"YAH! PAZE GOD'N CO'SO!" 

...Pause. Lily looks puzzled again. "...Wassa call God? W'na pe'sn. D'havuvver name?"

"Where I grow up we call Him Aroden!"

Huh. That...does sound like a case of Jesus Christ smushed together with some mythological hero she's never heard of. It might be enough to narrow down Iomedae's origins?

Though Evelyn still kind of expects that not to work. (Also, where the heck did the Atlantis bit come from???) 

"A'den," Lily says thoughtfully, and smiles. "Fik'vything." 

Evelyn is incredibly tired. Not physically, she actually got some extra sleep this morning, but her brain is worn out from running in circles and trying to stay a step ahead of Iomedae and figure Iomedae out. She - definitely has the itchy background feeling that she's Making Assumptions, just...not enough energy to pin down where they might be the wrong assumptions. Tomorrow, maybe. 

Probably that's more than enough interrogating Iomedae about her religion. Jeremy will change the topic to asking Lily about her week at school, and making jokes until she nearly falls out of her chair laughing. 

Jeremy seems to be an honorable man. She will not let her guard down but she will smile encouragingly at Lily, and eat her dinner, and make conversation where there's opportunity.

By the time they finish dinner, and ice cream for dessert, it's Lily's bedtime. She is in fact drooping and will hopefully fall asleep quickly, but is disappointed to miss out, and demands three stories from Jeremy AND the 'p'tty sog' from Iomedae. 

Iomedae is happy to sing for Lily! She'll sing the same song as last night, if Lily liked that one. 

And then it's still not very late for the adults who don't go to bed at 7:30 pm. Jeremy thinks they should watch a movie!

(...Normally this would be a great opportunity to watch the sorts of movies that you can't watch with a seven-year-old around, but Iomedae might not like a lot of American movies aimed at adults. They can watch Harry Potter? The first Harry Potter movie definitely doesn't have sex in it. Some very religious people think magic is Satan's work but, like, probably those aren't the same religious people who think Jesus is from Atlantis and wants his followers to also become gods.) 

Evelyn will try to convey very clearly that this is a pretend story with actors pretending to be characters and using technology to do special effects. She can just see Iomedae assuming otherwise that there are real wizard schools out there. She's seen this movie about fifteen times but she doesn't mind watching it again, and it might make it easier to explain confusing parts to Iomedae without having to pause it a lot. 

The movie starts with dramatic music and a dark foggy night and a baby and a very large man riding a flying motorcycle. The characters speak with a different accent than Evelyn or Jeremy, which makes it even harder for Iomedae to catch all the words. 

Iomedae feels stressed and trapped again, but this time can identify it as just that she hasn't done any real physical work all day, and can partially soothe herself by sitting on the floor and supporting her whole weight with her hands and shoulders in various configurations while they watch the movie.

The words rarely make any sense but the events mostly do! There is absolutely no reason one would expect motorcycles not to fly or babies not to be left on the doorsteps of relatives if there are no wild animals around. It further makes perfect sense that this place, which is very rich, can send all children who are smart enough to be wizards to wizard school! Iomedae is not taking the explanation about actors as evidence against there being wizard schools in Reno. Wizard schools are an obvious extension of the concept of 'schools'. She has not herself been invited to go to wizard school because she is not smart enough. 

Other events in the movie: there is an animated hat that appears to be involved in assigning children to different classes! Characters can fly by sitting on broom handles! There is some kind of flying sport and the main character, Harry, is very good at flying! He and his two friends sneak where they aren't supposed to and find an enormous three-headed dog! The female friend is cornered by an enormous monstrous humanoid (that Jeremy clarifies for her is a 'troll') and has to be rescued! 

Eventually they need to fight their way through an underground dungeon full of puzzles and dangerous obstacles! At which point Harry has a confrontation with a teacher who turns out to be ??possessed?? by the villain who killed Harry's parents! (Jeremy will narrate this for Iomedae, if she hadn't been following that part, it's important character development.) 

None of these things are particularly surprising to Iomedae! They are the kind of thing that happens all the time! The wizards assailed by a troll would be fine if they had a holy warrior, but they don't, because it's a wizard school not a holy warrior school. 

Iomedae seemed to be enjoying that, at least! It's past 9 pm by the time they finish. Jeremy joins them for a post-movie glass of milk and cookie at the kitchen table, but says he'd rather not stay the night, given that he has a choice of the downstairs sofa or the "baby room" next to Lily's. 

(Jeremy's former room when he lived here - and where he still sleeps over if it's available - is the room currently occupied by Iomedae, which Jeremy has the tact not to mention. Evelyn also suspects he wouldn't mind the sofa, and is in fact begging off because he's picked up that Iomedae might feel a bit uncomfortable about a strange man in the house, even if she otherwise seems to have calmed down about Jeremy's presence. This also doesn't seem like something to bring up.) 

"How did you like the movie?" she asks Iomedae brightly over milk and cookies. 

"I like it! The box is a good thing. The talking too fast but I will study and get better English."

"You are getting better! I'm sure it's good practice, even if it's a bit fast. - Jeremy, love, can the TV play things slower?" 

Jeremy looks thoughtful. "I know you can with videos on the computer, but I've never tried before. I'll go look it up and if you can I'll show you." He winks at her. "And write you a little cue card so you don't forget." Glance over at Iomedae. "Mom is really incompetent at all this new techy stuff." 

"Look, it's not my fault they keep inventing doodads. There weren't DVD players when I was your age." 

"Of course not. How does the line go? 'When I was your age, kid, we had to watch TV by drawing cavepictures on rocks and moving them real fast.'" 

...Okay but, jokes aside, that might leave Iomedae actually genuinely confused about the rate of technological progress. "There were already TVs when I was little," Evelyn assures her. "In color, even, I think that was invented in...1950 or so? We just didn't have as many different channels, and there weren't portable movies you could stick into the box and play, just what was already playing on the TV broadcast."

She pauses, thinking. "...There were VCRs already, actually, those are pretty old, we just didn't own a VCR player. My friend did. And of course we could go to the cinema, and see movies like that up on the big screen." 

"Watch world get better in your life is see hand of God!"

"- Awwwwww okay that's actually really sweet. I want to go to her church." (Well. Leaving aside the weird Jesus-is-from Atlantis take, which does sound sort of culty.) 

To Iomedae, "- Mom's church is fine but it's, like, pretty boring. We sort of stopped going very often with all the kids in and out all the time." 

"Tomorrow Mass, if you want go with me! I no understand the services here very good though. At home I love church. One time for three months I speak only Scripture."