sylvia pak

Kai had never been one for birthdays (despite his families celebrations), yet it was still a strange feeling having it go by without even realising. Last year he’d known. The days hadn’t quite blurred into one just yet. But if Sylvia wasn’t here, visiting, it would’ve come and gone and he’d have no idea he’d crossed into the next decade. It sat uncomfortably, not because of age, or because of birthdays as a whole, but because it was a clear indicator how much he was missing, how much was passing him by. It meant Min’s birthday was soon. Christmas. But it also meant his release was that much closer. If they didn’t find something else to keep him for. So he mustered up a smile and the strength to humour his sister. “Left.”

Sylvia forced a theatric frown. “Bummer,” she said to lay on the lament. “I was hoping you’d pick Right. I wanted to keep Left for myself.” She bared both palms, revealing nothing but skin. Obviously she couldn’t bring real gifts past security. “JoyStix is coming out with a new gaming system next year, and I may or may not have an early access one on the way. Don’t worry, I won’t let it collect dust while you wait out the rest of your time. Because I’m such a good and caring and selfless sister, I’ll even play test it and make sure it works right for you.” 

Kai blinked at her, “The fuck are you on about?” But a moment later it clicked, no need for Sylvia to give an explanation. Of course. The way the ground was turning frosty in the mornings, the chill to the breeze, the nights coming earlier than they had been. He knew that meant winter was coming, but it was also the way the weather always was when he ticked over another year. “Birthday. Right.” What a way to call in a new decade. 

“You are so boring,” Sylvia accused. “Birthday,” she imitated his deeper voice. “Right. How about some enthusiasm!” She shoved her hands out, palms closed. “Pick a hand. And yeah, there is a right answer. So I want you to take this very seriously. Tap into that banshee intuition, or whatever.” It paid her bills, but she didn’t put much stock in it. 

When: November 11 2022, Visiting Hours (2pm) Where: Bloodhearth Penitentiary   Who: @sylviapak​

Kai Pak had turned thirty years old almost nine hours ago. Not that he’d know it. Every day was the same in prison. Alarms blared through and woke everyone up at six a.m, ready to get put into their gruelling work. He knew today was a Friday at least, given it was a visiting day. And he knew they were nearing the end of the year, the way the chill was in the air. But they had no idea of the date in there, days blending to months. But no, as he pulled himself out of bed that morning, nursing the pain that still plagued his side since an incident in the kitchens, he got on like it was any other day, to breakfast, to yard work, and now settling in at his designated window for visiting hours to wait for whoever came, none the wiser to the fact it had been his birthday the entire time. The prison certainly wasn’t going to organise a cake after all.

There would be no hats. No confetti, no cake, no noisemakers. No presents, definitely no ice cream, no alcohol (probably no alcohol? Maybe he’d been drinking the toilet bowl prison hooch this whole time, and she wouldn’t have blamed him for it if so). Anyway, maybe alcohol. None of the other good parts of a celebration though. Yet Sylvia was determined to make it special nonetheless. After all, it wasn’t every year you spent your birthday in prison. 

“Hiya, Old Man.” She greeted him with a smile. “Sorry for the lack of fanfare. I was going to sneak a I’m the birthday princess sash for you to wear in through a hollowed out bible, but Granny said no one needs the encouragement to make you their bitch, and after some light consideration I agreed.”

Elisa listened, fascinated. She had known banshees, of course, if only because they shared their territory with the sirens of the sea. Even when you hung out in water all the time, it wasn’t hard to come across your land neighbors as you grew up. Even as such, Elisa didn’t really know banshees personally. Her mother had always been far more superstitious and cautioned against ever being too close to them lest they start wailing. 

However, Sylvia felt like exactly the opposite. Just another resident of this island, with her own story to tell. Besides, Elisa could understand being hesitant about being open and being seen as odd or weird. Her own fascination with the morbid and macabre could often turn others off, or otherwise cause them to see her through a suspicious lens. 

“Ohmygod, no, I don’t think that’s weird at all,” she said. “I actually used to sometimes go, when I first started coming onto land more, just because I thought it was so creepy. And I used to play this game where I’d go to the different graves and try to put a story to the name and the person. Pick up little hints of who they might have been based on the sort of headstone they had, the quote engraved on it, the kind of life they might have led. Was someone still bringing them flowers? Were they buried alone? Or did they have other family members nearby? How long did they live? Things like that,” said Elisa. 

