Well that seems really pretty bad. She'll just, uh, call someone else to clean up the bodies and then make sure the closets get cleaned out herself?

There is singing coming from one of the closets. It's in a foreign language. It's very pretty.

Oh dear.

She - should probably call someone else to deal with this, actually, it could be dangerous, but she doesn't really want anyone to think that she can't be trusted to meet basic productivity goals on her own, so -

She hesitates outside the closet and then knocks. "Anyone in there?"

The singing stops. 

The door opens.

The child pushing it open is very small. He looks at the room behind her, then scowls and shuts his eyes.

Hello, something says in her head. I'm Maitimo. I don't think I know you. Can we go somewhere else perhaps? I am not sure I am supposed to be here.

Oh man.

He has to have come through with the others, which means the science team wants him for something. Probably something not awesome, given the level of caution being exercised here. She is so totally the bad guys here. Of course, the kid could be evil too, not everything that looks like a small child actually is one. And even if she wanted to do something about it, the building has state-of-the-art security systems and is crawling with mindreaders and empaths; there's no way she'd be able to keep him hidden for very long.

He can't be much older than Zana. Assuming he really is a kid. 

She kneels. "Hey. Do you, um, understand English?"

He blinks.

"Hey, do you um, understand English?" he repeats carefully. 

Is that your name?

"Mai - ti - mo." 

That is my name.

- OK, she can do this, thoughtspeak, it's just like Animorphs.

My name's Karen. "Karen."  Hi Maitimo. This is - really not a good place for kids.

I'm sure it'll look nice when it's finished.

That's - not really the issue. 

OK. Think. She can't get out of the building until the end of the day anyway without attracting suspicion. She can't leave him here in this closet for the rest of it, the scientists could open it at some point and discover him, even if he isn't being loud. She can't convincingly pass him off as a relative. She can maybe pass him off as - she doesn't know, someone else's kid, a friend's kid she had to bring to work because they were hospitalized, the child of some client who wandered off, whatever. The scientists are going to come back at some point, though, so if she wants to stand a chance of making it down the hallway and down the elevator and back to her office, she needs to start moving now. 

As long as she doesn't get confronted by an actual mindreader she can always at least in theory play dumb and pretend she didn't realize he was from the summoning? She can probably do that.

Listen, we need to get out of here. We need to walk down a hallway and go down an elevator and then stay in a different room for a few hours. It is very, very, very important that you hold my hand and look calm and do not sing or do the - thoughtspeak thing, to anyone else, as long as we are in this building. Can you do that?

I don't know what an elevator is but I can do the other things.

OK. Good. Just - hold my hand.

Tryyy not to think about how absolutely entirely completely beyond dead she will be if she is caught making off with probably-company-property.

She takes his hand and walks very calmly down the hall and presses the button for the elevator.

(Someone else stops to wait for the elevator and waves at Maitimo. She ignores them.)

Karen is the saddest person he has ever met and it is very concerning. He tries to squeeze her hand reassuringly. The other person is not sad and he kind of wants to get a hug from them but that will make Karen really sad and he is not even sure what happens if you get more sad than this. Karen seems to think it involves her head exploding. This seems pretty unlikely but he is not an expert.

Thankfully aside from the room that is clearly in the middle of a project this place actually looks all right. It's not exactly pretty but they're clearly trying for something to do with precision and uniformity and he has thought of some nice things to say of it by the time the door goes "ding!" and opens.

She squeezes the tiny probably-demon-child's hand back and walks them into the elevator. The other guy follows, and the doors shut behind them.

He wants to say something but he's not very good at directed osanwe yet so probably if it's very very important he not say it to anyone but her he shouldn't say it at all. He hides all his thoughts in his house instead of sending them out to play.

Elevators are just rooms that make your tummy feel funny, apparently.

The doors open a few seconds later. She leads him out through another hallway and past more people and through another door and up to the reception desk for a couple of offices, trying very hard to look like she's supposed to be here and nothing remotely weird is happening.

She sits down at her desk and emails some people for favors that she'll probably regret having to pay back.

You can sit, if you want. You still can't talk, but - I can get you some paper to draw on or something?

How to look excited about this without letting any of his thoughts out of the little house in his head? That is an interesting question actually. Maybe he should think more about how to communicate excitedness without his thoughts.

He attempts that.

She'll just... get him some pens and paper. What do you even do for tiny trafficked demon children. Probably you immediately get them away from their summoners and figure out how to send them home, but she can't do either of these things, and if they leave the building now they will so definitely both be caught and killed-or-worse-than-killed. 

He squeezes her hand again and then draws an astoundingly detailed picture. It's of a fountain and surrounding plaza. 

Well.

She can... say his parents are really into art and they've been basing his education around bringing out his inner capacity for artistic genius. This is honestly exactly the kind of rich person nonsense that ends up being true of half of the humans who walk through these doors. Hopefully it doesn't come up because this is the sort of cover story that would really conflict with not telling any lies other than pretending to be dumber than she is. (People are not going to have much trouble believing that she's really super dumb.)

