It's Ms. Smith

“You are overbearing and you do love one child more than the others.” Ruby repeated back the words that Alice said as if she had said them herself. “To be completely honest with you, overbearing is a compliment. You actually care and theirs plenty of mothers who don’t. In terms of loving Betty more… so do I.”

As disconcertingly sparing as her schooling had become, in the wake of Thistle House’s fraudulent haunting, Cheryl had heard whispers amongst the chaos ———- slivers of her classmates’ day to day lives, rumours and harmless, tiresome chitchat, so disparate from the horrors still thriving at home under Nana Rose’s nose, regardless of Julian’s inability to corral mischief and cause harm on his own. Murmurs, exchanged between La Bonne Nuit’s resident MC and Nancy Drew-esque Betty Cooper in the solitude of the student lounge, unaware of her ghost-like presence there.

“ I overheard a little birdie named Kevin Keller squawking about my dearest cousin’s half-brother, ” Cheryl supplied, and toyed with the end of her paper straw; Pursed her matte red lips with quiet, dwindling besetment, in acknowledgment of Alice’s brazenness. “ And as Betty’s flesh and blood ——- nay, a fellow survivor of Edgar Evernever’s innards foundry, I deserved to know the score. ”  

The sad part was that she did feel for the woman before her even if Alice might never admit that out loud. Likewise she never imagined she’d hear anything but snark or sass in return. It was lucky that was the only language she grew up fluent in. “Of course.” It really didn’t surprise her that the former sheriff’s son would be the voice behind the information from The Farm.