Of Familiar Faces
13th of February 2007 A.D.
You bring it up in the car as you're driving across town when talking about how to explain magic if someone stumbles over a mention in some old letters or the like. "When you come right down to it magic isn't magic the way you learned it in...
did you go to Sunday School? Sorry for assuming."
"No, not for lack of trying, you understand, but I just couldn't sit still long enough, more of a distraction to the other kids really and that's the nice way to put it." She smiles a little and shakes her head at the memory, the kind that is only fond with
a lot of distance.
"Well anyway, the point is when we talk about magic in a religious sense it's supernatural, distinct from the observable, predictable running of the world, but that is not actually true of the magic I do, the magic Harry does, even the magic
Tiffany does, it is just harder to observe and predict. In a sense... and I cannot believe I'm saying this, those Daedalus yahoos are right, only they have it backwards, the physical laws as they are understood by the Standard Model are a subset of the magical understanding of the universe not the other way around. Everyone has magic because everything is magic, thinking and moving and breathing and if you can do it the right way... those things specifically I mean you can get a supernatural effect. Like Daniel, did you meet my brother Daniel?"
In response Father Forthil nods looking very dubious about the whole thing, detective Murphy shakes her head.
"A wizard who looked him over would say he's as magical as a sack of turnips, he learned how to freeze things with his hands when he hits them, because the breath of life is magic and your breath belongs to you so if you learn how to do it properly things... change."
"The Kung fu flicks were right all along?" she asks, not taking her eyes off the road, though there's a gleam in them just the same.
"In the most general sense yeah, I can get you in touch with someone who can teach you some stuff if you have the time." You do not question her dedication, anyone who lacked that would have long since gotten another job.
"We are going to my parents' house first of all, just because my father was the one who got most of the letters from my grandmother and great-uncle James. Father can you pretend to be with the people who make new saints, that would probably settle most of the odd questions?"
Poor Father Forthil resembles a deer in the headlights.
I think I'm starting to get why she and Harry click so well.
"That would be more awkward than anything," you wave off the suggestion. "I can just pretend I'm looking into old Chicago history for a paper on the Great Fire, that should deal with the direction of the questioning. Father you're here because I came to you first and you found precisely what you found, hints that Father Murphy may have been inspired to come to Chicago, that leaves an opening if they
do find something mystical in those papers, but if it's something we can brush away then it's brushing we will do. If it comes down to it I can even write that paper..."
or one of me can at least, you add inwardly as the car pulls up to a large and well kept house with a literal white picket fence, though looking a good bit more lived in than the Wilson's.
There's a car in the driveway that doesn't quite fit the scene, a Wagonized Dodge Charger, trying very hard to be a muscle car, right down to the bright red paint scheme. It's the kind of car someone who brags at parties about how they are both cool and financially responsible to the sight of glassy-eyed friends.
Detective Murphy is having a rather more extreme reaction to the sight she looks like someone who'd seen a ghost and not the spooky kind, though perhaps she might have preferred it. "Looks like my sister Lisa's in, and her husband. I really should have called ahead. Lisa isn't someone you want mixed up with the kind of stuff you're in, not even... not to any degree." Unless said husband had a very long name indeed it's odd she didn't use it.
Bad blood, that much is clear, but what kind?
"We should go," she finally says.
That bad? you wonder, but her next words drive the question of Murphy family dynamics entirely out of your mind. "He was there when Detective Green interrogated you."
And that would have been that... but for the older lady with a distinct resemblance to Detective Murphy glancing through the window at that moment and giving her a cheery, welcoming smile.
What do you do?
[] Push through, a little awkwardness won't kill you... though a lot might feel like it
[] Use Father Forthil as a social shield
[] Write in
OOC: Enjoy... poor Murphy definitely won't. 