Hopefully he doesn't have to pee any time soon. Hopefully he is capable of communicating 'I need to pee' without alerting everyone in a mile radius.

She gets him a packaged cinnamon roll and some chips from the vending machine and makes sure he has lots of paper.

If you need anything else, need to go to the bathroom or anything, just - tug on my sleeve or something and I can try to guess. We're gonna have to stay here for a few more hours, but I have lots of paper.

She is so sad. He is annoyed that no one told him there were people who were this sad, what was the plan, for them to just stay this sad until he was big enough people thought he ought to know?

He draws more pictures.

She does her work like a good little soldier. One of the lawyers comments on the kid and she makes an offhand comment about watching him before getting back to taking a call. Someone else makes a comment on his clothes and she tells them that he's about to be in a play. Nobody calls her on her unforgivable blatant rebellion.

If they make it to six thirty without anything interesting happening (poor kid! that's so many hours to sit still without talking!), she'll be able to take his hand again and do her best to get them out of this God-forsaken building.

It is a very long time. He sits still for longer in his grandpa's court sometimes but when he does, everyone talks about how impressed with him they are, and it turns out that it is easier to sit still when people are impressed about it.

He tries reading everyone's minds but all of them are sad and it is very upsetting.

He is pretty excited when they can leave.

That was so much sitting still! You're being so brave. Just a little further and then you can talk again.

Unless they both die. She hopes she's not thinking 'unless they both die' at him, she's not very clear on how this whole thoughtspeak thing works.

She tells security that Maitimo didn't get scanned in in the morning because Bob was on duty, you know Bob, he's like in his seventies and has cute little grandkids and forgets things sometimes? She'd have reminded him, but she forgets things, too.

They let her pass. She leads Maitimo outside and rounds a corner and decides she is probably maybe not going to die today.

OK! Good. That's good. You can talk now. Sorry about all that sitting.

I think maybe other people can still hear me. I'm not good at sending my thoughts out to play just with one person where no one else can see them.

Most people here aren't telepaths, I don't really know how the thoughtspeak thing works? Nobody around them seems to be reacting like they just got a bunch of words in their head. I think just do your best. If someone else hears you out here it could scare them, but it won't, like - that building is just really bad.

Well, some of the craftsmanship was impressive, and there are lots of advantages to having a undistracting background space if you want to display art or something.

- I mean I don't think the architecture is evil. I guess it might be. 

How do you explain inter-dimensional evil law firms or tiny demon child trafficking to a four-year-old. She is really out of her depth here.

I just mean there are people there who might want to hurt you. Out here - well, I guess some people might want to hurt you out here, too, but not as many of them and nobody's specifically looking for you. Probably.

Did I do something that made them mad?

No, no, no, nothing you did. They're mean because of reasons that have nothing to do with you. 

(Probably. It seems likely.)

It's kind of a long ways home for somebody so small, you want me to carry you?

- I think I would like that a lot.

Scoop.

Sorry about all of this. I'd take you back to your parents but I'm not very sure how I'd find them.

We should go to Tirion probably and then my grandfather will find them.

I'm not sure where Tirion is.

- okay, we could go to Taniquetil and ask them where Tirion is. Taniquetil is at the top of the tallest mountain.

Mount Everest is on the other side of the planet and I think it's not what you want anyway. The people back at work - I think maybe they pulled you in from another universe, or something, so if we want to get you back we'd have to do a lot more than just walk.

I think probably they should not have done that. My family will be sad. And maybe mad.

Yeah, I think that's likely.

Poor kid.

I can look into how to send you home, but it's - not really something I know a lot about, so you might have to stay with me for a bit. Are you gonna need anything else if you're away from your family for a while?

I am supposed to practice recitation and composition and music and drawing and sculpture and if I am done with all of it before anyone else is done with their things I am allowed to go into the city and play with people but I am not allowed to go down to the river because I might fall in and meet Mandos and I am not allowed to go off on my own but I do not like to do that anyway.

I - am not entirely sure what all of those things refer to so I am going to give you lots of paper and see if I can teach you English so you can talk to more people without scaring them. I might have to send you to daycare or something, I dunno, I'll figure something out. You shouldn't go off on your own here, either, and should especially not go into the street - that's the street there, we're on the sidewalk right now - because that's where cars go and cars are dangerous. 

I don't really know what else to do with you, so I'm gonna take you home to where I live. There're other kids there for you to play with, so - I guess that's something.

He looks at the street. There's quite a lot of street. Small children should not play in the river but at least there is not an enormous river right in the middle of everything with no way across it. 

It sounds very nice, he tells Karen reassuringly. I think I'll like it a lot. In addition to paper I would need poems and speeches to practice reciting and I need clay to do sculpture because I am not allowed to do stone yet unless you have a very soft stone on hand.

Why are this kid's parents so intense about the arts. Maybe this is normal where he comes from but it's really pretty intense for somebody so tiny.

We have play-doh, which is... like clay, I guess. We have... books? Some of the books have poems in them? You can practice reading when you know English. It might be kind of rough because I have to go to work during the day, but hopefully I'll have some time to teach you stuff in the evenings.

