Ben jerked awake, slightly alarmed by the sound of his own deep snoring and to find himself, again, not in his bed. He pulled his chin up against his chest and covered his eyes with his forearm resisting the morning sunlight coming through the living room blinds. He was in his clothes from yesterday, his shoes by the couch where he had kicked them off and fallen asleep. Crusty drool clung to the side of his face and he wiped the gunk from the sides of his open mouth. He’d had a late night out with some of his old associates at the lumber yard and had slugged a few too many back it seemed from the dull ache in his head. To some degree he hadn't wanted to go, making this hangover seem like an even more vicious payback, but since the logger union was one of his biggest supporters it was hard to say no. He hadn’t spent an evening at home for almost a whole week due to work or some other social obligation and he felt guilty leaving the girls home alone so many nights in a row. They were older now though, he reasoned to himself, they didn’t need him as much they used to and would understand he was a busy guy. On the other hand, the voters always needed constant reassurance that he was still the same old, humble Ben Brynley from the down the block, still looking out for them.

He laboriously sat up and cradled his aching head in his hands for a moment with a pitiful moan. Then the smell of something burnt and sweet caught his nostrils and he was all at once alert. He noticed the kitchen light on from where he sat and he dragged his feet over to the entrance where he saw a single pan alone on the stove with black smoke rising out of it. He ran over and switched off the burner, picking the pan up off the stove which had what looked like burnt oatmeal sticking to the bottom. Before the adrenaline could completely drain from him and he could start to solve the mystery of how the pan got there, the silence in the house was broken by the blaring sound of the fire alarm.

He took a dishtowel and waved it at the disk on the ceiling, every beep pounding like a hammer on the inside of his skull. When it finally silenced and he looked down from the ceiling, he noticed his niece Rosie standing in the kitchen doorway, glassy eyes looking bewildered like an alien having just beamed down into a strange and foreign place she didn't understand (which he sometimes honestly wondered if that wasn't the case she was an alien. There weren't any pictures of her as a baby in the hospital to prove her human origins.) She was wearing a rain jacket and duck rain boots with a mismatching feminine batton-lace dress, her long dark hair looking wind swept and frizzy like she had been outside. He didn’t have to wonder at all then who was the culprit behind the burnt oatmeal. “Rosie, where were you?” he demanded of her, throwing the dishtowel onto the counter and clambering the pan into one side of the double sink. “I just went outside for a moment.” She replied as if such an explanation was completely reasonable. Her reply didn't really surprise Ben at all, but it didn't make him any less frustrated either. “You never leave the stove unattended when you’re cooking something, Rosie. NEVER.” He scolded her much like someone would a toddler rather than the 17 year old she was. “What the hell were you doing outside anyway?” He then asked exasperatedly, straining to keep his composure with his head bursting. Rosie pointed a finger, directing his line of sight towards the kitchen window. “I noticed the bird feeder was empty so I went out to fill it.”

Outside the kitchen window the top of the yellow ladder from his workshop peeked out, and the long bird feeder was amply full and overflowing with seeds. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. It was hard to be mad at someone like Rosie even when she messed up on basic tasks because of her good intentions. But even though her explanation diffused his anger, it now brought up the worry as they neared her eighteenth birthday how unprepared she seemed for the real world. He now thought they had done her a disservice by sheltering and doing so much for her, especially her sister Claire who was by far the most protective sibling he'd ever known and behaved like a mother hen to her baby sister.

“I’m sorry Uncle Ben.” She apologized, doe eyes looking sympathetically at him. “I didn’t mean to make your hangover worse.” Now this almost knocked Ben over with the sheer unexpectedness of her being able to identify what a hang over was. Sometimes, it seemed, she wasn't as imperceptive or naive as he thought. “What? No, Rosie.. I’m not hung over.” he grumbled, feeling rotten shame curl in his stomach. Okay, so sometimes he was just as much to blame in trying to shelter her as her sister, he just did a much shittier job at it. “Oh.” Rosie pursed her lips now looking guilty for having pointed it out. Ben looked towards the clock and changed subjects quickly. “You've got less than an hour before school. Go change your shoes, you got dirt on them.” He waved a hand to dismiss her and then turned his attention once she was gone to the task of getting the burnt oatmeal stuck from the bottom of the pan.

"Yep, no problem. That's what I do.." Ben said, moving aside and letting Claire handle the dirty pan. He popped some headache pills into his mouth from one of the bottles in the kitchen cabinet then stood with the small of his back against the counter quietly next to where Claire was washing the pan. It had been a while since he'd been alone with one of his nieces and he quite enjoyed Claire's presence. Ben was a tornado of activity but she had a nice calming effect on him just as Maggie used to have. The best part was she never required him to say anything, even though he was bound to because that's how he processed his thoughts. But it was nice to be given that option anyway.

