Oh to Housing We Shall Go!

[Sophie Izabell Newman]

Spring had just arrived in Memory, bringing with it the beautiful and colorful flowers that were only seen in this season. This spring marked Sophie's first spring in Memory, presently Sophie was walking down the main town road which would fork off and eventually lead her to her apartment in the Tarry Estate.

After spending most of the morning out at Outer Farms checking on the fruit trees and vegetable patch she had started when she first moved to Memory back in October. One would have thought that the trees and patch had died by now, seeing as how winters in Maine tended to be anything but mild, but Sophie was gifted with plants. Okay, so maybe it wasn't just Sophie's doing, Tinkerbell's gifts did help a bit, okay, a lot. Tinkerbell's ability to help make plants grow and stay strong was the reason for the fruit trees and vegetable garden doing so well.

As Sophie was walking through town thinking of how wonderful it was that she was the host for Tinkerbell's spirit and to have acquired Tinkerbell's abilities, Tinkerbell decided to speak.

"Hey Soph, How's the searching for Peter's host going?"[/color] Sophie sighed upon reading the silver words that Tinkerbell flashed in front of her eyes. If there was one thing Sophie and Tinkerbell didn't fully see eye to eye on was how important it was to find the host for Peter Pan was. Tinkerbell was obsessed with it and would Sophie at least twice a day, every day. It could get rather annoying to Sophie."No change since yesterday when you last asked.""Okay, thanks for putting up with me asking. The outside of our apartment complex looks boring. We should change that."

Tinkerbell was right. Tarry Estate did have enough living area for 20 people, but the outside was just plain to look at. There was a decent front yard for the residents to sit about and talk and the backyard did have a small swing set for kids as well has picnic tables for the parent and adults to watch from, but that was it for things other than the green grass. The building itself was painted an off white color that left a person with no real feelings for love or hate, just highly indifferent. Sophie decided there needed to be more color around the building, maybe that would give it more of a homey touch and make it less boring. So standing in the middle of the sidewalk, Sophie started making different flowers grow. Closest to the house, she started making orange Tiger Lilies bloom, while lining the steps and the walkway with purple, pink and red tulips."How does that look Tink?"Sophie asked while admiring her handiwork, not realizing she was blocking the path to the front door of the building.[/center][/size][/color]

[Archibald Edwin Slight]

You know what Arch liked most about this place? Only everything. He'd only been here two months, and already he'd seen mermaids, talking horses, and he wasn't sure but he'd almost swear he'd seen an elephant fly. Really what was this place? Logic and reason told him he was going completely bonkers, but the more incredible things Arch saw, the more he looked forward to insanity.

When Arch first arrived, snow blanketed everything: the ground, the trees, the rocks--even the people looked a little snow dusted themselves, some of them haggard and tired of yelling at boisterous kids to be careful during a rollicking snowball fight (which Arch joined on the spot and gained himself a black eye from a particularly well aimed slushball). Kids and teenagers fought ferociously for their wintry factions, the snow sticking to their jackets and hair and gloves and eyelashes, and Arch was amazed. These kids, who upon first glance appeared normal, were anything but--they used magic, and-and they changed into animals... Th-they... They weren't normal at all! And that would have scared Arch if he weren't so excited about the prospect of being just as abnormal as them.

When he'd found himself a home at the Tarry Estate, that night Arch nursed his black eye with a grin on his face a mile wide. His heart thundered in his chest and his pulse beat loudly in his ears, his body and nerves tingling with the adrenaline that surged through him. There was no sleeping tonight--not when his life had taken a complete 180, and there was a chance that he too might have some weird sort of power like those kids in the snow.

But it was spring now, and Arch still hadn't had any luck in that department. It wasn't as if there weren't examples of such power at every turn: he'd seen gardens that lasted all winter and kids take to the air like they were out for a walk. The novelty still hadn't worn off though, and every day Arch kept hoping he'd find his answer, for whatever his question was. He knew he fit here, he just didn't exactly know how yet.