You can read? That's really neat!

Awwwwww cute.

Yeah. We can teach you how, I think you're probably old enough. Once you know the language.

My mother and my father can read.

Most grownups can. Connor and Zana can, too. The kids I live with. Maybe they can help you.

Where I am from no one can read except my mother and father. They are trying to convince other people to learn.

Huh! Well, I hope they succeed. Reading's pretty great.

I think the problem is that most things are pretty great so it is hard to get people to do reading in particular. 

That has not been my experience, honestly, but I'm glad it's been yours. I guess reading's pretty great because it means you can learn things and listen to stories even when everybody else is too busy to help you.

Are people too busy to help you a lot?

I mean, not all the time, but everybody's got things they need to be doing. Especially when they get big.

You are the saddest person I have ever met and I think probably even if they are busy they should stop that for a bit.

We can't all stop what we're doing every time someone's sad. I'm not even a particularly sad person, I don't think, I'm just - not really in the habit of helping kidnapped children and I'm not really entirely sure if I'm doing it right. So don't worry about me, OK? Little kids shouldn't have to worry about grownups.

Oh, I'm the prince of the Noldor, my grandfather is King. 

You are very small and very lost.

That's why I am supposed to look out for grownups even though they are bigger than me, because they will need to be able to trust me when I am bigger.

That makes sense for when you're at home, I guess. But this place is very big and very confusing, and it has a lot of problems that I think would probably be pretty hard to explain to you, on account of you are very small and from another universe, and if I were your parents or your grandparents I would just hope that whoever you landed on was keeping you safe and taking good care of you. So I mostly want you to focus on helping me do that. OK?

My grandfather would probably want that but that's because he worries all the time about all of his people. I think my parents would want me to learn things.

Honestly at this point she kind of expects that his parents are some kind of bizarre eccentric royal intellectuals with approximately no idea how to raise children, but even if this is a completely accurate impression, she expects that they would still be pretty unimpressed with her if she got their tiny child killed or sold into slavery or trapped in some kind of magic cage that runs on the innocence of children, or whatever.

You can learn lots of things here. Only if you stay safe and focus on taking care of yourself, though.

I will learn English and not go into the streets and take care of myself except I cannot do my own hair for formal occasions yet. 

Cute cute cute.

I don't think there will be any formal occasions any time soon, don't worry.

Do you wanna know a secret?

Sure.

It makes people really happy if you treat their parties and their dances and their celebration days and the days they present their research as formal occasions and come in all your formal occasion clothes. I can try to line up a lot of those in a row so you only have to do my hair once, though.

Are you planning to host parties while you're here?

Do people here not like parties?

I mean, we do, they just seem like they might be... hard to set up. When you're small.

They are not very complicated parties. My father says that if people could read then I could write them invitations and even though they cannot read he likes it when I write invitations. When I bring the invitations I say what they mean so people know even though they cannot read. Then everybody comes and we sing songs and run around the gardens.

I guess if you meet some friends you can invite some of them over and... go to the park and sing songs. Maybe. 

Assuming they don't have to immediately flee the country or anything, but she supposes if they do then wherever they go will probably also have people and parks, so.

So far I like all of the people I have met here quite a lot.

...who else have you met?

I have met you.

I... guess that one person can still be all, fair.

Also someone smiled at me while we were waiting for the elevator to let us in.

Yeah.

We'll be home soon, it's not that much farther.

I can walk for a long time before I get tired, I just asked you to pick me up because I really wanted someone to hold me because I was feeling sad. If you'd like I can walk the rest of it.

Are you still feeling sad?

I think I am mostly feeling confused.

That's very understandable. 

She would like to keep holding him but this was actually a really long way to walk holding a child and she's not really sure she can keep holding him, so she sets him down as they come up to the apartment building. 

She lives on the fourth floor and the elevator is broken today, so they take the stairs.

The building is really ugly. 

Who designed this building? he asked, because maybe once he at least knows what they were going for he can find something to appreciate. 

Also can I sing here?

You can sing here. Quietly. I don't know who designed the building.

He starts singing in the same language as earlier. 

Do you know what they were trying to achieve?

- making a place where lots of people could live, I guess?

Is it not finished yet?

Just has a broken elevator. They're fixing it.

Oh.

It's an old building, so things break a lot.

He climbs the stairs with his eyes tightly shut.

And they make it to Karen's apartment. The paint is peeling and the stove has some kind of burnt matter encrusted in various locations. A woman with a buzz cut is making spaghetti. Books and McDonald's happy meal toys have been strewn around every room apparently at random. It's meant to house two people, has been illegally housing five for several months, and is apparently going to try its best to house six now.

It's kind of a mess. It's safe, though.

He opens his eyes. Closes them again.

Is it okay if I sit here and sing for a bit?

Yeah. Long as you need.

She sticks a couple of his pictures to the fridge, next to a bunch of much less competent but very bright and enthusiastically colored dragons and spaceships.

If he is not interrupted he'll just sit there curled up in a ball singing for like five hours.