"You look pretty." He commented swiping his thumb across his bottom lip to indicate the lip gloss he saw on hers. He may not have been the most attentive guardian in the world but he noticed even the slightest changes in appearance or behavior with the girls. "You doing something special today?" he asked curiously, leaving the second part to his question left out -- "and does that something you're doing have to do with a boy?" Because she was twenty-one after all and she didn't have to tell him. Though he would really like to know if she was seeing anyone and would probably make it his business to find out if she didn't tell him willingly. It was in his blood, the politician in him, he just couldn't handle not knowing other people's secrets and was a shark when it came to finding them out.

"Yeah, 'course I can. I'll pick her up." Ben said agreeably, although he honestly felt his stomach turn a little. This meant he would have to bring Rose to a lecture he was doing at the community college later and Rose was just unpredictable enough this made him a little nervous. But he wasn't going to say no knowing how much this promotion meant to Claire.

Rose came waltzing back downstairs moments later having changed her shoes and gathered up her school stuff. "I'm ready to go~" she said in a sing-songy voice as she passed the kitchen doorway. She knew better than to take off on her own and stood at the door waiting for her sister. It seemed ridiculous to have to be walked to and from school at this age, but even she had to admit it was probably a good idea. Especially on days like these. She had woken up with the walls breathing around her, warping in and out, and she knew it would be a day the whole world would be in motion and she'd be more than a little distracted. Already the birds had gotten her in trouble. Outside the kitchen window this morning they had been chirping insistently at her, giving her a real guilt trip: "Rosalie, won't you come out and feed us? It's cold and we have nothing to eat!" She knew they wouldn't stop pestering her until she filled the dang bird feeder which is why she had abandoned the oatmeal and gone out. The funny part was she didn't necessarily have to lie to her uncle about what had happened, she just never told the entire story. This is how she lived her life, in half-truths, so she was thought only half-crazy.

Her Uncle Ben followed Claire and her out the door. "I'll be picking you up after school Rosie so wait out front, okay? No chasing butterflies or anything where I can't find you." he searched in her eyes for some acknowledgment of his directions and she nodded wistfully. "And good luck today Claire Bear." Then her and her sister left. She looped a delicate arm through the stabilizing crook in her sister's, auto-piloting all the way to school. She couldn't remember the conversation they had if they had one at all. She spent most of the school day like this in her own head, like she did many days, not speaking to anyone. It seemed someone as attractive as Rosalie, with a willowy frame, fair skin, and sparkling eyes beset below dark eyebrows might have received more attention, but she was generally treated like a porcelain doll on the top of shelf -- a creepy one that people turned around so they wouldn't look at them. Her classmates dodged eye contact, returned her smile with shallow ones, and whispered in each other's ears when they thought she wasn't looking.

It seemed she was oblivious to all this but mostly she just didn't let the actions of others affect her, learning a long time ago it was futile to try to change herself. She didn't mind people thinking she was strange as long as they didn't lock her away. So the day passed, nothing out of the ordinary happening, besides her extraordinary visions. The legs on an empty desk went gummy and walked and the shadows moved regardless of which way the light directed it. Constantly little things like these moved, just in her periphery but any time she turned to look they would be still so she could never swore by what she saw. By the end of the day she felt a bit dizzy having whipped her head around so many times to see.

When the school bell rang letting school out she was quite grateful, done entirely with sitting still or even trying to hold her attention for a second more on dry school material. As soon as she stepped outside she heard the grass calling her name and without a second thought as to how it might appear she found a nice patch of grass on the front lawn of the school and flopped down with her backpack beside her. Her classmates not finding this the least bit out of the ordinary for her, rolled their eyes, laughed, or simply stepped around her as they went to their buses. She closed her eyes blocking it all out, the world around her finally slowing down, and felt the touch of the grass holding her down to earth where she needed to be.

Rosalie had her own list of reasons they may not have spoken to each other before today. Being the town nut case, protective relatives, her tendency to focus on the surreal rather than real. But none of those things rose to her mind, much less could she think of any reason she could not be friends with him. Not the stale smell of cigarettes, scars, or tattoos deterred her. She made no pre-judgments about people before getting to know them, perhaps because she could not in her small realm of understanding do that. She was enjoying their uncustomary closeness, the Van Gogh swirl of her mind lifting like a morning fog as she drank in every detail of his face now only inches from her and breathed in the warm metallic rust smell on his clothes. "I cannot think of one reason why we haven't, but I can think of a million and one reasons why we should." she replied in a tone of sweet and artless flirtation.

