"Curtail'd of this fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature, deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time into this breathing world, scarce half made up," she murmurs, quietly but enunciated with clear feeling, looking down at the picture of the fountain. "Yeah. I have a lot of feelings about Richard III."

"I see that," he says, breathlessly. 

He puts the photographs back in his bag.

"We should get you a camera, instead of just talking theory." 

She glances up at him and smiles. "Sounds good."

"Let's catch up tomorrow, okay?"

He packs up his things and rushes off. 

As soon as he enters the hallway, he knows he can't avoid this one. He's been trying so hard to be good, to avoid reminders. The hallways are getting fuzzy, everything is wrong again. 

He can hear them laughing now, muffled by the water over his head, in his ears, in his mouth. 

He doesn't exactly notice when he stops breathing, but then it happens again. He thinks he's still walking, but he can't find his bag, and his skin itches from the chlorine and she's so nice, doesn't she know what he is?

He wipes his face with his hands and promises to apologize to the janitor tomorrow. He steps out of the stall and checks his hair in the mirror. 

He goes home. 

Well all right then. She doesn't know any of these other people that well and they all seem absorbed in their activities; she doesn't have any more reason to linger here,

(of course she doesn't, not at all, no)

so she goes home, as is right and proper.

The cleaning service has been by. All is ready for the hour of the truffle.

Scott calls first.

"Are you all set for cooking buddies?"

"Yes! Be welcome in my home! We will make the most glorious of truffles!"

And soon they drive up to the house. 

Stiles knocks. 

The person who answers the door is not Solvei. She is instead a stunningly beautiful woman of ambiguous ethnicity in maybe her mid-twenties, with huge, gorgeous brown eyes and an enchanting smile. There's little to no family resemblance to be had.

"You must be Solette's friends!" she exclaims, in a noticeably foreign accent. "Come in, come in! Call me Ghyslaine. It's lovely to meet you. My dear girl has a gift; no matter where we move she'll have made a dozen friends before the first week is out. I see Beacon Hills is no exception."

"Yeah, Solvei made a lot of friends her first few days. I'm Scott, and this is Stiles."

He steps inside slowly, looking around the restored building.

"You work fast, I would never have thought anyone could fix it up like this."

"Ah, well, from the moment I saw it I knew I had to have it. Solette!" she calls, turning away from the door, and then some more words in - possibly French? Possibly weirdly accented French.

Solvei comes down the charmingly renovated stairs. "Hi, guys! I see you've met my aunt!"

Probably Thulic, since they're from Thule.

How long will it take to learn Thulic? 

"Yeah. She was telling us why she picked this house, out of all the burnt-down mansions in California."

Ghyslaine laughs. "It was just so beautiful!"

"And deeply morbid!" says Solvei.

"Well, you know. I don't think there's anything wrong with that."

"Please don't tell me you have an ambition to become Morticia Addams."

"I admit nothing," says Ghyslaine, a mischievous sparkle in her eye. Solvei sighs theatrically.

"It's nice that someone can live here after what happened. Kind of hopeful, I guess?"

"Yes, you see? This one understands," says Ghyslaine, gesturing to Scott.

"All right, sure," says Solvei, amused. "Everybody loves hope. Anyway, truffles! Kitchen's this way!"

To the kitchen they go.

"I've never made truffles. I mostly make dinner for my mom, for when she has late shifts. I never make anything sweet."

"I will be happy to teach you everything I know about making truffles!" says Solvei.

Everything she knows about making truffles turns out to be quite a lot. Every suggested flavour that seemed even vaguely reasonable to put in a truffle is present, and she has a chart crossing these with available chocolate strengths (dark, milk, and white) to maximize the variety of the resulting truffle selection, next to a highly readable flowchart-like diagram that neatly lays out the path of the basic truffle recipe and all the various detours and substitutions that are necessary to produce each specific kind of truffle.

Scott is really pleased with the variety! 

He picks up the basics fast, and before long, they're splitting the work evenly between them. 

Stiles turns about to be very unhelpful to the cooking process, mostly providing commentary on the history of chocolate and whether coconuts are more awfully designed than pineapple. 

That's fine. Solvei can multitask the cooking and the conversation about food facts.

Scott handles the parts that require dexterity and timing just fine, and before long he seems to understand the logic behind substitutions. 

"I've never really gone beyond pasta and chile relleno, so this is kind of exciting. What else do you know how to make?"

"Oh, tons of stuff. Want to make the cooking lessons a regular thing? That sounds like fun."

"We can work out a schedule. You can get him on Thursdays, because that's when I scope out crime scenes, and I'll take him whenever you're at- art club? Woodworking? Tennis practice?"

"I've checked out fencing club and photography club so far. Not sure where I'll settle. Befriending everyone in Beacon Hills is going to be a challenge and I'll have to strategize carefully."

"Most of the people here are dull, and the rest hate each other. I'm not sure how you're going to pull that off."