He gets, like, five seconds before someone else bounds up to him. She has little blue horns on her head.

"Whatcha singing?"

He opens his eyes. He closes them again.

Hi. I'm Maitimo.

"Woooah, are you a demon too?"

I don't speak your language.

"Well how'm I supposed to talk to you, then?"

"You have to think at him," says Karen, who has begun handwashing dishes.

Zana concentrates.

IS THIS THINKING AT YOU.

Yes!! Probably you are also thinking at everyone else around but Karen says that most people can't hear you anyway. What is your name?

I'm Zana!

It's so nice to meet you!

Oh good! Are you a demon too?

I don't know what that is. 

I'm a demon! Well, half a demon. I think you're a demon too. Aunt Kate says we're evil and Auntie Karen says it depends and mommy says we can be anything we want.

I'm not evil. You don't seem very evil either really.

I dunno. If you're evil you get to try to take over the world.

If you're evil you fail to take over the world and go to jail. If you're good you get to make the world nice once the evil people are in jail.

I guess so. Really I think I wanna go to space.

That doesn't sound evil at all. Unless you want to go to space so you can do bad things to the people there.

I don't think there are any people in space yet.

Then that's not evil I guess.

What do you wanna do?

I was going to sit here and sing I think.

Oh.

How come?

I don't know who built this building and I really need to ask them what their artistic vision for it was and maybe then I can help them finish it or something.

I don't think people have artistic visions about buildings. Unless maybe they're making the Sistine Chapel. Or a city hall. Or a library.

That's really strange and awful!

How come?

It just seems like everyone would be hurting very badly all the time if they were living in buildings that no one had any artistic vision for.

I don't think so??

Maybe you get used to it eventually? That doesn't sound likely but I guess I don't know anyone who has tried.

It doesn't bother me. I don't think I'd even want to live in the Sistine Chapel, it'd be weird. I guess partly 'cause of the naked people on the ceiling. Libraries don't have that and living in a place that looked like a library would still be weird, though.

I'm glad it doesn't bother you.

Haven't you ever been to someone else's house before?

I've been to lots of houses. I can show you what they looked like if you want.

OK!

This is the house next to ours! They're a married couple with no children yet - Notellë carves musical instruments and Aroronto collects flowers. 

That looks like a rich person house. I guess sometimes rich people have houses that are kind of like art.

What's a rich person?

People who have more money than everybody else.

What's money?

Money's what you use to buy things! Like food and toys and books and houses and clothes and candy and probably spaceships except I'm not sure what a spaceship costs. Didn't you wonder why grownups go to work all day?

No? I think they would get frustrated and unhappy if they weren't allowed to work on things at all until their kids grew up, though.

But they wouldn't go to work every day. Except they have to so they can make money.

No, I think they just like working. A lot. Actually I don't know if my grandfather likes working but he has a lot of work so most days he does at least a little of it.

Maybe rich people just work because they feel like it. Aunt Kate and Auntie Karen work almost every day because they have to, though.

Karen did not seem to like her work at all.

Most grownups don't, far as I can tell.

That seems like a bad system. Possibly you should do something else.

Well, they have to work anyway because they need money. And they didn't do well in school, so they don't get to be something cool like a scientist or an engineer or a doctor or a pilot or a zookeeper.

And they need money because...

Cause if you don't have money you can't buy anything and you starve and die. Unless you are a kid in which case I think you go to foster care.

Why would you not be able to eat things if you don't have money?

Because food costs money? People who don't have ANY money have to try to get food out of the trash.

What happened to all of the food in the trees and bushes and growing in the ground?... did you cover all of the ground with streets?

Trees and bushes belong to people too, if you grab fruit off of them without paying for it that's stealing.

I think that maybe those people should share.

Sometimes people share! But if they gave everything away they couldn't make any money, and then they would have food but no house or clothes or whatever.

They could make those.

I don't think most people know how to make those things.

I think I could teach them but I should probably practice first. When I help build houses I don't do any of the hard parts.

You can't teach everyone. There's billions and billions of people.

How many is that?

Do you know how many a hundred is?

No.

A hundred is like if you counted on your fingers, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten, and then you did that on nine more people's fingers, then you would have a hundred fingers. Does that make sense?

- yeah, okay. 

OK!

So a billion is if you make a pile of a hundred things, and you make a hundred piles, and then you put the piles on trays, and you have a hundred trays, and you fit those trays into shelves, and then you have a room of a hundred shelves, and then you have ten rooms of shelves of trays of piles of things. I think. Unless I got confused in there.

And that's about how many people there are. Except more than ten rooms, but I think less than a hundred.

- so is the problem that they have more babies every year than I can teach in a year?

I guess?

I think if I worked really hard I could teach them faster than they have babies, but maybe it would make more sense to teach people how to teach it and then other people could teach it and we could keep up with all the babies, easy-peasy, and get everyone else eventually.

I don't think you could teach all the babies in the world how to do stuff. Also lots of people can't learn how to make clothes because they have to work and if they didn't they'd run out of money.

All of this sounds really stupid and horrible and whoever your king is I think they are very bad at their job.