She nodded eagerly. “I think that sounds fantastic.” Elisa had never thought she would get so big or even recognized as to do a collaboration with anyone. It was exciting and she was buzzing so much she felt tipsy despite not having had a drop of anything to make her feel that way. “This is going to be so good, I can feel it.” 

Elisa’s admission brought them closer together, in Sylvia’s eyes. She could see that she didn’t need to worry about being a little odd around her, because Elisa was happy to share her own oddities as well. It would make this whole process (and she wouldn’t count her eggs before they hatched, but this whole budding friendship, too) a much more enjoyable experience. 

The ideas already whirred around inside Sylvia’s mind. She couldn’t wait to get them down and in some semblance of order to share with Elisa later, just as she couldn’t wait to see what her co-host had in store for her. Together they would make a Halloween special that sufficiently creeped the listeners. So, it had paid to branch out. If not in viewership (yet), then at least in satisfaction. She finally felt excited about the content her name would be on. Now, they just had to make it a reality. 

Thank you was all the reply she had in her, worry only subsided the smallest amount as she settled down for the night, hoping the latest season of The Bachelor would be a distraction (it wasn’t, the show was really going down the toilet). 

The feeling was like when the ocean receded before an even larger wave, because the relief was short lived when she woke up the next morning to another message from Sylvia that she’d had no luck, that she hadn’t found him. She sunk back onto her bed, phone in hand. She was due at the hospital in an hour, but all she could think was something was terribly wrong. 

What was she supposed to do now?

“Oh my god, no, that sounds brilliant! I think being too Mary Shelley is actually the perfect vibe,” said Elisa. “And also, I would never consider that to be a bad thing, either.” How anyone could consider that to be a negative especially around Halloween time was beyond her. “You know, There is one in Wailing Waters that would be perfect, too, a cemetery. It’s near the water, too, so that means a nice and creepy breeze that blows through it. And it’s got one of those statues dedicated to those who were lost on the shores of Wailing Waters, and if we set up there, that might actually be a really great place to record and film. Pretty sure people also tell stories about how the gaze of the statue follows those around. I’ll have to do some more research, but it’s got a good vibe.” 

Sylvia was sold, and she said as much. “Uhm, yes!” she enthused. “That’s totally perfect.” 

For much of her life, Sylvia hadn’t bothered making friends. She had her brother, she had her childhood friends from the banshee side of Wailing Waters, she had Lixin’s friends which she counted as her own and she had her followers. Now, at twenty-seven, away from her hometown and her brother in the penitentiary, she was starting to feel the loneliness of a life like that. She felt it in her quiet apartment, and in her solo dates content mining around the island. This collaborating had been her first step out of that comfort zone, but she wanted to push herself more. 

She knew the painful truth that to make friends you had to first be a friend, which meant being open and honest. Despite the guise of those very skills on her social media, it didn’t come naturally to her in the real world. She pushed herself now to say more. Divulge something about herself that made her real. 

“I know exactly the one you mean. I’m only a half-banshee and—oh my god I was such a weird kid—I used to go hangout there hoping it would, like, spur my powers on or something.” Sylvia paused, laughing at herself. “It didn’t exactly work, which is probably for the best, but yeah. I’m familiar with the statue, and I think it’s really going to set the scene for us. Brilliant!” Sylvia grinned, wide and amicable. 

“I can set up a storyboard online for us to start fleshing out which stories we want to go with. I don’t want to get in the way of your research process or anything, but I think it’s good to know what angles we’re each coming from to make it really difficult to discern what’s real and what’s fiction for the audience. And maybe we can meet again in a week or two to run through a script draft?”

That would be great she was quick to reply. If you could let me know too? She sat with those, the anxiety twisting in her gut. It hadn’t been the reassurance she’d been hoping for, only doing more to cement the worry that something was wrong. She waited a moment before sending another message.

I know this might seem weird, or super creepy of me, but we talk almost every day and it’s been a week. It just seems unlike him to disappear like this. At this point she didn’t really mind coming off as some weird stalker girl, if it meant everything was okay.

It wasn’t always an exact science, discerning whether or not someone online had ill or good intentions, but Sylvia liked to think that if she didn’t have at least some skill in it she wouldn’t have the success she did in the online sphere. Obsidian City could be a place of danger and deceit, but in her heart she felt her suspicion melt at the other girl’s earnestness. 

Unlocking her phone Sylvia pulled up her SnapMaps just to double check. Lixin—if he even had it enabled—wasn’t one of the many map dots of her friends that peppered the island. She set the phone down again, face up in case he called back. 

