"I don't know what your mummy means by re'magic or p'ete'd magic. I don't know much about the kinds of magic. Maybe those things are p'ete'd magic."

Trying to explain what pretend means sounds hard, that would be so many words. Lily shrugs, and asks to hear stories about God fighting bad people when he was a person. 

Iomedae knows a bunch of those, though she'll have a bit of a time repeating them! God repelled an invasion by the terrifying warlord Imictal while He and Arazni were working together in Xopatl. God led an army into the Abyss to fight the demon lord Ibdurengian, who wanted to kill all the people of Azlant. God fought Tar-Baphon himself and beat him but Tar-Baphon came back recently. 

Iomedae proposes that while she tells more stories of God they go make breakfast. She thinks she remembers how to make pancakes.

Making pancakes would be fun but Lily thinks the rule is that Mummy needs to be there when you use the stove. Lily isn't allowed to touch the stove at all and big kids are but she thinks it might still be the rule that they need to tell Mummy about it. She can go knock on Mummy's door, Mummy is usually awake at the same time as Lily. 

(Evelyn is in fact awake this time! Mostly. She opens the door wearing her dressing-gown and slippers in only a few seconds, at least.) 

"'Meday mek pa'cakes!" Lily explains. To Iomedae, "who 'Razi?" 

"Arazni a great servant of God. When God human they work together make world better. Now she - I don't know the words - feather wings like a bird, but holy -"

"Woooow." Lily also doesn't know the word for that. Mummy knows ALL the words though. "Mummy?" 

"An angel, I think." That part at least makes perfect sense. "That's lovely." Maybe she can, by dint of googling every possible spelling variant, even pin down which Biblical angel that's referring to. 

They go downstairs. Evelyn puts the kettle on to make herself instant coffee, but lets Iomedae take the lead on pancakes, though she'll be right there if questions arise or if Iomedae seems to be about to do something risky.  

Iomedae is not really sure how she would do anything risky, here, other than touching the hot metal, which she does not do. She observes Evelyn making instant coffee so she can learn how to make that too. (She does seem to be going off her memory of which measuring cups Evelyn used rather than off a sense of how much of each ingredient to use.)

"An angel!" she says happily. "Arazni an angel. In Heaven can be an angel if you want."

"How lovely. What about if you don't want to be an angel, are there other options?" Evelyn says it more to make conversation than anything else. 

"Yes. No a very good Heaven if it make you be an angel! Heaven no have make people be things. In the part Heaven where you no have to be good some people just be people forever. I think they wrong though. They should be good and fight Evil. But still maybe not angels, could be - other kinds things I no have words for. Little balls of light send messages on Heaven battlefields."

"I don't know the word for that, sorry. They might also just be angels, I think there are lots of kinds of angels." 

"Angels mean all the kinds? Then yes, more angels." She makes less pancakes than yesterday; it was a custom of the people she travelled with to fast before Mass, and it is not a custom where Iomedae is from but it seems to her like a good one. If nothing else it motivates one to make it to an early Mass.

Evelyn is still pretty torn on what to do about Mass. None of the child-friendly Sunday services advertised on Google are at Catholic churches, and besides, Evelyn...is not Catholic...and feels slightly mortified at the concept of showing up at a Catholic church. She's not sure if it would be worse if she didn't know anyone there or if she did and ran into some acquaintances who were looking at her curiously wondering what on earth she was doing there. 

...Honestly, the thing that's going to happen here is that Evelyn is going to be a coward and take all of them to her usual Presbyterian church (where "usual" is, at this point, attending at Christmas and Easter, and random services here and there when she's between placements, or only has teenagers who spend the weekend out anyway.) At least the pastor knows her and knows that she fosters, and won't be baffled or giving her judgy looks if Lily bursts out in loud praise for God and Costco in the middle of the service. 

She compliments Iomedae on the pancakes, which in fact came out very believably pancake-like given that they were made by someone who first experienced using a stove yesterday. 

"If it's all right, I think we'll go to our family's usual church," she tells Iomedae. "It's called St John's. It might be a little different from the churches you went to with your friends, and - very different from when you were home with your parents, I'm sure. But they're very lovely, and they're understanding about children, I trust they'll be patient with Lily if she has to shout and run around a bit. The service isn't until ten-thirty so we don't have to go for a while." 

"Yes, ma'am," says Iomedae, though she cannot really fathom the idea of a church that is not understanding about children, who are after all a majority of all people. She starts on cleaning the kitchen.

(The US is a country where only one in five people is below the age of fifteen. In Evelyn's world, kids are definitely not the majority of people, and it's practically a stereotype that it's mostly the elderly who go to church.) 

She intercepts Iomedae. "No, no, you already made breakfast. It's my turn to clean up." 

"....yes, ma'am." Iomedae is feeling restless, though. She would volunteer to go carry water, or walk the grounds, or train the animals, except no one seems to do those things here.

Evelyn can recognize kids who need to burn off some energy! Usually it's because they have ADHD, but 'used to hard physical labor and under-exercised' probably feels a bit similar from the inside. 

"I think we're expecting Jeremy at eight or eight-thirty," she says, "but if he's up for a little adventure, there's no reason we can't bike to church instead of driving. Jeremy and I used to when it was just the two of us. You should be able to ride my bike, and I can take the tandem with Lily on the back, it's a bit far for her to bike on her own. ...You should probably practice first, if you've never ridden a bike before. Lily, want to show Iomedae your bike?"

Lily, of course, does not have stellar gross motor skills, and still has training wheels. Hopefully Iomedae will be able to pick it up quickly, because Evelyn does not have training wheels suitable for her adult-sized women's bike. 

Iomedae possesses no particular advantages at learning how to bike except her indifference to falling over and skinning herself horribly. It's really quite different from riding a horse. An hour is probably enough time for her to make some progress all the same, though.

After the second extra-large bandaid applied despite Iomedae's irritated look hinting that she does not feel she needs bandaids, Evelyn declares that she can practice in the BACKYARD. Which is hard mode in many ways, the grass isn't totally even, but at least falling will only result in grass stains. Evelyn does have some tips, and suggests she try peddling backward while Iomedae holds the bike up to see how that feels, and then walking around on the bike to get a sense of the steering while her feet are on the ground.

Jeremy indeed arrives at 8:30, and spends a minute calling "hellooooo?" to the empty house before thinking to stick his head out into the backyard. "Oh, there you all are! Iomedae, what on earth have you done to your elbows?" 

"Holy warriors usually wear metal clothes. Maybe this is why."

"Okay, seriously, Mom. Get the girl elbow pads. She can have mine, they'll be in the sports box in the garage." He grins at Iomedae. "I think it'd look pretty absurd riding a bike in armor - and you'd get so hot! - but we have a solution." 

And shortly later Iomedae can have elbow and knee pads to accompany her helmet. They fit her reasonably well despite having been sized for a 16-year-old boy. 

Lily thinks it's VERY FUNNY when Iomedae falls, and also VERY BRAVE of Iomedae that she hasn't even cried one time. She claps every time Iomedae gets up again. 

Jeremy goes inside for lemonade and comes back out with three ham-filled croissants on a plate. "Did you guys forget I was coming over and have pancakes without me?" 

"Iomedae wanted to make them for Lily!" Aaaaaaand Evelyn might have forgotten about croissants and breakfast. "That was at like 7:00 am, we can have a snack before we go to church. - We're biking, if you want to join us."