"Rosie!" A distant but loud voice boomed causing them to both jump back from each other like they'd each gotten a shock on the tips of their noses. Unbeknownst to them, all the buses and students had already left and they were now all alone on the front lawn of the school. Rose's smile didn't fade as they both turned to look at a dark-haired man approaching them, her shock quickly dissolving into a soft chuckle. "Oh, that's my uncle... Hi Uncle Ben!" she waved to her uncle enthusiastically, sitting up on her knees. "C'mon, get off the ground now, it's still wet! Let's go!" Ben called over, taking off his aviator glasses which served no purpose with the overcast sky and squinted his eyes at what he was seeing. He was dressed in business casual, khaki pants, button up shirt, professor's jacket. "Okay!" Rosalie stood up grass falling off her now spotted green skirt. "It was nice to meet you, Milo.. I'll see you again." she said, walking backwards a few steps reluctant to pull her eyes from his until the last second she turned around and ran to her Uncle Ben.

When she reached her uncle she met him with a big hug. "So, what were ya doin' over there, Rosie..?" Ben inquired harmlessly, indulging her hug a little longer than he normally would so he could spear a pointed glare over his niece's shoulder in the delinquent's direction. "I was talking to a new friend." "I see.." He pulled back from the hug and they walked over to his truck, Ben continuing to steal suspicious glances over his shoulder at the young man. "What's his name?" Another glance back. "Milo." "What's his age?" "I don't know." "Is he from around here?" "I think so." They were in the truck now. He faced her, his eyebrows stitched up together on his forehead, eyes catching hers in the serious expression that indicated she needed to focus. "Rosie.. That isn't a friend. You don't know him well enough to call him that." Rosalie blinked her big glass eyes at her uncle, confused and alien, unable to see where the concern was, unaware of any potential danger he saw. "But I will."

Rosalie had not noticed Milo or his machine until the last second, she attempted to stop and comically slid on the freshly waxed floor. Her sneakers screeched until she finally managed to come to a halt on her tip toes fighting momentum from tipping her over then fell back flat on her feet. She panted attempting to catch her breath and blew a strand of wayward hair. As he greeted her she casually peered past him over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of the shadow. It stood at the other end of the hall and seeming to know the chase was over, dissipated into nothingness.

Milo's words only vaguely sunk in while she was distracted, then upon returning to the present, full comprehension dawned on her. "Huh? Wha? Oh! -- No! I wasn't stalking you! I was.. I was.." her flushed face deepened even redder, the crimson rising to the tips of her ears. Looking into those world-worn eyes there was nothing more that she wanted than to let him into her world. She knew better than to talk about her visions though. Her mother had warned her against it when she was very little and she knew the real consequences of not following such advice. "I was just trying to find a bathroom." She finished putting her hands behind her back innocently with a sheepish smile. She rocked back and forth from heel to toe, then daintily walked around him as if in quest. "Do you know where it is?-- Whoa!" She had spun around on her toe to face him again as she asked her question only to have the waxed floor and gravity finally have its way with her and cause her to slip. Her face planted into Milo's firm chest and her hands clung to his shirt to keep herself from completely falling to the ground.

As they whirled down the hall, Rosalie threw back her head allowing centrifugal force to pull her as Milo held onto her hands. She came back up beaming, smiling at his smile that he seemed to be enjoying this whimsical moment as much as she was. She could never recall a time in her life having done something so spontaneous with another person. Most kids her age rarely indulged in such play, too much in a hurry to grow up and taking themselves too seriously. She bobbed her head enthusiastically in reply to his question, still chuckling. "Yes."

They were slowing down now, almost coming to a stop, but out of reluctance to let the moment go or perhaps just to hold his hand a little longer, Rosalie pushed off again. "Come on, let's go this way." she directed, tugging him along by one hand further down the hall. They skated down a ways, still laughing at themselves and nothing in particular until they came across one of the jarred doors leading into the auditorium. They skidded to a stop just outside the door and Rosalie held up a mischievous finger to her lips then pointed inside. "This is why I'm here..." she whispered.

Inside the auditorium the town hall meeting had commenced and her Uncle Ben was in the full swing of his speech regarding the expansion and conservation of Eagle Ravine's waterfront park, punctuating his points with a closed a fist, looking earnestly to his audience.