After signing release forms and getting Charlotte or rather Charlie some proper clothes to wear for the time being, Alastor put her in his truck and the two went on home. His home to be exact.
"So what was I doing in the middle of the ocean?" Charlie asked during the drive.
"Diving for oysters." Alastor lied.
"What? Why?"
"You were tired of having chicken and sandwiches for dinner every night. You wanted to have a little variety. But oysters don't come cheap you know, so you just go out and get em yourself. At least they're always fresh that way."
"That doesn't sound like something I'd do."
"Well we would all beg to disagree."
"We?"
"The kids."
Charlie paused and slowly turned to look at him with an expression that was somewhere between shock and fear at the very notion.
"We have...Children?"
"Oh now that's real sad dear, I was sure that you would at least remember our four little gifts from heaven."
"We have four children?"
"Yep! Of course you always wanted nine. We'll just keep trying, huh?"
Charlie looked like she was going to be visibly ill which made Alastor smirk.
Soon they reached the bayou and the very small but cozy house where Alastor had lived in since he was an infant.
"Welcome home dear!" He said opening the truck door for her.
It was something that was known as a "Creole Cottage" which was 1- stories tall, two rooms wide and two rooms deep, with sidegabled roofs, and tall, narrow gabled dormer windows. At first Charlie just sneered at the place. Seeing it as nothing more than a dirty hovel that should be condemned.
"We live here?" She said.
"Yes." Alastor asked.
"Deliberately?"
Alastor only chuckled again and escorted her inside. She was just about to object to Alastor's claim that she lived here but a getting a closer look at the establishment, she once again felt a sense of familiarity. Like she had been here before. The door, the windows, the walls, the colors, something about it all did tease her memory.
However once they were inside the house it was suddenly impossible for her to think because all she could hear was screaming and all she could see was destruction. In the first room she entered she saw four children spreading as much chaos as possible. One was a boy, obviously the oldest who at the moment was trying to light firecrackers, across from him were a set of boy and girl twins fighting over a slingshot, and the last one a little girl, was just coloring on the walls.
"Come on, light you stupid matches." The oldest boy said annoyed.
"Drop those! Aaron what have I told you about playing with fire-crackers?" Alastor said taking the matches from him.
"I was bored." The boy complained. "There's nothing to do around here, except watch tweedle-dumb and tweedle-idiot try to kill each other." He gestured to the twins.
"I wanna use the slingshot Ella!" The boy twin said pulling on one end of the item in question.
"Too bad Louis!" The girl twin said pulling the other end.
"It's my turn!"
"It's my slingshot! Auntie Vaggie gave it to me! Not you!"
"Older siblings should have access to younger siblings's toys!"
"We're twins you moron!"
"But I'm older than you!"
"By five minutes!"
"Share!"
"No!"
"Dad!" They both whined simultaneously.
"Now kids we have more important things to deal with at the moment." Alastor said. "Look who's home."
The four kids stopped what they were doing and looked at Charlie.
"Hi Mom we missed you!" The three older children said waving at her cheerfully.
"They're...They're not mine." Charlie said shaking her head.
"Oh no honey, they're definitely ours." Alastor insisted. "Let me try to help you jog your memory. Kids, line up for introductions."
The four children fell into line and Alastor proceeded to introduce them one by one.
"Now this is our first born, the one who's birth was the most difficult for you, Aaron."
Aaron was nine years old and almost the spitting image of his father. Tall, skinny, tanned, had that same kind of grin, and mischievous gleam in his eyes that Alastor possessed. Although unlike his father, his eyes were both brown, he was a complete brunette lacking the streaks of red, and dressed more sloppily than his father did. He wore greasy workman's overalls and a ragged shirt in which the fabric faded.
"Hello Mom." Aaron said with his most charming smile. "I'm so glad that you've returned home alright, and with only minor brain damage. We'll do whatever we can to help you recover, and if all else fails we'll make sure that you get shipped off to a very nice nut house."
Charlie's face became pale for a moment.
"Okay son that's enough." Alastor said. "We don't want her passing out on us. Next up we have the twins Louis and Ella."
Louis and Ella were seven, red-headed and also with matching brown eyes. Louis's hair was cropped though, he wore glasses like Alastor did, and he was slightly shorter than his twin sister. Ella's hair was longer, reaching to her shoulder blades, and was so dreadfully unkept and out of place.
"Wow Mom, you've lost a lot of weight." Louis said. "Did they put you on liposuction while you were in the nut house?"
"Excuse me?" Charlie said. "Are you saying I used to be fat?"
"Well I wouldn't call 200 pounds fat." Alastor said.
"200 pounds?!"
"Yeah." Ella nodded. "And they must've given you some growth chemicals or something because you used to be shorter too."
"I was short and fat?" Charlie said in mortified disbelief.
"Yep. Good thing you don't remember it though." Louis said.
"Speaking of remembering things." Ella said. Remember this Mom, I don't do dresses or bows or any frilly stuff. I'm a girl not a doll."
"Though it would probably be very smart for you to wear some frilly stuff. The way you dress now, you certainly don't look like a girl." Louis remarked.
"You take that back four-eyes!" Ella snapped.
"Make me Raggedy Ann!" Louis instigated.
The twins tackled each other and started wrestling on the floor. Charlie shuddered in fear, Alastor just sighed then quickly picked them up by their shirts and pried them apart.
"Louis, Ella, please. Show a little decorum." Alastor said dropping them on the sofa. "And last but not least, our little one. Caroline, but we call her Carrie."