I’ll head over soon and let you know ASAP. It’s probably nothing, she added more for herself than Birdie, but it’s nice to know Lixin has people willing to look out for him either way. Thanks for reaching out 🖤

Sylvia stared blankly at the Guild of Ghouls load screen. The chatbox on the side was already filling up with followers, eager for the stream she was late to. Her cursor hovered over the LOAD button, but at the last second she shot off a message in chat instead. “Having technical difficulties 🤬 So sorry but I have to cancel today’s stream. See you all for the next one!!!” 

Maybe she had been a neglectful friend, putting her job before her relationships, but she didn’t have to be. Not anymore. Well, not if she could remember where he lived anyway. Ugh.

Elisa nodded in agreement. “Which is also a great way to pull new people in, because people seek that content out during that time of month, and then if they like it enough, they stick around all year,” she said. Elisa was still new to the ide of promoting her content and getting it out there, but she did know that much. 

Her eyes widened at the idea of, not just a crossover but adding a poll and the idea of which stories were real versus which one were fiction. “Oh my god, I love that,” said Elisa. “It could be like a fun game. And you can have a couple of stories you tell and I can have a couple of stories and that way we each have a hand in telling our respective stories.” Elisa suddenly took out her phone, unlocking it so she could begin taking notes. “This is all so genius. Can’t believe I never thought of doing something like this before.” 

Sylvia’s grin was wide with enthusiasm, all pretense of nerves forgotten, pushed aside to make room for the excitement of creativity she hadn’t felt about her show in a while. She picked at one of the many pastries she’d ordered for the both of them when she first arrived, and pushed the plate towards Elisa to invite her to do the same. 

“I have a pretty nice recording setup in my apartment, but it’s a little...” Sylvia searched for the word, “modern? LED lights, video game paraphernalia, you know the type. So I was thinking something a little more sinister. It might be a pain to move the equipment, but what if we scouted a location that looked and sounded the part? Is a graveyard too Mary Shelley?” She laughed. 

Birdie wasn’t sure how to reply. Really, she’d gone weeks without seeing him before, as was the nature of hospitals, the 24/7 rosters. But ever since their date they’d texted every day, most of the day really, whenever they both got the chance. Then suddenly there was silence. I haven’t heard from him in –she paused typing, flipping open to her where they’d been texting – a week. I just wanted to check he was okay. It was very uncharacteristic of him. She didn’t think he’d be the type to just up and ghost. She’d even asked some other doctors if he was sick, only to be told to mind her own business.

It was hard to riddle out whether Sylvia was worried for the trouble Lixin might be in, or she was worried about the possibility this girl in her DMs was just a bit of a stalker. She picked up the phone beside her and dialed out to Lixin, holding her breath without really meaning to as the other line rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. 

I can stop by his place and check in? she typed back. For a moment she considered calling one of his siblings, but Sylvia thought the Zhou family best left out of it until she was certain there was actually something worth worrying about. They could be... overbearing, and controlling. At least, that was the impression she’d gotten from them. Best not to incite panic. 

Only after she sent the message did she remember to hope she had his address saved somewhere. She’d never riddle it out otherwise.

Birdie knew that if Sylvia was sitting on the message page like she was, she would see the bubbles popping up, disappearing, popping up again. At first she wrote We’re da which she quickly deleted. Then she wrote, We’re friends, which didn’t feel right either. Finally she settled on We work at the hospital together. My name’s Birdie. Perhaps, she hoped, he’d mentioned her. She’d mentioned him to her friends after all.

She barely let herself think though, before sending a follow up message. I’m worried about him She probably shouldn’t have sent that.

Though the name might have been easily enough inferred from the screenname, Sylvia appreciated the introduction nonetheless, and a few moments scrolling down the other woman’s page corroborated the story that she did indeed work at the hospital where Lixin spent most of his time. At least, Sylvia assumed that was where he spent most of his time. Oldest friend or not she had slacked in her own frindly duties of late.

I haven’t seen him in a few weeks. Sylvia hated having to admit that. Was he supposed to be somewhere? While it may have been commonplace for her to go weeks or even months without checking in with him one on one, she knew it wasn’t like him to skip work or obligation. Unless he’d finally taken her half-hearted suggestion at the bathhouse to fuck it all and do something for himself. Somehow, she doubted that. A knot tightened in her stomach. She turned off the webcam so she wouldn’t have to see her concern reflected back at her.