But Arch's thoughts were far from "fitting in" as he tromped down the stairs from the second floor of the Tarry Estate where his apartment thing was. He'd been told by the other residents of the Estate that as more people filed into Memory (and there was apparently a bit of a surge of newcomers recently), housing might be short and apartments would have to be shared. But that was fine with Arch--maybe his eventual roommate would have some sort of voodoo magic like everyone else. It was on this his thoughts seemed to linger, but even that was soon knocked out of his head... as his head knocked that of someone else.

"Ow- shiiiit," Arch curse loudly, grabbing his throbbing forehead. What on earth had he hit...? Arch turned his eyes forward and found a small girl completely blocking the doorway he was trying to come out of. "Arrrgh, really?!" He fumed, before making sure she was okay. "...Ah, sorry. Did I hurt you?" Arch asked her as politely as he could, though he couldn't deny his notoriously jumpy temper sparked a bit. What was she thinking, standing exactly there?

[Sophie Izabell Newman]

Sophie was just beginning to see Tinkerbell's response when all of the sudden she saw white. Sophie stumbled back from the force of the hit but managed to keep her balance thanks to years as a dancer and being light on her feet. After Sophie readjusted her mint green thigh length dress and gathered her wits again, she looked up to see what had hit her.

A tall boy's chest looked to be the source of impact and the boy seemed rather upset. As she looked at his face she saw his lips forming the end of a question with the words hurt you. "Oh no, I'm fine. Did I hurt you? I should have noticed I was in the way. This is all my fault. I'm sorry.Sophie signed rather fast to the boy, her silver bracelet making rapid tinking noises in pace with her hand movements.

Sophie hoped the boy wouldn't be too upset at her, but she wouldn't blame him either, that is if he even understood her. No one here in Memory knew even the simplest of signs and she often had to point to what she wanted or carry around a pen and notebook. Of course this would be one of the times she didn't have the pen and notebook on her but instead left it in her apartment on the third floor.

"Hey, maybe this boy is Peter. We haven't met him before. Please try to find out who his spirit is, please Sophie?"

[/i]Sophie could only shake her head. Instead of worrying if the boy is okay or wondering if the boy could even understand her, Tinkerbell was more excited to see if he was the host of Peter. By the time they found Peter's host, Sophie could only hope the host was nice and could understand her, otherwise she might just have to harm the boy.

Detaching herself from her roaming thoughts, Sophie slowly signed out her name followed by her name sign. My name is S-O-P-H-I-E after her left hand had finished forming the 'E' her hand rounded into a fist with her thumb laying on top of her closed fingers forming the letter S. She then took her fist and dragged it from the corner of her left eye to the corner of her mouth, using the sign for girl with the hand shape of S instead the normal hand shape that was used to sign girl. Her brother had given her her sign name when he was first learning how to sign. They were only five at the time, when he went to sign girl and boy, he accidentally formed the S hand sign and pointed to Sophie, the sign had stuck ever since.

After finishing signing her name to the boy, she pointed to him and stuck out her hand. She only hoped that he would understand her hand gesture for the greeting it was even if he couldn't understand anything else she had tried to say.[/size][/font][/color][/center]

[Archibald Edwin Slight]

Arch continued to the frown down at the girl as she situated herself, and he noticed right away the tiny bracelet on her left wrist. It was odd, but for a moment time seemed to slow down just for the purpose of his noticing all the detail and finesse of the charm bracelet. It was an especially glittery silver, and almost seemed to leave a shining trail whenever her hand move. The charms themselves were infinitely detailed and made just such a sound as they jingled together as to sound like hundreds of tiny bells, all tuned to the same harmonious chord... Arch was just beginning to wonder it those charms might ever sound discordant and as they circled her tiny wrist--maybe when she was angry? But how could the jingle of a charm bracelet possibly be connected to emotions?

Though, to be fair, Arch had encountered stranger things in Memory.

Suddenly he was jerked back into real time as he surfaced from his split-second musings, the shimmering bracelet flashing quickly while her hand... Did something. What was she doing? Arch stared blankly at her a moment before childhood memories flooded his mind, reminding him of the little deaf boy that moved to his neighborhood for a little less than a year. Arch hadn't learned any sign language in the brief time he shared with the boy, but the boy had loved to play tag and baseball in the park, and by god that was fine by Arch.

