American, then; a Canadian would have been more apologetic, all rising vowels and middling English-American manners. Elizabeth blinked blue-green gaze at the other woman, peered at her from behind the rim of half-empty takeaway coffee. The son, Hunter, had to have been older -- there was still too much calm amidst parent's rattled nerves. If he were anything below teenager, Elizabeth imagined she'd be able to feel the waves of anxiety rolling her way. Not so, not quite. Instead it was halfhearted poise, model thinness paired with the start of age lines Lizzie saw in her own mirror every day. Around them, policemen put up blockades at both ends of the block; the epicenter of whatever happened had already been cordoned off, blocked so no prying eyes could get the truth of what might've occurred.
"What does that smell like to you?" Elizabeth asked, albeit toward no one in particular. She wanted outside perspective, sense and sensation prised from other peoples' own heads. Dead to magic as she was, she couldn't appreciate the heavy feeling of off, like ley-lines having been plucked as harp strings, twanging discordantly all the while. Lacking that sixth sense, she stood tall and proud and utterly blind to magic's fallout, to the ghost-boy standing opposite her and behind his still-living mother. With none of that inside her own purview, it was up to Elizabeth to try and find her own method of understanding what had transpired.