warm front

[cumulonimbus]

After Mathilde has left (and Stormy has her schedule for the next few days all written down), Stormy goes aprowl through the house again to make sure she's clear on the layout and see if anybody else wants to talk to her while she is still novel.

Comments

[calendarofcrime]

"He is in the garden," she says.

[cumulonimbus]

"Are you just guessing?"

[calendarofcrime]

She shakes her head. "I can hear him there."

[cumulonimbus]

Stormy cocks her head and listens.

[calendarofcrime]

Rahi stays perfectly still.

If Stormy listens very, very closely, she might hear a faint sound that could conceivably be plants rustling.

[cumulonimbus]

"I can hear leaves maybe? But it could just be the wind, or somebody else besides Rook," she says.

[calendarofcrime]

"That is the sound of Rook being in the garden. If he was not there, it would sound a little different."

[cumulonimbus]

Stormy considers this. "You must have much better ears than me if you can really do that," she says.

[calendarofcrime]

"I seem to have much better ears than most people."

[cumulonimbus]

"Magic-better?" wonders Stormy.

[calendarofcrime]

"I don't know if it's magic. I don't know if it is even my ears. I think part of it is that I pay attention differently," she says. "And remember the details just so."

[cumulonimbus]

"You could tell if it's your ears by covering your ears," suggests Stormy.

[calendarofcrime]

"I mean I don't know if it is that I hear things better," she says. "Or if I hear things the same but notice them differently."

[cumulonimbus]

"Oh. I guess that you could check by having somebody make a noise the same way at a bunch of different distances and see if you could still tell when they were doing it from farther away than somebody else?"

[calendarofcrime]

"That might work," she says. "It would need to be somewhere that was very quiet otherwise."

[cumulonimbus]

"Yeah. I don't know where would be good."

[calendarofcrime]

"I don't know if there is anywhere big enough and quiet enough to work."

[cumulonimbus]

"Maybe not."

[calendarofcrime]

"And it still might look the same whether I am hearing better or paying better attention. Oh, he's gone inside now."

[cumulonimbus]

"How are you talking to me and listening to tiny things like that all at once?"

[calendarofcrime]

"I don't know. It sort of confuses me that other people can't."

[cumulonimbus]

"I guess I pay attention to a lot of different things when I'm up being the sky," muses Stormy. "But that's different."

[calendarofcrime]

"Is it? What is the difference?"

[cumulonimbus]

"Well, for one thing I stop paying attention to my body. And it's like I am the sky while I'm doing it so it's more like noticing I'm - hungry and tired at the same time, than like listening to two different sounds, because it's all happening in the sky I'm being."

[calendarofcrime]

"Oh," she says. "I don't think that's the same as what I do."