Oh we don't have a king anymore. We had a war about it. Everybody had farms before but I think things were worse back then because they didn't have vaccines or libraries or freedom.

I think it would have been better, actually, if you had farms.

I bet farms don't keep you from dying of smallpox.

Well we have farms and I've never heard of anyone dying from smallpox. Just from having a baby or swimming in the river when they're too little or hunting accidents.

I don't mean that farms give you smallpox. I just mean we used to all have farms, but then everyone had to spend twelve hours a day doing farm stuff and nobody had time to cure smallpox or build libraries or build planes, so I think I like not having a king better. Also he was terrible and kept taxing everybody.

Working on farms is nice, though, you can sing and tell stories while you do it and your children don't have to sit still under a desk and you won't be hungry no matter what and also I think people still have time to build things though I have not heard of libraries or planes in particular. It is too bad that your King did some things wrong but everyone living on farms still sounds much nicer than -

He gestures around at the apartment without opening his eyes.

I bet the houses were worse back then, too.

But they aren't, they're way nicer. You have a lot more flexibility when you aren't trying to make the whole street of houses designed by different people fit the same look.

I think you're really confused about how kings work. Back when people had kings, they all lived in, like, tiny houses with dirt floors, and had to work in the fields all day from sun up to sundown, and sometimes they weren't allowed to leave or get married without permission from their lord, and they couldn't say anything the king didn't like or worship in ways the king didn't like, and they had to give a bunch of their money and crops to the king because he was in charge and he said so, and also their babies kept dying of smallpox and cholera, and nobody could read, and they kept having wars over who should be king every time the king died without any sons. So we decided we were done with that.

- but we have a king and none of those things happen. Except that most people can't read. 

I mean, I think nowadays some people have kings and it's not terrible, but only because they made their kings not be in charge anymore because they realized that listening to kings was terrible. So now kings and queens mostly wear fancy clothes and wave at people.

Our King is in charge and it's not terrible. I think maybe the people who took all your food are unreliable about what it's like when there's kings.

SOME kings are OK SOMETIMES. I GUESS. We have a song about one. But I think people couldn't all lie about what it's like when there's kings, because now we have freedom of the press, and when we had kings we didn't, so if anybody's going to be confused I bet it's the people with kings.

How do you know that? 

I guess because I read about it.

Well Karen thinks the place I'm from is very far away and definitely a lot of things are really different here and I think you can't just make someone a king without gods anyway so we'll have to find some other way to fix it.

OK! I think teaching everybody to make clothes and be farmers again won't work, though.

Okay. I think we will ourselves need to go find a farm, though, because working makes Karen sad and also you live in this place.

You can't just go find a farm, you have to buy one.

I don't like this system at all.

Okay. How do you get money?

I guess you have to work? Kids aren't allowed to work, though.

So how do kids get money?

Kids don't have any money unless they have allowances for doing chores. Or get birthday money. Or have parents who buy them whatever they want.

Okay, how do you get allowances and what are chores.

Chores are if you do work around the house, like if you pick up your toys or sweep the floor or do dishes. Parents are allowed to give you money if you do chores. But I think if Auntie Karen doesn't have enough money for a farm then we can't get enough money for a farm from her. Because of math.

And she's the only person who is allowed to give us money if we do chores?

I think so? Because there are child labor laws.

That's horrible. All of that is horrible.

I think the child labor laws are because people used to send children to work in factories all day and they would get their fingers chopped off. But it does make things hard if you want to buy a farm.

Maybe you could make things and sell them?

That's allowed?

I dunno. If you make lemonade you can sell it. So probably you can sell other things you make, it's just that kids don't know how to make very many things.

I'm not very good at making things yet but I haven't been focusing very hard and probably if I tried I could get good at things. My parents are.

Your parents have probably had a lot more practice.

Yes, they have. It takes a lot of practice to be good at things.

Well, I think if you learned how to make a valuable thing and then sold a lot of it, then probably eventually you could buy a farm. I bet it would take a long time, though.

I think it is okay if everything will be awful for a long time and then get better. It's just scary if everything will be awful and it won't get better.

Lots of things have gotten better! We have vaccines and libraries and spaceships and ice cream and radios now!

None of those things sound like they could possibly be as good as living in this place is bad.

Well, it used to be worse, and now it's better.

That's good.

I can't believe your parents didn't tell you about libraries or planes. I think lots of kids don't know about smallpox, but libraries and planes are important.

I think we don't have those. 

That sounds pretty bad.

Well, somehow everything is way better for everyone than here. I don't know that the libraries are the problem though.

I think it's that everybody you know is a rich person even if they don't technically have any money. But if they don't have libraries then they can't all read books and learn anything whenever they want. And that sounds sad.

Well, they can't read books because they can't read. I think the lack of libraries is because people can't read instead of the other way around, you need some people who can read to write books or you can't have enough books to really count as a library.

I think most people are not sad about not knowing how to read yet because they are learning other interesting things.

They could learn a LOT more if they could read, though.