The girl in front of him seemed to realize he couldn't understand her, and had taken to signing more slowly, pointing first to herself, then making a sign by her face, then pointing to herself again. Thick as Arch was, he still managed to realize that this must be a sign for the girl's name. "Oh, uh," Arch stuttered when he felt prompted to respond. He carefully mimicked the hand shape and slid it down his cheek like the girl did, hoping to show her he sort of understood. He smiled a bit helplessly at her though, shrugging his shoulders. He really didn't know what else to say.

But he kept getting distracting by her bracelet--he wasn't sure if it was the shine or the musicality or impossible detail of it; whatever it was, he drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Arch wanted so desperately to touch the little charms on it that his fingers actually twitched before he forced his hand to hang at his side. I should at least try to introduce myself... he thought, rationalizing his actions. Before I go pawing over he bracelet. "Um..." Arch searched for a way to tell her his name before finally stepping around her, picking up a fallen twig from the ground, and simply scratching his name in the dirt next to a row of flowers he either hadn't noticed before, or had a sneaking suspicion had something to do with the girl. A-R-C-H he spelled, before standing back up, pointing one finger to the name on the ground, and one at himself. He smiled pleasant enough a her and found his temper had dissipated when the girl started signing. So that was a big step.

After a moment, when he was sure she understood him, Arch sort of gestured to her bracelet by pointing first at his wrist, then hers. "Can I see it?" He said aloud, since, after all, she didn't really seem mad at him. He held out his hand as if she should place her wrist in it, hoping she'd let him look through the little charms he was so inexplicably taken with.

[Sophie Izabell Newman]

Sophie didn't have to stand around feeling awkward for very long. It seemed the boy had understood her a bit to mirror her last action of signing her name. The boy picked up a fallen twig to write his name in the dirt, making Sophie feel slightly dumb for not thinking of that or using the flowers to write out her words. Oh well, at least they could somewhat communicate now. Arch was what the boy wrote out before pointing at himself. Sophie smiled and waved hoping to maybe form a friendship with the boy.

As she went to wave her hand to make the tulips form into letters and words, Sophie noticed that Arch was pointing at her bracelet and holding out his hand, reading his lips she understood that he wished to see the bracelet. Sophie was so used to the feel of the silver bracelet after wearing it day in and day out for nearly twenty years that she hardly ever gave a thought to it. Her brother used to tell her that she could never sneak around because her bracelet made such a beautifully distance noise. If she could ever have one wish granted, even for only a limited time, she would love to hear the sweet sounds her brother claimed the bracelet made.

Looking down at the bracelet herself, Sophie felt a small smile form on her lips. Each one of the charms had a special meaning to her. When she got the bracelet for her sixth birthday, she only had two charms, the silver pair of ballet slippers and the pair of children, one boy with a baseball hat, wearing overalls and one girl with pigtails, wearing a dress. Now at the age of 25, her charm bracelet grew to hold twenty more charms. Each charm is positioned in the order she received them. After the pair of children, the following charms hang; a cat, a horse, a rose, an oak leaf, a bell, a teddy bear, "Sophie", the Statue of Liberty, a family of four, a scottie dog, a horse and carriage, a shooting star, a heart, an "I love my brother", an "I'm the smart twin", a butterfly, a bird with its' wings spread, a four-leaf clover, an art brush and pallet, a graduation cap and lastly a small fairy charm.

Sophie saw no harm in letting Arch see her bracelet. Not that many people took interest in the bracelet except to say it looked pretty. Sophie shrugged her shoulders and laid her left wrist in Arch's outstretched hand.

[Archibald Edwin Slight]

Technically Arch still didn't the girl's name except by the, to him, meaningless sign across his cheek. But to be fair, he hadn't given her a chance to explain herself further before he was asking to rifle through the charms on her wrist, a strong indication of his priorities right there. He was all about satisfying his own curiosity, and he'd learn details about others later. Maybe. If he felt like sticking around.