Carrie was five years old, blonde, pale, and with bright green eyes. When she looked at Charlie, she appeared to be just as confused as the woman she was meeting. Then suddenly her entire face lit up and she became excited.
"Mommy!"
Carrie ran to hug Charlie but the woman stepped back, and Alastor quickly picked up his youngest child.
"Carrie, Mommy isn't ready for hugs yet." Alastor told her gently. "She doesn't remember us yet. She'll have to get to know us for awhile first."
"Oh...Okay Daddy."
"Good." He put Carrie down. "Now Aaron, take your brother and sisters outside to play while I help your mother get adjusted."
"Alright Dad." Aaron said. "Come on guys, let's go see if we can find a bee hive."
"Why?" Ella asked.
"So we can drop it on Miss Killjoy's head when she gets back. All those bees stinging her should get rid of her."
"And if not, the honey can attract a bear that'll eat her face off." Louis said.
"Yeah!" Ella agreed.
The kids excitedly ran outside.
"Don't worry my dear, they're just kidding." Alastor assured Charlie. "Mostly."
Charlie needed to sit down. There was just so much that her brain had to absorb. So apparently she lived in a swamp, she was married, and she had four children. Somehow it didn't seem right.
"They..." She said trying to see if she could poke a few holes in this story she had been given. "They don't really look like me."
"Who?" Alastor said.
"Our children."
"What do you mean? Carrie's blonde and pale just like you."
"But her face isn't like mine, it's not the right shape or structure. And the rest of them have none of my traits whatsoever."
"Well Ella and the boys take more after me while Carrie takes more after your mother."
"My mother? Where is she?"
"I'm sorry sweetheart but she's currently residing at the pearly gates with my mother." Alastor said compassionately.
"You mean she's dead?" Charlie said shocked. "What about my father?
"Oh he's alive and well, but he's currently doing fifty to life for attempted murder of me. Needless to say he really didn't want us to get married."
"Oh I don't wanna hear this!" She groaned. "I just wanna remember things for myself!"
"Alright then. Allow me to help you with that. Why don't we start by getting you dressed and getting you started on your usual schedule, okay?"
"Okay." Charlie said, still unsure about all this. "So how does my schedule go, exactly? What is it that I normally do around here?"
Alastor lead Charlie into the kitchen and over to the stove where a chicken and some vegetables were displayed, along with a pot of boiling water. Charlie looked at the meat with mystified repugnance.
"I've prepared and handled raw food?" She said.
"I hunt it, you cook it." Alastor simply replied.
"You shot a chicken?"
"Save the jokes for later darling, the kids will soon be hungry and let me remind you they get horrifically cranky when they're hungry."
"But I don't know how to cook."
"I'll give you a re-lesson. We'll start by washing and cutting up the vegetables. Just watch me and it'll come back to you."
"I don't think so. Are you sure I've cooked before. I don't feel like I have."
"Oh you have. Plenty of times."
"What's wrong with your mouth?"
"My mouth?"
"Yes. Every time you talk, the left corner twitches. Do you have a stutter or something?"
"Oh no." Alastor thought. "I forgot about my tick."
Now Alastor was a very good liar, but he did not feel good about it, that's why whenever he told a lie the left corner of his smile twitched. That was due to the fact that his mother hated lies and would not stand for any child of hers to tell them.
"I can understand using foul-language, starting fights, even robbing a store." His mother had told him growing up. "But as long as I am breathing, you will never lie. Especially not to me. If I ever catch you in a lie boy, I'll cut off your tongue. You'll either speak the truth or you won't speak at all."
Of course she wouldn't really cut off his tongue but she did a job of convincing Alastor she would when he was a child. So he had to train himself to deceive without actually telling a lie. With hold certain elements of the truth, for example. The first night he had made love in their house, when his mother came home the next day and she asked him if had anyone over, he replied.
"Don't worry Mother, I didn't have some floozy or Angel over to shack up in my bed. I promise you I have never had random sex."
Which wasn't a lie because technically he didn't have random sex that night. He had made love to the girl he had given his heart to. And it was like that with everything up until her death. But even now, her influence on him to be honest still lingered. Since he first started lying to Charlie, he could almost hear her voice saying,
"Alastor Horace Devalcourt! You better not be telling lies or so help me, those lies will be the last thing you ever speak!"
But again he was desperate. Desperate to keep his house afloat, desperate to keep his children from being taken away, and desperate times call for desperate measures.
"Don't you remember? It's a side effect from a dental incident I suffered." Alastor lied. "I was having a root canal and the dentist pulled the wrong thing and now sometimes my mouth trembles a little when I speak."
So he told one lie after another while teaching Charlie how to cook tonight's dinner. Once dinner was served, Alastor grabbed his jacket off the hanger and put on a pair of muddy boots. He was leaving.
"Wait, where are you going?" Charlie asked him.
"Out."
"Out where?
"Just to meet up with some friends and to have a beer or two."
"But you can't just leave me here alone, with them." She slowly turned to look at the children who sat at the kitchen table and were ravenously tearing through their supper like a pack of wolves.
"Aww, what's the matter sweetheart." He pouted. "Don't you love your kids?"
"Not really."
"Aww that's sad, which is why you need to be alone with them. So you can remember how much you love them."
He headed for the door.
"Wait, when will you be back?" Charlie asked him.
"When I feel like it."
He then left her to the mercy of his wild children.