That's not fair on At Home

Iris Cobb

December 07, 2022 7:04 PM

That's not fair by Iris Cobb

"What do you mean you can't?" Iris almost shouted, but then stopped and took a step back as the ghost turned to look at her. She had never liked ghosts, they were just... bad. Unfortunately Sonora had a few of them floating around and she never seemed to be able to avoid them completely, despite how hard she tried. As such, her tolerance for them had grown, but to be here alone with one, to have it's full attention... she lost her nerve and backed down while she took a step back as well.

Ulrich's ghost peered over top of it's spectacles. As far as Billy and her had been able to find out, Ulrich had been the butler for the Cobbson family that had lived here quite a long time ago. He wouldn't say much more though. "You each had a task to complete," The ghost's voice did little to settle her nerves, but she was able to relax a bit when it turned back to it's perusal of the books on the library shelf before it. "I am actually quite surprised that Master William succeeded at his where you did not. I would have guess it the other way, nevertheless.. that is the way of things."

Doing her best to pull herself back together Iris responded, "Well, I had to use up all of my free time to make sure he did succeed. He wouldn't have otherwise and then I'd have to try and explain to everyone why Billy had suddenly turned into a..." she faltered for a moment, "a whatever abomination he would have become."

"You made a choice then," The ghost responded indifferently and without turning back to her. "And here we are at the consequences. There is no deadline on the tasks, but until they are done I cannot help you."

Iris fumed silently for a few moments, Ulrich was right, but still. All Billy needed to do was to turn himself into an animal, she on the other hand... "There's nothing else you can do to help me?"

"My hands are tied, as they say."

"That's not true," Iris pointed out sharply, "when we looked over that scroll with the instructions and saw things that we wouldn't have access to, you got them for us from here. You helped Billy along more than giving him a task and a bare minimum starting point."

"True." The ghost calmly responded, "Do you have any specific requests from your scroll? There might be something I can do." He turned to look at her inquiringly.

Iris' scroll was a list of names and in spite of her feelings for the ghost, she glowered at him in return. "I don't suppose you have a nice big tapestry somewhere around here with a big family tree on it, do you?"

"Not as such, no. That would hardly make your task a challenge, now would it?"

Iris had been a bit surprised to be given a scroll with her own name on it, and Billy's and Ma and Pa's. She knew where they went on the tree she was supposed to organize. Gramps and Gran were on there as well, but past that... she didn't know. Ma's notes didn't go back much farther and her meager attempts to research at school while keeping an eye on Billy hadn't gotten many results. She really should have gotten more help from Amethyst, but she wanted to do this on her own. Except Billy hadn't and now she was losing out on that one.

All she had to do was to connect the names properly. The problem was she hadn't been able to find a trace of most of them yet. Unfortunately she wasn't much of a bookworm, she needed an Aladren to help her. She groaned and slumped into a nearby chair. A small poof of dust rose from it. "So now Billy gets access to everything here and I get nothing yet?"

"Everything?" Ulrich looked surprised, "Merlin, no. He's not of age yet. Master William will need to wait until he returns here after his seventeenth birthday until he inherits his share." He then gave Iris a certain look, "I would suggest you complete your task before then."

Fantastic. Billy would turn Seventeen three days after going to school, fortunately he couldn't get back here until break. So, she had until then. Lovely. Iris unrolled her scroll which had been setting on the small table next to the chair, she read off a name at random. "Is there anything you can help me with Mary Ford?"

Ulrich turned quickly and stared at her for a moment. Iris tried to sink back into the seat under his gaze. "Do you like ghost stories Miss Iris?"

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