some only had hearts that were brave and true

books-and-bodies

Karen Teller is having a really, really, really terrible month.

(In the privacy of her own brain, she is willing to admit that if ever there were a month that was downright shitty, this would be it.)

Her sister is dead. Not, like, gone to heaven dead, stuck on earth as a ghost dead. Her niece is still a werewolf, and is making progress on her apparent goal of scratching up every piece of furniture in the house. Also she got a D on a history test. Just straight-up got a D, on a history test, because she's been too dead all month to even listen during lectures. And she's too - proud, or scared, or something, to call in her parents for help, so she's just living in this house with a ghost and a tiny werewolf and an elementary schooler and hoping that nothing goes horribly horribly wrong before she graduates.

She has a job. It even pays enough to hire the nanny all day. Which is, you know, super. It starts at six and ends at nine, and is all the way across town, and she can't drive, so when she's lucky she gets home around ten, and she mostly doesn't take a stab at her homework because by that time she doesn't want to do anything at all. She does manage to take a shower, usually, because she's been handling dead bodies, because, oh yeah, she works at a cemetery, which is why it pays so well.

Also, she finds out today, there are zombies. Just, y'know, actual zombies, wandering around the catacombs under the mausoleum, which is probably why the caretaker gave her a mace, although honestly this is a thoroughly ridiculous way to handle this problem and you would THINK, if you knew that there were zombies infesting your catacombs, you would be able to seal them off and move your business somewhere safer, or at least come up with a solution that's less completely stupid than arming sixteen-year-olds with medieval weaponry and expecting them to fend for themselves.

This is mostly what she's thinking about when she takes out the zombie that's about to take a bite out of her coworker's shoulder. She has to assume that the actual contact is, like, instinct, or something. She hits it again, after, for good measure, and again, until its face is completely smashed in, because maybe she can't beat the crap out of this horrible, horrible month, but at least she can make sure this fricking literal walking corpse isn't going to make anything any worse.

"There. Dead zombie. Hopefully it stays that way this time."

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not-like-i-care

"I know how to hold a conversation, though. I can't truthfully say I like things but I can truthfully say that I think they're overrated, or that I thought the first season was kind of rocky. - statistically most shows have a bad first season, so I do think that about any given show."

books-and-bodies

"Original series Star Trek gets worse the longer it goes on. And some shows are good but only have one season."

not-like-i-care

"Well, then I won't say that about original series Star Trek."

books-and-bodies

"It's honestly so sad! Like, I guess it's not that sad if you'll get everything in a century and you don't know what you're missing, but I'd be really sad if I had to deal with it. - who do you end up indebted to if somebody reads a book aloud to you, the reader or the author or both?"

not-like-i-care

"The reader."

books-and-bodies

"Oooh. - I guess if I read anything to you I'd still make our debt situation worse."

not-like-i-care

"Yeah. Maybe once we're clear of it."

books-and-bodies

"Okay. Maybe. I'll just have to count lots of things as favors, I guess."

not-like-i-care

"Taking you to the fairy circle counted for a lot. I might've been getting credit for protecting you from fairies while you were there even though there weren't any."

books-and-bodies

"Oh cool! What're we at now, in like, rough dollar amounts, still above eight hundred thousand?"

not-like-i-care

"Yeah. But, like, moving in the right direction."

books-and-bodies

Nodnod. "Will it count for more if we head back sometimes, or do you think a bunch of it was showing me where it was?"

not-like-i-care

"I think a lot of the credit was for staying with you while you were there so I think it'll still count for a lot, though not as much."

books-and-bodies

"Oh cool. It is in fact useful to have time outside time in which to do homework, so that works out okay."

not-like-i-care

"Oh good."

books-and-bodies

"Yeah. Anyway, night. Unless you need the bathroom first."

not-like-i-care

"Nah." He gets into his sleeping bag.

books-and-bodies

"Cool. See you in the morning."

not-like-i-care

He goes to sleep.

He dreams that Karen decides he should sleep in her bed actually. That's all they do but it's nice. He's briefly confused when he wakes up before remembering that Karen would definitely think this was terrifying and horrible.

books-and-bodies

Luckily she does not know about this and cannot have any feelings about it.

She gets up earlyish - she almost never sleeps for more than seven hours - and does her homework at the kitchen table while she waits to see if he gets up in time to make breakfast.

not-like-i-care

He will in fact wake up early enough for this on his own! And make breakfast.

books-and-bodies

Oh neat. She can eat breakfast and thank him for breakfast and go to school with her homework mostly done.

not-like-i-care

He can take Zana looking for cool weird stuff in the forest.

Suzanna Teller

Zana thinks this is AWESOME. Her idea of cool weird stuff is mostly random common plants and rocks that she thinks look funny, and also at one point a salamander, but she is having fun.

not-like-i-care