School is back in session in January, after New Year's. (The twins set off small fireworks in the driveway - well, Andi does. Robin is invited to this event; Trouble is not, it somehow does not seem wise.)
Now it is the first weekend after the resumption of school.
Robin's supposed to be over any minute for practice for Nameless Band Which Kind Of Needs A Third Person But Bella Doesn't Want To. Andi taps out beats on her drums. Taptaptap. Taptaptap-kish. Taptaptap. Taptaptapkish.
"Yes." Bella lets him have a good long stare at the alien, then tucks it between the eight-legged bird and the fairy. "Do you want me to reconstruct the reasoning that led to 'aliens' and whatnot?"
Bella reconstructs said reasoning. "Other options," she concludes, "are not off the table, but alien seems most likely."
"So this could be a coincidence, but does this look to the rest of you like the Sharing might be alien-oriented in some way?"
"For whatever reason, the Sharing Aliens aren't public and may have pod-person capabilities, I would be very gratified if from this point on none of us made a move without checking in with at least one other of us."
"It's a movie reference, but the general idea is that they can convincingly replace - or maybe possess or mind-control or something - people. Such as possibly Charlie."
"Mind control." He shivers. "Second thought, maybe I won't go. No matter how much I wanna give that alien a hug."
"I doubt they can do it indiscriminately. And this is if they can do it at all, which is not guaranteed - it just explains Charlie way too neatly. They're probably limited in resources, or maybe range-limited so they have to balance inconspicuousness with collecting people to - pod. Which would be a damn good reason to have a The Sharing, wouldn't it."
"The Sharing could also just be an alien-allied cult, we can't lean on any of these guesses," says Bella, scribbling furiously. "Or the owner of this particular bookstore could be connected to both things independently - or could be an innocent, albeit Sharing-affiliated, dupe, whose store is being used unbeknownst - we'd need more data to know. Besides, Ethan, your parents are acting the same, right?"