Atticus raised an eyebrow as he came back with a suitcase full of..."necessities". "So you say college is easy?"

Charles stared. And stared. And then some more. "How the hell did you know that?" He looked around uncomfortably, "I never said anything."

Atticus grinned. "Remember, rune artist. I know everything." His eyes wandered away from his coat pocket to Charles's pants. "EVERYTHING."

Charles spotted where Atticus' eyes stopped and immediately felt self-conscious. "That's not fair." He moved his books over any incriminating parts of his trousers.

Atticus laughed airily. "It's not like I'm drawing anything now, no need to get self-concious," he managed to say through laughter. Catching his breath, Atticus ruffled Charles's hair with a slight hand. "You have got to stop acting cute before something happens."

"Like something that should've happened but didn't this morning?!" Charles pouted. "Or... I could just help myself."

Atticus shrugged. "Someone needed to go to school. I'm just being a model citizen." With that, he swung his briefcase over his shoulder, and exited out the door. Turning to face Charles, he added,"Well, aren't we going to school?" Yes, nobody heard wrong. Today Atticus would be tagging along and practicing invisibility. If all goes well.

Charles froze. "We?!" He lunged for Atticus, "Oh no you don't!"

Atticus swiftly blocked Charles with his briefcase. "Yes hon, we. I'm tagging along, since my work is boring. Journalism is boring." Atticus thought for a minute about the loose-leaf papers still on his table, half filled with stories that he had no intention to finish. Boy was the press going to have his head on a platter.

"Bastard..." Charles muttered under his breath, face still flushed from their earlier activities. "Don't you have to go to work? You know, where mature people go to earn money?"

Atticus grinned, this time, a non-crooked one. "Well my good friend, I am not fit for the description of quote and quote, 'mature'. And, I don't need to go to work if I didn't feel like it. One day wouldn't hurt." Pulling out a silver pocketwatch from the fold of his embroidered coat, he added, "I have something running called 'inheritence'."

"So do I. But you don't see me slacking." He smiled and stuck his tongue out. "Come on, we'll be late for school!"

Atticus grinned. "No, you'll late for school. And I'll probably be the first to pop into your head when they ask you for a reason." Atticus glanced around the front of the house for a second or so. "Wait...are we going by stagecoach or something?"

Charles rolled his eyes. "No, we're going to fly."

Atticus scratched his head with his free hand. "Wait. Fly? I never knew you could do magic. "

"No, but I could do you." Charles grumbled incoherently. "You are an idiot." He announced. "Oh well..." Charles tip-toed to pat Atticus on the head, "You're my idiot."

Atticus mumbled something and mussed his hair once again. "That's what mother always says." he whined childishly.

"I didn't know you even had a mother."

Atticus laughed, not offended in any way. Pulling out his pocket watch once again with his free hand, he muttered, "Yes, I had a mother, but I do not like bringing her up. Not a nice woman at all." He remembered the time when she threw a chalkboard at him for not studying and failing grammar (his grammar had improved since then).

"Ah, dear mother..." he chuckled under his breath. Yes, may she rest in peace.

Charles looked him over once and turned around on his heels, continuing their walk. "Might as well be late then... I like my mother. She was an interesting woman." And by interesting, he would have rather talked to her while she was sedated and secured to her chair. "She taught me how to count... and music..."

It was a bright Sunday, and young Charles looks excitedly into his mother's room, which is equally bright. (He makes sure himself.) There she is- sprawled out on the floor, ranting and raving. "Honey, do you see the spirits? One, two, three, four..." Charles counted along sadly, it was never good (or safe even) to interrupt her while she was seeing them. She stops and says flatly, "I hear voices. They're singing. Are they angels, Charles? Can you see them?"

Charles shakes his head, and his mother beckons him over. "Sing with them." So he does.

Charles shook his head. It was best not to think about her. "What happened to your mother?"

Atticus laughed hoarsely to himself. "You wouldn't want to know. She literally made all her lovers. Out of wood." Madame Crowell was an "ambitious" dollmaker. Every single creation was perfected, painted so no seam could be identified by the naked eye...

Atticus closed his eyes for a second or so to remember the days in the attic, watching his mother carve each limb carefully, and speak as she did, as if the doll could hear her every word.

"She would never sell any od her dolls for some reason though. In the fire, all of them were swept into ashes besides one... The one that mother and I created together the night before..."

"Alas...Ninnette, the last doll," Edowen Crowell murmured in satisfaction as she caressed the cheek of her new creation. This one would be for her children to enjoy. "Mother, is this doll really for us?" little Atticus asked with wide grey eyes. Edowen smiled sadly, "Yes, this is the last one I will ever make in my lifetime career, darling..."

Atticus himself had never known what those words meant, only until after the wind had carried away the ashes of his mother's lovely creations...which inlcuded of his "father", did he realize none of them, not the dolls nor his mother, were ever coming back. He quickly turned away to conceal any tears that fell from his eyes.

"Oh." Charles said softly, sensing an air of 'I-shouldn't-have-ask' coming on, "I'm sorry. I didn't know... You'd think after two years, we would have told each other more..."

Atticus shook his head. "Not your fault," was all he managed to say, he couldn't bring himself to utter anything else more. After all...what could he say?

Charles stayed quiet. Why was the road to the schoolhouse so long anyways?

Atticus twirled a strand of hair around his forefinger. "How much longer? Personally, I'd have preffered to use a carriage." As expected from the lazy.