They could learn a lot faster but not everyone is in a hurry to learn everything as fast as possible.

But you can't do anything interesting until you know lots of stuff!

You can get really really good at woodworking before you learn anything that isn't woodworking, or memorize an epic poem that takes a week to sing before you learn writing and get worse at memorizing epic poems, or you can adventure and explore the whole world, or try to figure out what conditions flowers grow best in and do all the flowers in the city that way, or produce a play, or a dance, or tame horses or dogs or dinosaurs or dolphins, or you can go pray a lot, or you can have children and raise them, or you can get married and spend all your time doing married people things, or you can design beautiful clothing, or pottery, or glasswork...

I bet you'd be way better at most of those things if you could read about them. 

Well, only if someone else had already learned how to do them and wrote about it, but most of those things no one's learned how to do yet. 

Well in AMERICA people have already done all of that stuff. Except the dinosaurs because there aren't any dinosaurs anymore.

Yes, so it makes sense for you to have libraries.

People wherever you're from sound like they don't know how to do very many things.

Not yet! We just got started at doing things. 

I think I like it better here, where we know how to do lots of things and someday I can probably go to space. Although dinosaurs would be pretty awesome.

I am pretty sure we will also go to space someday, but it might be a farther-away day.

Well, I hope you figure it out, I guess.

When do you have to go home?

I would like to go home right now but Karen thought it would be complicated.

How come?

I don't know. She seems very sad all the time, which makes more sense now that I know - everything about everything. 

Most people aren't as sad as Auntie Karen, though.

Well that's good.

I guess. Auntie Karen's sad because she doesn't like her job and because mommy is dead and she doesn't like living with Aunt Kate and she can't spend a lot of time with us and probably other reasons.

Probably the house.

You're really focused on houses.

This is the most horrible place I have ever been and I would be sadder than Karen if I thought I had to be here.

Wow.

So I really think it explains most of how sad she is.

I think you mostly just care a weird amount about houses. What's even that bad about it? It doesn't have insects or smell weird or anything.

He opens his eyes to refresh his memory. He closes them again.

Everything hurts to look at individually and the way it's all placed next to each other hurts to look at and there's dirt everywhere and big piles of grime in some places and there are a couple of insects, there's one in the corner and one on the windowsill, and the light wavers weirdly and I think it would give me a headache if I tried to draw by it and there are a lot of things on the floor that don't seem to be on the floor for any reason and everything's crooked and nothing's symmetric and there's nothing that doesn't hurt to look at anywhere.

Would it help if you looked out the window?

He opens his eyes and closes them again.

It might help a little bit but I don't think it'd be better than just keeping my eyes shut. Keeping my eyes shut is really fine. Some people don't even have eyes.

Why don't they have eyes? Did someone cut their eyes out?

Yeah, Melkor.

Huh. I've heard of people having their eyes put out but I don't think it happens very much anymore.

Oh, the Valar made Melkor stop and put him in jail and now noone does that but some of the people without eyes didn't want them fixed until the Valar get better at fixing people.

Huh.

It's dinnertime now, if you're hungry.

Dinner sounds lovely, thank you, says the kid who is shaking and curled up in a ball in the corner with his eyes closed.

She will just put a bowl of spaghetti down here, then.

Do you, uh, need anything?

I don't. Thank you!

He is not very good at blind spaghetti eating but he's very patient and willing to go very slowly.

Is there anything that'd make you feel better...?

Will I be going back to the place where you work with you tomorrow?

I think that wouldn't be very safe, so no.

Is there a nice pretty place you know of where I can go?

Yeah. It's late now, so we'd have to come back soon, but we can go somewhere for a few hours?

I'm not sure how long an hour is but I would like that a lot.

OK. We can go when you're done with dinner.

He eats his dinner considerably more quickly and even occasionally peeks at it.

Poor kid.

When he's done, she scoops him up and tells Connor and Zana and her great grandmother that she'll be back in a bit. (Kate's already out. Kate works nights.)

She carries him until they get to St. Vincent De Paul church. Not her church, at all, but maybe the catholics are at least good for something.

Better? Best I have on short notice.

It looks really nice! he says delightedly. I really like it. This is good. Thank you so much.

Mhmm. Anything we can do to make the house less horrible for you?

I'm sure you worked very hard on it and it's very tall. No one I know knows how to build that tall without a Vala.

I did not actually build the apartment building.

Okay. Well, I want to remember that whoever did build it was impressive in some ways and knew some things that I do not know.

OK, that's very thoughtful and kind of you, but I don't super want to keep you somewhere that's going to give you panic attacks.

- you remember what we talked about, about it being easier to look after you if you would worry less about me and more about you? I don't know if I can make it better if you tell me what's wrong with it, but I definitely can't if you don't, and it would make me a lot happier if I could do something about it.

I don't understand the intended aesthetic at all and I think it may just not resonate with me.

...I'm not sure the apartment has an intended aesthetic.

Everything in it hurts to look at and when I'm looking at it I can't think about anything because there's too much and no principles organizing any of it.

I can try cleaning up the books and toys and things...?

