How Green Becomes Wood

Dark watched Alec's plate carefully and was satisfied to see there was some improvement in his appetite. It was comforting. He brought dinner up to Daizi after he made sure their children had all of their food.

After dinner, Ivy was getting fussy and restless, which was unlike her, and it didn't take long for Dark to recognized she desperately missed her Mama, and understood the least why Mama wasn't playing and singing to her like she always did. It was too much to take, and missing her too, Daizi said she had sat with her boys, she should sit with her girl too, and they spent their evening together and by the time Dark came back in to check in, Ivy was fast asleep in her mother's arms.

Satisfied, Dark went downstairs to check if the twins or Zeinab needed anything. There had never come a moment where he didn't pull his weight as a father, but now he was trying extra hard to fill in for his wife, so she wouldn't have to worry.

Thursday ended quietly enough with the twins finishing up their homework and then taking themselves off to bed. They did have a brief argument over the new oven mitts as Xander insisted they were not allowed on his side of the room. They settled down quickly enough with Alec putting the mitts away one his side - cramming them into a drawer as hard as possible.

The next day went by smoothly. Not much happened at school, and Xander had a conversation with Milo about pictures and even managed to set a time for him to come over for haunted pictures. Their original agreement was to use small white things or dolls and similar to create the fake ghosts, but at the end of the lunch hour, Xander texted his mother with a specific request. He hoped she'd be as exited about the idea as he thought she would be. Alec spent most of his hour with Becky and Sloan talking and laughing.

After school, Alec went to work, and so did Xander. Thankfully, things went well once more. Nothing fell, nothing broke, no one hurt themselves, and there weren't even any unreasonable customers. Xander shared a progress picture with the client who'd commissioned the wallet, and they were excited, slight imperfections and all. By the time the twins turned in to bed after homework and dinner, they realized something. That made two days in a row where nothing bad had happened! Hopefully, they weren't pushing their luck.

When Daizi received the text, a bright smile crossed her face and she felt real excitement for the first time since Sunday. Immediately she texted back that she was more than willing to help and got out of bed to tell Dark all about it. Of course, he too immediately found delight in the idea.

Come Saturday morning, Daizi was back to being up and about, still weary but no longer locking herself away in general seclusion, which helped Ivy immensely. Anyway, it was the end of the second week, which meant Zeinab was preparing to move out of the Necropolis and return the twins their bedroom. She wasn't flying back to Egypt just yet, although many of her relatives already had, because she wanted to be there for the vow renewal, but now she was going to be settled into a nice, expensive, hotel room which would take care of her for the rest of her time there. Unfortunately, most of the aunts couldn't stay much longer, although Neha had decided she'd make her niece one more batch of soup before it was time for her to go home. Marwan was rather distraught at not being able to stay longer--he desperately wanted to go to the renewal--but he and his family were going to go with Daizi to the museum on Sunday before finally flying back home to Egypt to at least enjoy that experience.

Milo arrived to the Necropolis excited but nervous, this was something he had been wanting to try for a long time, but he wasn't sure if it'd turn out. As he was allowed inside and thanking Dark and Daizi for accommodating this, he was trying to work up the courage to ask if he could come back when it was dark out so they could do some outdoors as well, but he didn't know if he'd find the strength.

Once Milo was in the door and properly greeted, Alec came to show him a selection of "ghosts" of various sizes that he'd cobbled together for fun. Xander waited until after they'd taken a few pictures and Milo was fully committed to his camera before slipping away long enough to whisper to his mother that they were ready to surprise Milo with a "real" ghost. Alec had even picked out a few witchy costumes for her so she could pose as both a witch (mostly herself) and as a ghost if Milo wanted. Both were looking forward to surprising him, but especially Xander.

Milo had managed to rent stand lights and a tripod from the blackroom for this and, after having gone through walks through the house, decided the dining room, the library, and the front hall were probably the spookiest places to shoot.

First he shut all of the curtains to block out unwanted light and obscure the fact the pictures were taken in morning. Dark, who was skulking around, intensely interested, offered to light candles, and Milo took him up on this offer readily. First he took a few long-exposure shots of his chosen rooms without using any of the fake ghosts, saying he wanted to try the light-leak technique, and on some of these he also used a flashbulb to light specific areas to test how those pictures would turn out.

When it came to the fake ghosts, he asked for help setting them up and then lit them from behind and from the side so the white fabric glowed.

"It'd be better if they had movment," Milo complained as he set up the long-exposure shot, "but I think I'm already just barely not including the lights, if I had someone to wiggle them, I'd definitely catch them, and I didn't think about buying fishing line."

"We might have some string somewhere that might work," Alec said. "I can go look for it."

