Today they are practicing the Third Angelic Rite.
And then - how rude! - the door to the music room opens.
But not to the hallway - and not to any visible hand - and there is a strong press of magical presence emanating from it, and a faint sheen of rainbow water droplets hanging in the air.
"This is a magic thing - who's there? This is Junia, she knows about magic things," says Keziah in the direction of the door.
Bells fade in; Shell Bell's aura fades out. "Hi, Keziah. It's us. Well, most of us."
"And Junia is apparently an alt of my college roommate. That's interesting."
"I'm new, I'm Tab," says Tab. "Is your mom busy?"
"She's with some people but you can still talk to her," says Keziah, "just don't go there."
"These are versions of my mom from other universes," explains Keziah. "They're all friends."
"Well, I suppose we're hanging out until Angela can leave with us, so we can answer questions."
"There's an other-universe version of you too, in my world," Stella tells Junia, "only she's older, and not an angel because angels are mostly a here thing. Unless I'm wrong? Glass?"
"No, she looks templatey," agrees Glass, "if you recognize her you're probably not wrong."
"You couldn't bring Elspeth, guys?" Keziah says to the peal. "They're like my mom, but from other places," says Keziah. "They're from all different worlds with a bunch of names I can't remember. You can get to other universes with magic doors like the one they made, and there used to be another way that worked better but it broke. They're here to get my mom to do some thing with all of them, I guess. Most of them are named Isabella so they have nicknames and they call my mom Angela so they don't get confused."
"Elspeth is occupied. Harley was in a bad spot."
"We call ourselves Bells," supplies Shell Bell. "It's nice to meet you, too. Did anyone brainphone Angela? Are we waiting so we don't surprise her or something? Keziah, is your dad busy too?"
"As far as I know he isn't," allows Keziah. "But we've been in here for a while." She flicks the music machine off.
[Hey Micaiah,] says Aurora to everyone in the room plus Micaiah. [Will anything delicate be disrupted if we brainphone Angela right now?]
[It has! If the brainphone's not public she probably has more trouble than some of us reacting to multiple conversations at the same time, is the thing.]
[Yeah, I carry on three or four conversations as a matter of course but people know what's going on if I suddenly frown or smile or whatever.]
[All right. Please let us know when we can talk to her. After this we're going to see what happened to the welcoming committee. In the meantime, a new Bell has an alternate time-sync solution which she'd like to plug in if that's all right.]