That is very kind of you. I think it would probably mostly still hurt to look at. I don't know if it would be better. I have never had this problem before, except in that room at your work which was in the middle of a project.

I - guess it was sort of in the middle of a project, yeah.

It's normal for stuff to look messy while someone is in the middle of a project - though not that messy but it seemed like maybe some things had not worked quite right and mistakes happen - but it's not normal to try to live places that feel the way the project feels. 

Well, it is not normal for me. If it's normal for other people that is okay.

My apartment and the project room feel really different to me. If my apartment makes you feel the way the project room makes me feel, though, that's... really bad. 

I can try some stuff but I'm not sure any of it will work. I'm sorry.

I was thinking I could just keep my eyes shut all the time. Some people don't have eyes and they are fine.

Ok, well, that's a good plan if we can't fix the place up any. We'll see if we can improve on it.

Zana thought that if I worked hard and got good at something then I could have money and then I could spend the money on a farm and then I could grow things and harvest things on the farm and you would not have to work all day.

Yeah, that could happen when you get a lot bigger. But it'll take some time.

Like, technically she cannot quit Wolfram & Hart because they may or may not own her soul at this point, but this seems not worth going into, and in theory some people do earn money and buy farms.

Unless getting bigger is actually in some respect necessary I think it would be better not to wait that long.

I think getting good at things usually takes some time. Hopefully we figure out how to send you home before that.

I think that maybe instead of sending me home we should get my parents.

I mean, then they might be stuck here too? And you don't really seem to like it here.

I am unhappy in some ways but I think it would be cowardly to go back away to where there is enough food for everyone because I do not like it here where there is not.

I think it would be better. That way you could grow up strong and healthy and not scared and be able to help more people when you're done growing.

That will take a very long time.

I think most important things do.

I'm not really sure that's okay. In Valinor it's fine but here - 

- my parents would be able to fix it, see, I'm pretty sure.

Fix what, exactly?

Well I don't quite understand all of the problems but it sounds like one of them is that you need money to do any things and some people bought all the land and so no one can just take the food they need and they all have to work horrible jobs instead. So if someone bought all of the land back and replanted all the best plants on it, the ones that don't take any work to grow and produce lots of tasty filling seeds and nuts and fruits and things, then probably that would solve it. So if I were my parents I'd try that but they might think of something better.

I think there aren't any plants like that that feed people at the modern world's population density. 

- anyway, the world's problems are really complicated, I think maybe no one person can solve all of them.

Well if they couldn't, they'd get the Valar.

I dunno what that is.

God sent the Valar into the world to realize his vision in it, and they made it and shaped it, and they're very powerful, and they could definitely fix all this. Lots of people don't really like being a place they have directly fixed because nothing you do there matters very much, and so people like to go a bit farther away where we command our own destinies and things. But they can fix anything. 

Oh. Yeah, I guess that could probably do it.

(She's actually unclear on whether a bunch of - easily accessible angels? - could fix all of the world's problems, given the stuff Wolfram & Hart has on its side, but it does seem like the correct sort of power to appeal to.)

I just - I don't even know how to send you back, and calling up the Valar or whoever sounds even less likely to be feasible.

Yes, that's why I was thinking what to do if I just have to stay here myself. But if we can get them we should.

I'll work on it.

Oh, you know what I could do? If you have thin fabric that lets light through, I could embroider a lot of my favorite flowers on it and then I could make a little tent with sticks and thin fabric and then I could hide in my tent and then I think I would be fine. 

Or if you have a loom and wool I could make the fabric but that will take longer. 

If you don't have wool it comes from sheep.

This poor adorable incredibly earnest child.

I think I can get fabric.

That would be great! I can unravel my sleeve to get the thread for the flowers, I don't know how to spin thread that's fine enough for really good embroidery.

If I can get fabric I can get embroidery thread.

I could also just stay here.

The church unfortunately doesn't let people camp out here. If it did it would stop looking this pretty kind of fast.

That makes sense.

It could let people stay if they scrub all the floors and walls every day?

I think if we asked they would just suggest a place that was much less pretty. People here mostly don't care as much as you do about everything being pretty.

That's really good.

Yeah. It seems like it would be pretty hard if we did.

I mean probably then you would make things that you could live with. Or maybe you wouldn't have stopped having farms. Farms're plenty pretty if you're thoughtful about what you're planting. That's why I thought I'd earn a lot of money and then buy us one, I know how they work and they look nice.

We have farms, just, like, big ones with machines that feed lots more people than the little ones. We also have the little ones, but people mostly don't live purely off the food they grow on them.

Also, I admit that subsistence farming beats what I'm currently doing, but I don't think it's really, like, a super great way to live?

The people I have talked to who farm seem happy. It is probably not as fun as being a prince of the Noldor but one assumes that there is correspondingly less responsibility. And I am sad about it compared to being a prince of the Noldor but I think that might be because I miss my parents instead of because farming is a thing to be sad about in its own right.

I think - farming is really important for the kind of society where nobody can read, but this society doesn't really need independent subsistence farmers, and it's hard to feel good about spending all of your time doing something that other people don't really need you to do.

