Shop Talk

"Fair point," Noah admitted grudgingly. He considered trying to dispute several points, but he knew arguing with Lil wasn't really going to get him anywhere. Instead, he settled on a question.

"Do you really think she was pretending? To be human, I mean."

Lil considered the question, thinking about Jenny in relation to Noah - her.... monsteryness in relation to his. "I don't know - I haven't read up on whatever she was yet. I know she was a liar and manipulative. She was definitely pretending to be something, or someone she wasn't."

"So she wasn't like Matt? A person that just got...changed?"

Noah frowned, considering. If she hadn't been human to begin with...

"Not like Matt, I don't think, but there was....something going on, with her family. They were paying a lot of attention to her, anyway, even though she was supposed to have died as a baby. But I mean, even if she was, she still lied so that she could try and drag Matt back there. She still could have killed Addie." Lil paused. "Like I said - it isn't how she was born that made her a monster. I'll look into what I can find out about her, though."

Noah wasn't sure how much he agreed, but it was probably best to give it some more thought. For the moment, he decided to change the subject, at least slightly.

"That reminds me, I think we have other homework for this. She wrote something before she died, on the door...with her blood. Like a nursery rhyme or something, only more terrifying."

He coughed, giving Lil a sheepish look, before continuing.

"No matter what you do
No matter who you call
No matter how you cry
The Rogue will get you all."

Lil scowled. "Fuckin' great. What's the Rogue?" She sighed. "Something else to look up, I guess."

"Yeah," Noah said, sighing. "This is just going to keep coming, huh?"

"Looks like. And we'll all have to figure out how to deal with it."

Noah gave Lil a sidelong smile.

"Look at you, with the pep talk and all. Maybe you should talk to Cecilia and Madison about joining 'em on the squad..."

Lil rolled her eyes and made a face. "Oh fuck off. This isn't a pep talk just - stop being an idiot. And we really are going to have to figure out how to deal with this shit, because I don't want to see what happened to Addie happen again."

"Yeah, its...hey, Mr. Winters, is he just teaching you guys about, you know," Noah asked, wiggling his fingers in a vague gesture, "or is it about all these things we keep finding, too? It seems like we need to know more about what's out there, you know?"

Lil shrugged at that. "David's more interested in the actual... magic stuff. Its really cool, but I wanna know more about what's out there, too. But at least now I know better where to look for things, and I can figure out better what's worth reading."

"He's got that special collection at the library, right? Do you, like, need a card or something?"

Noah shrugged, somewhat awkwardly leaned up against the car.

"Seems worth putting some time into."

"Mr. Winters know you, that's probably good enough. You could come on a Monday and see if its your thing, and at least get him to show you around. David probably could too, if you wanted to ask him." She could too, of course, but iot felt weird to offer and she had a vague sense that if he took her up on it, Madison might skin her alive. Something about cheerleaders.

"Just because he knows me doesn't mean he'll want me there," Noah said, frowning. "I'm not moping again, this is legit. My family, I get the impression they don't really get along well with a lot of the other, uh, people in the know. I don't know if Mr. Winters would want to deal with that, and I bet my granddad would kick my...be less than happy."

Lil considered, and nodded. "Well, I can ask him. I know he doesn't like to let books out of the collection, but he's not the only one around with resources. I know another lady in town who like... runs this weird lending chain. We can probably get stuff though her." As long as Lil wasn't planning on *buying* any more of them, Rowan had seemed amenable to the idea when they'd gone to her with help on the Winters' case. "If we do that, as long as we get them back it probably wont matter which of us has them."

"Cool. Yeah. I mean, whatever we can learn will help, right? Mr. Winters has saved our bacon before, but, like with this bit...we can't just leave stuff to the adults, and they don't seem like they're jumping to keep us informed."

Lil shrugged again, and was about to expound further on her opinions on adult supervision, when the bell rang.

"Shit." She frowned, slinging her bag over her shoulder. "Well - I'll let you know what I find out about stuff. I'll see you around." The last part was an imperative, and she backed it with another stern look before turning to head off to class.