The still-pretty-much nameless girl obligingly set her wrist in his hand, and Arch beamed widely down as the charms tickled his palm. They were all bunched together, filling the bracelet out so that Arch wondered if she continued to collect charms or if it was too full already. Some of the charms were cutesy little things like a boy and a girl, a family, and other various "it is obviously I picked these out when I was little" charms, but two were phrases. "Sophie," was one, and ah, okay, that must be the girl's name and what the sign means, and "I'm the smart twin." So she had a brother. Was he here with her? Was he too as bonkers and magic as everyone else?

But Arch moved past the littler charms to examine the more intricate ones. The rose and the oak leaf gave him pause, and he thought fleetingly, inexplicably, that these had more to do with Sophie than some of the others. But the one at the end, the fairy, was soon all that caught his eyes. He couldn't explain it, but when his fingers lighted on that charm, he was oddly transfixed. He frowned down on it, and Arch didn't much frown anymore. The little fairy seemed to even shine with a curious light, and as he lifted her hand closer to his face to see it better, the other charms jingled against each other in such a tune as to nearly knock Arch flat on his back.

This whole situation felt so familiar that, even given the place he was in, Arch felt uncomfortable. He could take a lot of things in stride, but this wasn't just the weird magic he'd seen. This involved him somehow, and even though he'd initially longed for just such an involvement, it turns out that come his turn, he wasn't really ready for it. Whatever it was.

Arch released her hand, swallowing back his uneasiness and smiling a little at her. "Neat," he said simply, nodding at her and trying and failing to cover his unease when his hands strayed to pick at the sleeves of the hoodie tied around his waist. But he didn't want to put her off, so he fell silent, waiting for to make the next move, if she wanted. If that next move was to give him a weird look and leave, hey, that was fine. But he couldn't help finding himself hoping she'd somehow continue their "conversation"... or maybe give some hint that she had felt the weirdness, too.

[Sophie Izabell Newman]

Sophie felt strange having some stranger touching her charms, yet she also felt some strange familiar feeling with it as well. It was as if her brother was the one that was toying with her bracelet, but that was impossible, right? Arch was clearly not her brother and Tinkerbell didn't have a brother as far as Sophie knew.

As arch moved through the charms the feelings she was getting for the bracelet kept changing. At first all Sophie was feeling was a sense of awkwardness from standing with her wrist in the palm of a stranger. That quickly changed though when Arch started fiddling with the charms, it started to feel like her bracelet was humming at a slow vibration pace. When Arch got towards the most recently added charms the feeling of vibrations got stronger. Sophie began to feel very curious as to why her bracelet was beginning to react this way to this stranger. She was completely out of her normal sense of understanding, which was saying a lot seeing as how not much was normal in life in Memory. Sophie was lost in her thoughts of reasons, but was jolted back to what was happening with her bracelet when Arch touched her last charm.

The shock Sophie received as she felt herself being pulled towards the boy, started to bring a better understanding of what was going on, but not complete knowledge. She could tell Tinkerbell was getting an understanding too because of the amount of happy feelings flooded that wasn't her own. However, almost as soon as the stronger feeling of connection had reached her, it had ended. Arch had dropped her hand causing Sophie to look up at the boy.

Arch's expression and body language had changed drastically from only moments ago. His eyes held a look of fear and unsure causing his face to take on a look of weirded out. As Sophie watched him play with his hoodie, she understood it was her turn to do something. What she should do she had no idea. She would have to use the flowers to communicate to him. Making buttercups pop from the ground was an easy task for her to complete quickly. After arranging them to say "Was it just me or did you feel a strange connection when touching my bracelet?" Once the message was completed, Sophie pointed to the small, yellow flowers to draw Arch's attention to them.[/size]

[Archibald Edwin Slight]

Arch's bad mood had quickly evaporated, that much he knew. But at the moment, he almost longed for the familiar comfort of his little-boy-esque rage, rather than try to navigate what the hell was going on with the girl, and this bracelet, and this bundle of energy bouncing around his brain in a way he'd not felt before.

Arch took a step back when Sophie looked up at him, the same confusion reflected in her eyes. Well, great. Good to know that this sort of reaction wasn't common in Memory after all. Arch felt like he was fuckin' destined to be the weird one wherever he went. Fantastic. He rubbed the back of his neck and frowned when Sophie looked away from him, turning her gaze to the flowers behind him. Well he guessed whatever this conversation was, it was over, and Arch would now get to ponder his strangeness in the comfort of solitude.