Lots of people do things other people don't need them to do. 

Sure! Just - not all the time.

I do want to help people but it's easier to imagine figuring out how on a farm than figuring out how here.

It seems very possible that we are imagining different things. But we'll see.

Nod.

I'm gonna read for a bit and then we're gonna have to go home. OK?

Yeah. Can I sing here?

Yeah. That's fine.

He walks cautiously forward and sings, louder than he was singing earlier. 

He looks very happy.

Adorable kidnapped probably-being-traumatized tiny child.

She reads for another hour and then lets him know that they have to go home.

Okay. 

What is this place?

It's a church. It's not my church. My church is... not this pretty.

What's a church?

It's a place where people come to pray and worship God.

Oh! I didn't know that. Can we ask God to help us out before we go?

Yeah, that seems like a good idea. 

He runs up to the front.

He stops when he gets halfway there because that's a weird piece of art at the front.

What's that?

It's a crucifix. A long time ago God became a human and died to save humanity from its sins. This is, uh, pretty important to people so sometimes they make art of it.

Huh. Okay.

He goes up to it and kneels.

"Eru, Ilúvatar," he says in Quenya. "You look different here but probably that's because everything is different here. I'm scared and sad and confused because - because I guess Melkor is singing very loudly, right here, and I don't see how exactly it's all for the good anyway, and I want to fix it, and it'd be good if I knew how it's supposed to be all for the good anyway so I don't mess that up fixing it. But probably I will figure that out. I am worried about Karen. She is very sad and she's sad about me and I hate it and I don't know how to fix it and it's easier to imagine that the whole thing is part of a song I don't understand than to imagine that is, the way sometimes you can see how a stitch isn't right even if you can't see what the whole pattern is, and Karen has asked me not to try to help so I am asking you, and I think you should help, probably, somehow, even if you can't explain the whole plan here. And if I'm not supposed to notice you doing things you can make me forget that I asked this and make me remember that I asked for something really dumb, like chocolates. 

I'm trying really really hard to be good and if this doesn't work I'll try harder even though I don't know how exactly.

I love you."

He stands up and walks back.

When they get home she puts a sleeping bag down in the kids' room, fishes a constellation lamp out of a box somewhere, turns the lamp on, and turns out all the lights. The room now has an aesthetic. It's pretending to be outer space.

This is about all I can think to do for you for tonight. I dunno if it helps, uh, at all.

It's neat! It's like stars. 

Yeah, it's meant to be. See if you can get some rest.

She says goodnight to Connor and Zana and tells them to please sleep and not spend half the night talking to the mysterious alien kid.

Are you gonna be OK?

Yeah. It's weird that it gets dark here. Doesn't get dark at home. Are you just supposed to do quiet things the whole time it's dark?

When it gets this late you sleep. Are you not tired?

Not really. And I want to start working on improving skills we can use to make money but it's hard to do that in the dark. 

I guess I could start learning English. Do you want to teach me?

I could, but it'd be loud and I think Connor wants to actually sleep. 

Awww. Okay. ... we could go somewhere else?

I think I miiiiight have to also sleep at some point. Maybe we could hide in the bathroom for a bit or something though.

If you won't be too tired tomorrow. 

Ehhh I skip my bedtime lots.

The bathroom is, of course, small and ugly.

He closes his eyes and squeezes her hands. How do you say, my name is Maitimo -

"My name is Maitimo."

"My name is Maitimo." How about...other things. I dunno. I am a dinosaur. I eat cats. I like thunderstorms.

Zana knows how to say all of those things!

In theory she is supposed to sleep, but she is six and does not entirely believe in consequences.

Oh good then they can do this all night.

Sure!!!

Normally Karen would stop them, but she's set an alarm for five in the morning and collapsed in some misery on the couch. Eventually she stops thinking about how completely horrible this situation and her qualifications as a caregiver for random kidnapped alien children are, and about six hours after that she wakes up and drags herself into the bathroom.

" - have you guys been up all night?"

"Mayyyyyybe."

"We weren't very tired and I wanted to learn English!"

"Well it seems you've made some progress.

"Zana - I'm too tired to come up with a scolding, go to bed before you pass out."

"OK!"

She heads back to her room, faceplants on her bed, and is out like a light.

"It wasn't her fault, it was my fault. She said we were supposed to sleep but I really wanted to learn English. I apologize."

"Really did not expect that to happen that fast, but like, OK."

He looks confused. 

Are you also about to pass out? Should I be telling you to go to sleep immediately?

I'm not tired.

But I should've known Zana was.

Punishments where I'm not allowed to go anywhere or have to write lots of pages or have to do all of the washing alone work at making me sad about misbehaving. Getting lectures or having to do a proper formal apology or having to listen to grandfather don't make me sad about misbehaving because I like those things. 

I don't wanna make you sad, Maitimo, I just don't want you to think you're fine and then lose all of your cope at once because you haven't had a good night's rest in four days.

I don't think that has ever happened to me but I don't recall very much from when I was a baby and I don't recall anything from before I was born.