"Or you could ask a real ghost to pose for you," Xander suggested, giving Daizi a very light nudge on the arm with his elbow.

When Milo turned around to see what Xander meant, he saw Daizi and grinned awkwardly, "that's cool, yeah, that'd work, I mean, if you're okay with it, Mrs., um, Doctor---"

"I'd be glad to help you, just tell me where you want me, okay?" Daizi replied warmly, absolutely delighted to be fully dressed like a ghost.

"Do you, um, have a shawl or white fabric or something you can use to sort of wave around?"

Alec came into view and held up his arms. "Which one do you prefer?" He had multiple of Daizi's shawls and silks draped carefully over both arms so he looked a little like a living display rack. "There's whitest-white here near my elbow, and a more creamy white on my right wrist. Or there's a silvery grey on my shoulder."

Xander plucked the whitest white shawl from Alec's arm. "How about this one? It reflects the most."

"Yeah, that one is for the best," Milo agreed, handing it to Daizi, "If, um, could you just drape it and wave slowly. Don't flap it. I'm going to do a long exposure, and halfway through I'll ask you to step out so the rest of the exposure will get the background without you."

"Why does she need to wave it?" Alec asked curiously as Xander guided Daizi into the shot where Milo needed.

"Because with the lights and the long exposure, in the finished product, you won't see the fabric, you'll just be left with a sort of hazy glow. Be still for the first part, okay, then I'll tell you when to start moving, okay?" Milo asked, getting behind his camera and adjusting it where he wanted it before going over to Daizi and adjusting one of the lights so it back lit her a bit more to his liking.

Then, he went behind his camera, began the long exposure, and after a few moments told her to start moving. She did so, deciding to hold a mostly neutral expression rather than intentionally trying to "look creepy." While she did this, Milo used the flash bulb to add the extra lighting effect before telling her to exit the frame and she quickly hurried over.

"Cool," Milo replied, an awkward but genuine grin on his face as he looked down at his camera, "Thank you. If, um, if you're not busy, if we could take a few more? So I know we got it? Or, I mean, I've never done this before, so we've got the best chance at getting it?"

"This is a lot of fun for me, I'd be glad to do it more, and in the other rooms you talked about shooting in, if you'd like," Daizi replied.

"Let's get shooting!"Alec cried out excitedly. "Say, Milo, what if we made her look like a witch with little ghosts around her? I found some string and a stick so we could move at least one of them. Oh! What about a ghost dog? Right, Enkidu? You'd make a great ghost!"

"I don't think Enkidu could hold still that long," Xander replied.

"Fair," Alec admitted. He glanced at Milo with a smile. "This is so cool! Okay, I'll stop tossing out suggestions. Sorry. I'm excited."

"I have a suggestion," Xander commented. "What about outside after dark?"

"There's, um, this photo trend where you cut out eye and snout holes on a white sheet and drape it over the dog," Milo said while Daizi got back into position, "I don't think I could fake ghost pictures with Enkidu, but if you did something like that with him, it'd be cute. Or you could do it with Ivy. Or both. For this, though," He told Daizi to start waving the shawl, "...outside at night would be really cool. In the garden. But, I mean, I don't want to take up too much of your time."

"I do not mind if you are here in the evening for this," Dark said, leaning against the backwall and watching his wife be a ghost with the sort of love only an extremely goth man could have for his wife.

"Do you, um, know the--the Haunted Mansion ride? At Disney?" Milo asked, after calling Daizi back over.

"Vaguely?" Xander replied, following Milo and trying to help however he could. "I think I saw the older movie. I mean, they're both old movies now, but the older old one. Why?"

"I was just thinking," Milo said as he continued to work, clearly absolutely delighted to get to do this, "The Ballroom scene, you know?"

"Is that the bit where there's a bunch of dancing surrounding the doom buggy thing?" Xander asked, digging through dusty memory to find that particular scene.

"I don't remember a doom buggy," Milo replied, confused, "No, it's like, all these ghosts waltzing together."

"Yeah, the ghosts waltzing around," Xander nodded. "I thought in the ride you were in the doom buggy?"

"I had my eyes closed through most of the movie. Looking back, it wasn't even all that scary," Alec confessed.

"Oh it might be called that, I don't remember." Milo replied, "I haven't been to Disney since before my Dad died, I don't remember the movie."

"Did you want to do a ballroom type scene?" Daizi asked when she was free to do so.

Xander shrugged. "Might look cool."

Alec glanced between Daizi and Milo and Dark. "Thought. What if it's a scene of a living person," he pointed at Dark, "dancing with a ghost?" he pointed at Daizi. "Do you think you could pull that off?"