Oh god it sounded like the beginning of some angsty teenage poetry.

But soon Sophie was directing him to look at the ground behind him. Arch dropped his hand and raised his his eyebrows, turning with interest to what she was pointing at. "Pretty...?" He offered at first, looking at between her and flowers when they just started sprouting up. That was pretty cool, he'd admit. He was still getting used to the whole "magic" thing of the town anyway, but as impressive as those flowers were... What was trying to show him? Or was she changing the subject?

Until, of course, the flowers bloomed and Arch could read the message. Check it again: Arch could read the flowers. Sophie was communicating through plants, oh god that was so cool. Arch's face lit up like a little kid's on Christmas when he saw what Sophie was doing. "Oh no way," he said quickly as he scanned the flowers again, turning excitedly to the petite girl beside him. He smiled widely and nodded enthusiastically at her, relief flooding him when he realized he wasn't the only one who felt the connection. And she mentioned the bracelet, so he knew she felt something, like actually felt.

Arch searched around for a way to continue the conversation, explain himself. Because he could feel that pull to her, like an actual chain coming out of his chest to wrap around her heart. It was... It was definitely not a feeling he had experienced before, and the only way he could think to communicate that was to draw it out. Arch quickly retrieved his stick and scribbled out a couple heart shapes with a chain linking them. He hesitated before looking back up at her from where he kneeled on the ground, unsure if this would put her off. He took a breath and chanced a glance at her, his brows furrowed as if he didn't expect much. After all, how could they be connected? She could very clearly use magic, whereas Arch, just as clearly, couldn't.

[Sophie Izabell Newman]

Sophie was relieved to see that Arch could both read the buttercups but also understood and felt what she felt. There had to be a connection between them. Sophie was determine to find out how. "Maybe he's the host for Peter. Peter and I went everywhere together. Even when the lost boys stayed behind, Peter and I went on adventures together. I really hope he's the host for Peter."

"I know you really want him to be Peter, but what if he's the host for a lost boy? Will you still like him?"

"I'll still like him, but I'd really like it if he was Peter. I mean the lost boys and I had adventures with Peter too and they did help me by trying to shoot down Wendy. I guess I'd be okay with him being a lost boy."

"Alright, I just want you to be prepared incase he isn't Peter. We don't even know if his spirit is awake or not. I think it's time to move this conversation indoors."

[/i]

Focusing her attention back to Arch and away from Tinkerbell's obsession of Peter, Sophie noticed that Arch was still showing signs of feeling awkward. Sophie knew she couldn't continue to grow and make the flowers form her messages while Arch continued to struggle to communicate with her. It was time to turn high tech and go use her tablets in her apartment.

Sophie moved her left hand in a swiping motion to cause the buttercups to retract back into the ground. Then using her right hand cause a new group to form to spell out Follow Me. Sophie beckoned with her left hand for Arch to follow her to her apartment on the first floor.

Sophie was one of the lucky ones in the building having moved in earlier than most. Sophie still had a two bedroom apartment all to herself, even though the rooms were equipped to hold two beds each, for now there were only bed per room. Sophie's apartment was the first door to the left of walking into the building. Trying to make her apartment a little bit more like home, Sophie grew some ivy and spider plants as well as hung up some of her paintings and pictures. Her easel and paints were set up in the right corner of the living room by the window. Instead of having a t.v. and couch, Sophie had a desk with a desk chair and a recliner. On her desk, she had a desktop computer as well as a video phone with her tablets charging next to the phone.

To the right of the living room divided by a narrow hallway was a small kitchen. Dow the hallway were where the two bedrooms and a full bath are located. As Sophie reached the door to her apartment, she turned around to make sure Arch was following before bouncing in to her desk to grab her tablet, writing "I can read lips or I can give you my spare tablet to write back on. Which ever makes you feel more comfortable."[/color][/size][/center]

[Archibald Edwin Slight]

Arch stood slowly, his eyes locked on Sophie as with a wave of her hand the flowers vanished. That caught his attention then; another wave of her hand and the words Follow Me bloomed in front of him, full and yellow and utterly impossible. Arch's whole face lit up as Sophie waved him on, and follow her he did, though he spared a couple glances back at the magic of the garden behind them.

