That is indeed what she's asking. She leans in closer and frowns at the picture.

...Is that meant to be a campsite? Maybe her family is, like, in some weird desert cult. She would wonder if the girl had just arrived from Burning Man - she's wearing what could theoretically be a Burning Man-appropriate costume - but it's not the right time of year at all. 

She takes an orange and yellow crayon and leans in tentatively to draw some flames. She points at them. "Campfire?" 

Yes! Each hearth has a fire, that is a good way to represent a hearth.

She says "campfire" while making the sign for "hearth", then says, "Ayla eat Creb campfire"

Successful communication! 

...Which does not actually get her any closer to a solution, and she's sort of despairing that it will. Honestly, at this point, it doesn't really feel like an option to send the young woman back to her adoptive parent(s) at their random desert camp even if they do manage to locate them today. 

She sighs, and slides her own house-and-family drawing back over. She carefully draws a car. "Car. Nicole at her house, before, then Nicole in car, on road, then Nicole here." She pulls out another piece of paper to draw an approximate map of all the turns she has to make to drive to work, and then accompanies the explanation with gestures and pointing. "Nicole's house there. ....Ayla's - Creb," she's not 100% sure if Creb is a person or a favorite toy or the word for 'campsite' in another language, "- Ayla's campfire, where?" 

Does "where" mean where? Ayla isn't sure, but she also has no idea where she is right now anyway.  She shrugs.

Nicole isn't entirely sure whether Ayla is failing to understand the question or just actually lost. She...is sort of running out of stamina for playing drawing games to communicate words, even if Ayla is shockingly quick at it and doesn't at all seem to be trying to conceal anything, which makes it far less frustrating than it might be otherwise. 

...Ugh, it's definitely not doing right by the girl if she doesn't try to explain that they're going to find her a temporary foster family while they sort things out. And she does not yet have the vocabulary to explain that. 

Mostly she just needs the word 'after'. That's....probably doable? 

...She finds the paper with the Nicole-baby and pregnant-Nicole and younger-Nicole figures, and - puts a new piece of paper on the other side and draws another Nicole figure, now with a puff of grey hair and a shoulder-height "child" figure beside her.

She points at the old small-Nicole image. "Nicole before before before." At the new image, the grey-haired Nicole with a much older kid. "Nicole after after after. Nicole baby, after after after." 

This seems to be indicating moving forward in time, but Ayla is unsure how to communicate her understanding.

She shrugs, then gets an idea and draws a medium sized stick figure. "Durc after?"

Nicole lights up. "Yes! Durc after!" 

...A pause. She should really check if Ayla is expecting anything in particular, here. 

"Ayla - where, after?" 

Ayla doesn't actually know the answer to that question.  Maybe she will still be with Brun's clan, or maybe the clan of Zoug's mother will have a mate for her, or maybe something else will happen.  She shrugs.

...Yeah. You know what, given her background (well, either that or the fact that she understands at best half of the question) that's pretty fair. 

She takes a deep breath and lets it out. Tries to look very decisive and calm and in control.

"Nicole and Ayla go together after." She reaches as though to put her arms around Ayla's shoulders, though without actually touching her because who knows what this kid's been through. She points ahead. ...She has no idea if that's clear or not. 

Ayla is not sure what this means, exactly.

"Ayla go Nih-gul ... house?"

That is a really reasonable conclusion to draw! And also, uh, no. 

Nicole quickly pulls out another piece of paper and draws another house. "Nicole and Ayla go here. Ayla eat, sleep, here, after. ...Nicole, after after, go to Nicole's house. Ayla stay here." 

It seems like the woman is talking about a place that Ayla will go.  She can't think of any questions that she could express or understand an answer to, so she shrugs again.

That's also pretty reasonable of her. 

"Ayla... Ayla, here," she points at the ground, "Ayla - is still a child."

(She is pretty sure Ayla does not think this about herself - she has a baby of her own, for one - or, like, she's not sure of that but Ayla is scooping the baby up and nursing it and holding it like a child she's parented since birth - and also she can't remember if she explained  the word 'child' before, separate from 'baby', and in general this is really limited vocabulary to convey 'I don't know how old you are but you're definitely not eighteen.')

...She points at the next-smallest Ayla figure she drew before. "Ayla, here, still a small Ayla. Still a child." 

"- Ayla's new mummy, there." She can draw a new mother figure in the other house. She's picking the blonde hair color half at random, because the crayon was right there, and half to convey that it's Ayla's new foster mother - which, well, single foster moms aren't that uncommon but single foster dads are basically unheard of. Probably Ayla's new foster family won't include a blonde mother, though it'd be kind of a convenient coincidence if it did. 

This woman ... seems to be saying that Ayla is a child.  Ayla contemplates trying to explain that she isn't a child in pictures, but that just seems exhausting and she doesn't understand anything that is happening anyway.  She shrugs again.

Nicole is also somewhat doubtful that she communicated the plan successfully, but at this point she's going to be seriously behind for the rest of the day if she doesn't get a move on. She needs to document what they know so far (not a huge amount), make a phone call, possibly drive the kid somewhere if the local CPS office is as understaffed as they were last time something like this came up...

It's already noon by the time Evelyn Steel, one of the more experienced foster carers in the Reno-Tahoe area, gets a call from Jessie, her supervising social worker. She's between placements, and she knows the agency has been trying to keep her open for the next really complicated case. She's expecting the usual kind of complicated – chaotic childhood, family known to Social Services, half a dozen failed placements. It's noon on a Tuesday; there's no particular reason to expect this one is an emergency placement. 

...Well. Apparently it's both an emergency placement AND extremely complicated. 

"I really don't know a lot," Jessie says, apologetic. "Teen mother with a baby - three to six months old, they thought - and young teenager, we don't have an age for her either but apparently she doesn't look older than thirteen, maybe twelve. And she turned up wearing animal skins and not speaking a word of English. The officer who assessed her thinks it's possible she grew up up in an ASL-speaking community, she seemed to be trying to use sign. They somehow managed to find out that she was adopted - adoptive mother is called Izzie or something like that - and they think she was living out of a campground just before this. She doesn't seem to know the way home, but it's also pretty hard to ask her, with the language barrier. Aside from that, we don't know a thing about her background." 

That SURE DOES SOUND COMPLICATED. 

"Any medical conditions? Injuries?" 

"I mean, not that we know of? She apparently looks healthy and fit, and seems quite bright. We'll want to schedule a doctor's appoint for her ASAP, obviously, but her assigned social worker decided against having her detour by the hospital for a checkup, it doesn't seem necessary and it would probably be traumatic for her." 

"Right. Do I need to go pick her up, or is someone bringing her over?" 

"Uh, it sounds like the station can have someone drive her over once we have a placement confirmed. If you're happy to take her, then I'll call them back and let them know?" 

Had she not made that clear already. "- Yes, of course I'll take her. The poor girl." Who's probably going to be here SOON, so Evelyn had better hurry and get a bedroom ready. The bigger bedroom with the en-suite that used to be Jeremy's is available right now, and appropriate for a teen mom and baby, but she'll have to rush to get a crib out of the basement... 

Ayla is left mostly alone on the sofa for a while. Eventually Nicole thinks to show her the bathroom facilities, since it looks like it might be a while. Does she seem to need more explanation of what a toilet is for than just pointing at it? 

Ayla follows Nicole into the strange new cave made of smooth shiny stone in COLORS.  There is a large bowl of clean shiny white stone full of water.  Is this a spring? Ayla turns to Nicole and mimes drinking, with a questioning expression.