what to do with an alethiometer once I had it! But I can certainly invent something!" She strides back into the house and up to her room.