Now Arch knew about magic. This was established, shown to him the first day he'd arrived, but he didn't know the source of it. He knew nothing of the Spirits that possessed people, making them capable of impossible feats, and he didn't know these Spirits were very particular as well. The fact that people from all across the country, and, well world, since he'd heard a couple English accents, were possessed by the Spirits of Disney characters was something that had so far eluded Arch. He'd seen people turn into animals, sure, but he never actually recognized them from the films. The town had an apothecary and a blacksmith which was, okay, kinda medieval, but Arch didn't connect them to anything more bizarre than the magic was. If he were to guess then, he'd have just thought Memory was stuck in the Dark Ages when witches and warlocks were totally legit. It would take more than Sophie's flower trick to set him straight.

Her apartment was on the first floor, and Arch gave a low, impressed whistle when she bounded inside happily. He closed the door slowly behind him and took it all in--the wild plants, the original artwork, how bright and sunny the place was. It was ridiculous how at home he suddenly felt, like this leafy setting was one he was supposed to always be in. Arch grinned at her and nodded enthusiastically, conveying how much he liked her place. She must not have had a room share yet; by the look of things, everything was completely personalized to Sophie's preferences. Arch didn't mind in the slightest.

She quickly and lightly crossed to the other side of the room, and Arch followed her automatically. The jingle of her bracelet was rapid-fire as she grabbed a tablet and started tapping away at, leaving him a message that would help them further their conversation. Arch found himself grateful she hadn't left him outside like a weirdo, and was more than happy to reciprocate. "Um," he said out loud, and pointed to the other tablet she had charging on a dock on her desk. He figured reading lips could get a bit tricky, since words often looked the same when you said them (as he had found out during elementary school--trying to lipread his friends' plans from across a classroom was no easy task), and Sophie had the spare technology anyway. Arch picked up the tablet and sort of sat on the edge of her desk, one leg crooked up to help hold the tablet steady.

So what was that exactly? How did you do that? He typed quickly for her, then gestured back to the garden path outside the front door. He really wanted to know about this magic stuff, to see if he couldn't do something, too, and Sophie seemed willing enough to take him under her wing. They had had some sort of apparent connection, anyway, and that was certainly a start.

[Sophie Izabell Newman]

Sophie moved away from her desk to sit on her stool by her easel. As she moved away, Arch had already grabbed her other tablet and began to respond her. When Arch flipped the tablet around, Sophie read "So what was that exactly? How did you do that?"

[/i]

Shrugging her shoulders, she just smiled at the boy perched on her desk. Sophie knew Arch was talking about everything that happen when he gestured outside, but Sophie realized she going to have to explain a lot about what went on in Memory to Arch, even explain to him about Tinkerbell, which she had yet to tell anyone about. That was one of the stranger things about Memory, no one really spoke about who their spirit was. It was as if everyone wished to be normal or that a lot of people didn't know whose spirit they were hosting. Sophie wasn't sure which was the most accurate or if they simply were both true.

Sophie knew that in order to find Memory and to get inside the town limits, you had to be carrying the letter that spoke of Memory and the spirits. However, she was still concerned that Arch would freak out and leave once she explained about Tinkerbell. Although, he didn't run away screaming when she made the flowers grow, so that had to speak for something. Maybe Arch did know who he was playing host for, and there was only one way to find out.

Sophie lifted her tablet again and began typing rapidly with her left hand, while using her right hand to hold it steady. One would have thought she was typing a novel for how long and fast she was going. When she was finally finished typing everything she wanted to say, Sophie showed Arch her message.

Well, the flower trick I did by using my spirit's magic. Gathering by the fact you didn't run away, I'm guessing you know a little bit about magic. How much do you know about Memory? No offense but you look new to town, I certainly haven't seen you around before. Although, I'm still not sure what caused the bracelet connection we had out there, but I've got a few ideas.[/center][/size][/color]