When: 21st September 2022 Where: In the DMz Who: @sylviapak

Birdie was sitting on her couch, still in her pyjamas at 4pm thanks to an upcoming night shift. Her phone was in her hand, the other hand currently at her mouth, her childhood habit of nervously chewing at her nails seemingly returned. She’d found the account easily, in the manner any girl bordering on millennial and gen z could, and had been sitting with the message page open for the past thirty-seven minutes. She’d written, deleted, rewritten, and deleted again multiple times. Now the words read;

Hey, you don’t know me, and this might seem super weird, but have you heard from Lixin lately?

They sounded so lame, and she worried she would come across as some absolute pyscho on the chance that they were on opposite schedules and he had simply decided to not reply to her. But something in her gut told her that wasn’t the case. He wasn’t like that. Finally, not without squeezing her eyes shut first, she hit send. She only hoped she got a reply.

Sylvia was booting up the Guild of Ghouls load screen when the corner of her desktop lit up with a notification. The ping of them came so frequently she hardly reacted at all anymore, but be it a stroke of luck or banshee’s intuition, something said to Sylvia she should click into it before starting her game and going live. 

She watched herself on camera pull the over-ear headphones down around her neck, and moved the mouse from where it had hovered over the Go Live button to instead click into her DMs. 

She didn’t recognize the name there, and frowned as she deliberated how forthcoming to be about any information she had on her friend. She wouldn’t want him spilling her information to just anyone. 

How do you know Lixin? she typed quickly into the textbar. She stared at the screen as if it might make a response come quicker.  

There was a strange disconnect between seeing the bird completely covered by a sheet and knowing it was better like that. It looked and felt cruel, but Orlaith knew rationally it was the kindest way to get the bird to safety. She remained quiet as she retraced her steps, feet on tiptoes, voice a low whisper when she spoke. Even with a sheet over its head, any loud noises would startle the bird, especially when it was unable to see. 

“I wonder why it flew in in the first place,” Orlaith said, as she pushed the bathroom door open. “And I hope it hasn’t hurt itself flapping about all over the place in here.” There were plenty of windows to fly into if you were a bird without a concept of glass. If they set the thing free and it was hurt, they would be killing it. She frowned. “You don’t reckon we should check it’s okay before we let it loose?” 

“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” Sylvia admitted, because she’d been thinking the same thing but after all the fuss of catching the bird it seemed like too much to also play at veterinarian. What she wanted was to be done with it, to open the window and let the bird fly off and never think about it again. 

Yet they reached the window and Sylvia knew what she wanted to do and what she was going to do were not the same thing. “How will we know if it’s hurt or just afraid?” Mostly, this was rhethorical. She didn’t expect Orliath to know; her medical training was on the human form. 

Sylvia positioned herself near the window, and prepared to unsheathe the bird. With a foot she kicked out and closed the bathroom door behind them. At least if it started to fly around in here, the bird would be much easier to catch again. Yet when she pulled the blanket back, the bird just stared up at her with inky black eyes. She thought, they look like the nubs on a blackberry. 

And then it started to flap its wings and Sylvia lost her grip. Sylvia shrieked. The sheet fell to the floor, the bird took to the ceiling and then circled the light, shat once more for good measure in the bathtub and finally hopped up on the windowsill. “Neptune’s nuts, it certainly looks fine.” 

The bird stood on one foot then the other, stretched its wings and squawked indignantly in both girls’ faces, but largely ignored the window it was so near. 

“Well, I did spend a lot of my time in the water,” smiled Elisa with a nod. “Nowadays I split my time between land and water, but honestly yeah.” Elisa wasn’t even sure she could name anyone she had met in Wailing Waters in recent years one way or another. “It’s just so much easier to be online. And so much more fun.” 

Elisa made herself comfortable. She looked at Sylvia as she went on. She could tell the idea was still in its infancy, at least from Sylvia’s end, but that only excited her. It meant they could work together to develop something really good together. Elisa also had never done anything like this. She still often felt like she was finding her own brand, mostly just working to remind herself that she did this because she enjoyed it and it allowed her to connect with others who enjoyed those same mysteries as well. 

“And true crime and ghost stories overlap all the time,” she said as she let her fingers interlock as if to illustrate that idea. For some reason, true crime and ghostly goings-on were intrinsically linked, despite one implying that it had a basis in physical and factual evidence and the other relying on something that was less tangible. And yet, there were so many stories and theories when it came to true crime that featured ghostly apparitions. 

