[339] Steady on there girl

I bet I was too.

Haha, awww. Is Kat playing with Annie's hair, there?

I love the panel with the stars. Why isn't it Monday yet. ):

Oh, Kat.

Wonder what the stars signify? Given the cover and title, possibly someone came back from deadness and decided to stay?

Annie's remark is surprising, she is acting much like a regular girl of that age.

More likely it's the souls which are supposed to be guided to the afterlife, that are the ghosts. I think, traditionally ghosts are souls, who for some reason missed or refused to go to their afterlife.

It could be about Mort again?

I won't. And one thing's for sure -- whoever she falls for will be unworkable or inappropriate for some reason, but they'll still have a very hard time convincing her of that. Early maturity and an ease with adult subjects means that she'll probably find someone out of her age group, and possibly out of her plane of existence. But the flaw in her judgment will be understandable, almost excusable, especially in light of how poorly most of her classmates seem to measure up.

Alternately, an obvious candidate will appear. Either a heretofore-anonymous student will turn out to be much more "qualified", or someone new will come to the school. The trouble with an obviously exceptional student is that their dating "playing field" simply isn't very big. She could end up dating someone her age, who is smart and mature and supportive, but unless he's also facile with the supernatural (or blessed with some other highly unusual talent), I think the inequality would doom the relationship. So for the moment, let's assume that someone else exceptional appears to fill the role.

The thing is, that doesn't make the situation any better! It will be obvious that these two are well-matched and should give a relationship a try. Except that such predestination, by its very nature, hangs over the situation like a cloud! There's no need to attract, no threat of competition, none of the "plenty of fish" dynamic that traditionally informs human courtship. And what of emotional compatibility? Two smart, capable individuals aren't automatically a good match for each other any more than two average individuals chosen at random. Perhaps less so, because things get weird at that end of the bell curve.

There's a third alternative, of course, one upon which many observers have speculated and which I'm sure Reynardine would love to watch. Kat is obviously smart enough, and while she doesn't seem to have any supernatural abilities, she and Annie respect each other deeply. But I think that's what makes them such good friends, and I don't know that they'd ever see each other as more than that.

Oh, and one more factor to consider: Conventional wisdom holds that boys look for their mothers, girls look for their fathers. If Anthony was good enough for Surma, then someone similar might fit the bill for Antimony, right? Brilliant, emotionally detatched, selfish, impulsive. Probably off doing something absurdly important but couldn't be bothered to tell anyone about it. Just the kind of guy she needs...

*sigh*

Life will not be easy for a girl who lives in two worlds, has effectively no parents, and keeps a stuffed demon by her bed. Tom, thank you so much for inviting us all along on this wild ride.

With all the other crap she's going through, romance is possibly the last thing Annie needs right now.

I also suspect that, if/when Annie does start having romantic feelings, she's going to logically scrutinize them before she acts on them.


I thought the stars on the title page were stickers or a wall painting. So maybe the stars on this page are part of the flashback transition.