“You know, this is perfect, too, we could do something for Halloween,” said Elisa, her brain already on overdrive. “All the ghost ships and stories we hear out in Wailing Waters, and how they’re still out there floating with their missing but ghostly crew. Or people who have been allegedly murdered by ghosts or gone missing because of them.” 

Duh, Sylvia, she thought, she just said half her house is underwater. Of course they hadn’t met. Friendly as the banshees and sirens were, without ethereum they each had their own distinct needs that kept them apart despite the shared territory. 

Elisa’s enthusiasm for the idea restored Sylvia’s own confidence in it. Had it been Lixin, or her brother, across from her today Sylvia would have had no trouble believing in its potential, insisting on it even. But away from her screen and her closest, longest relationships she wasn’t always the confident girl she seemed. Strangers, face to face anyway, put her on edge. She always walked away feeling she’d said the wrong thing. 

But Elisa seemed kind, and in some ways Sylvia did feel she knew her from listening to her stories every month. It helped ease her. “Halloween is a great idea. Even the people who don’t usually show an interest in those things are hungry for it then.” She nodded, encouragingly. “An audience also can’t resist a poll.” At this, she laughed. “At least, I know I can’t resist a poll. What if we presented a few spooky tales, and our little detectives can try their own hand at riddling out which are real supernatural crime, and which are made up ghost stories?” It sounded like Elisa already knew of a few crimes that could fit the supernatural bill. 

Elisa had only been to any part of St. Vlad’s a handful of times, mostly to the fashion district because, even if she couldn’t afford half the high priced items, anyway, she could still appreciate a good window browsing experience.

She perked up as she spotted the girl she was meeting, waving to her as she walked forward. “I did, actually. I mean, I did get lost at some point, but someone was able to point me in the right direction and so it wasn’t that bad. Besides, I find getting lost helps me get to know a place better.” Elisa had gotten lost in plenty other places in the island and could not navigate them effortlessly.

“Oh! I grew up there, too. Well, I still live there actually,” she said. “Mostly lived in the water, though. Now, I have a small little cottage that juts out over the water so I can access both land and water easily. I have a hatch in one part that exits out into the water and a front door, of course. Anyway–” She waved her hand. Sylvia hadn’t asked. “I’m so excited about this. I’ve been thinking about it ever since you proposed this, like, crossover idea.”

“I’m always getting lost,” Sylvia admitted, laughing. “Usually because I’m on my phone and miss my train stop.” It was difficult to go from a cottage out in Wailing Waters, which she knew intimately, to the city she’d taken little interest in as a girl. She still wasn’t sure it was the right decision, and questioned it even more as a jolt of something akin to jealousy surprised her when Elisa mentioned her own ties to the territory. 

“I can’t believe we didn’t cross paths,” she said, and then immediately took it back. “Well, maybe I can.” She held up her phone and shook it. “Chronically online.”

“Because it’s your stuff and that’s how you make a new place feel like home,” Orlaith ventured. That’s certainly how she’d felt when she’d moved out and had been trying to make the crappy apartment in Treaty Towers feel more homey. The more stuff from home she unpacked, the more if did. “Of course, you’d actually need to unpack for it to work.” She surveyed the calamity of boxes with a grin and a raised brow. “How long have you lived here now, Sylvia?” 

Orlaith navigated around the boxes carefully, umbrella still held tactically over her head, just in case the bird left the comfort of the kitchen. “That’ll work just fine and I can’t imagine your brother would get under that sheet anymore, unless he stopped growing as a kid. Anyway, worst comes to worst we’ll chuck it in the wash and he never has to know it was used in a bird rescue. Or is it an apartment rescue?” It was hard to know what was taking more of a hit, the bird or the apartment. 

“So we just— sneak in, hopefully without disturbing the bird, and chuck the sheet over its head, which I know sounds mean, but it’s calming for them, if I recall correctly. It should stay still enough once it can’t see that we can grab it and help it out.” They could decide who did the grabbing later. 

“Not that long!” Sylvia insisted, and she didn’t mean it to be a lie but as she thought back on the days that passed into weeks into months she was forced to confront the mistruth. “I’ll do it tomorrow,” she amended. And then, to stress it both to herself and to Orlaith, insisted: “Seriously.”

Sylvia put a hand to the rim of her baseball cap and adjusted the thing as if it were armor for battle; in many ways it was. She braced herself in the hallway before taking the final plunge through the relative darkness into the harsh light of the kitchen. 

The bird, no longer flapping like mad, huddled into itself in the corner near the would-be-snack cupboard (if Sylvia ever stopped ordering takeaways and went to the damn market like she kept planning to do). “Shh,” Sylvia hushed, though even she wasn’t sure if it was meant to quiet her and Orlaith’s steps, or to comfort the poor creature that she could now see was no hell-bent nuisance but just a hurt creature in a strange place. There was something familiar in that notion, she felt her shoulders fall at ease. 

And then she threw the blanket over its head and hoped Orliath was right, and it would be a comfort to the bird. Sylvia thought it was likely true; she often felt better and comforted by pulling the covers over her head, too. 

“I think I’ve got it,” she said, preparing to squat and scoop the swaddled bird into her arms. “Can you go ahead and get the window unlatched? I’ll follow behind.” Against her chest she could feel the bird’s staccato heartbeat racing her own as she stood to follow.

Sylvia was already gone, umbrella shoved into her hand, before she could even open her mouth to say don’t worry. There was no use hovering in the hallway once she had the umbrella to protect her, but Orlaith wasn’t exactly keen to be inside an apartment with a terrified bird. Once had been enough frankly. But there wasn’t a lot she could offer in the way of help from the hallway, so in she stepped. 

She smelt the poop before she saw it, dodging only at the last minute to avoid stepping in a rather large splatter on the way to the kitchen. The windows that didn’t open were a blow. A frightened bird wouldn’t be herded very easily. “Let’s scratch trying to get it to fly out on its own then. How likely is it we can get it to go down to your bathroom?” Not very, Orlaith reckoned. “Do you have a blanket you don’t care about, or an old sheet?” Something to throw over the bird when it was still. She’d read that birds were calming when they couldn’t see.

“Uhh—” Sylvia stood back and surveyed the room around them. Anything in the computer’s camera range had been arranged and set up to perfection, but much of the apartment remained confined to moving boxes she just hadn’t gotten around to yet between streaming and events, watching Min-Ji and prison visitations. “There’s a good chance one of these boxes is full of blankets.” She wasted little time in splitting the nearest one open with a kitchen knife. VHS tapes. Great. 

The next, equally as unhelpful, a collection of fast food toys. “Why did I bring any of this junk with me?” she wondered aloud. 

“Third times the charm?” Her words were hopeful, and her efforts bore fruit. “Ah-ha! Not exactly what I was looking for,” it was a box of Halloween costumes, “but I’m sure my brother won’t mind if his no-effort-ghost from, like, 2004 gets the chance at a second life.” She held up a white sheet, mostly intact apart from the frayed bottom edges and eye holes.

For someone who really, really loved to sleep, Orlaith could reliably be counted on to be awake. It came with the territory. No wonder days off were largely spent in bed and then on her sofa with plenty of snacks. No wonder she felt so tired - a deep long built up tiredness, not because she’d come here at one in the morning instead of going to bed - that she hadn’t even considered a bird meant bird poop. Her eyes flicked uneasily to Sylvia’s hair and then back to her face. “Oh Christ.” This she exclaimed as she shoved her hair up into a messy ponytail, glad for the scrunchie that had been on her wrist. She thought bleakly of the hooded all in one rain suit she’d bought a couple of years ago for when the rains came and she still wanted to work, a stupid purchase for someone who didn’t like coats. The labels were still on it, she thought. Finally it might have come in useful, if she hadn’t been so stupid with tiredness she hadn’t thought about the mess she was sure to encounter. 

Anyway, no good crying over spilt poop now. “This happened to me once when I was a kid. Our cat at the time,” - so long ago Orlaith had to think for a moment to remember which cat it had been, “Patrick— he brought in a live blackbird. Woke up to find it in my room. I was seven. It was terrible. The good news is birds usually want to get back outside. Have you got a spare one of those?” She pointed to the umbrella. 

Sadly, Sylvia shook her head no. “You take this one,” she didn’t wait for Orlaith to possibly decline, and shoved it into her hand. Sylvia then darted across the completely wrecked apartment (just an hour before it had been picture perfect, go figure) to a box in the corner. “But I do have hats!” she announced, waving a white baseball cap like a flag. It said something stupid on it. A mashup of two men’s names with a lazily drawn stick figure logo. Perfect for bird catching. She slid if over her hair, wincing as a curler caught in it. Ow. 

“I think he’s in the kitchen now,” Sylvia groaned, waving Orlaith the way. She snuck along. “But the closest window that actually opens,” -like many things in Sylvia’s apartment, the windows looked lovely but were functionless and broken-, “is in the bathroom.” Down the hall.