A truck screams out of nowhere, moving so fast that it may, possibly, be rocket-propelled, or at least it feels that way in the very brief final moments of Evelyn's consciousness within the physical continuum of Earth.

Evelyn is now inside some sort of elaborately drawn glowing magical circle inside an obvious pseudo-medieval castle chamber, but she's not going to have very much time to look at that because an obvious king is immediately grabbing her arm and talking very quickly as she's hustled off toward a huge metal door-gate!  "Sorry summoned hero no time to explain anything disaster imminent you're supposed to somehow be able to solve our problems and we need you to do that right now last hero failed and we're all about to die -"

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh that is not how getting hit by suddenly-appearing-maybe-rocket-propelled trucks is supposed to work! Also Evelyn is TOO OLD for this and some very ridiculous part of her brain is gibbering that there's a REASON mysteriously being summoned to other worlds to save them from great danger is a thing in YOUNG ADULT books!! She's not a hero! Or, well, she's occasionally been the recipient of, like, appreciation cards with that 'not all superheroes wear capes' inspirational quote, but it SURE LOOKS like they were aiming for the sort of hero who can fight dragons with a powerful magic sword! 

...She does not manage to assemble her objections enough to interrupt the king or prevent her from hustling her toward the enormous metal gate. That seems like a really awkward thing to do to someone who's clearly having a really bad day, and is probably about to have a WORSE day because he tried to summon the, you know, actually-heroic kind of hero and instead got a fifty-year-old foster mom. 

There's a titanic howl and crash which is clearly coming from the other side of those heavy gates, even as a couple of generic royal guards are frantically undoing bars so it can be opened.

Oh dear. 

"I'm sorry but I - really - think maybe you got the wrong person by mistake?" Evelyn finally manages, feeling incredibly mortified. "I'm a mom. I can't, like, fight monsters. It's not that I don't want to help, I, just..." 

Maybe it's a baby dragon having tantrums? Evelyn is still pretty sure she's about to get turned into a small smear on the ground, but - she feels really bad for this poor medieval-kingdom-out-of-a-young-adult-novel and the king who looks like he's having the worst of days already.

"Eh - but -"  The king looks like he's trying to decide which of four possible rejoinders to give to this.

And since time doesn't actually go on hold while all that happens, the GATES ARE NOW OPEN.

The young girl standing in front of the now-opened gates, with flame and craters behind her, is looking around in what seems like blank surprise and maybe sadness.

Oh no she's so young and sad and probably so confused and - well, might have something to do with the flames and craters, but Evelyn did not actually SEE it happen and you always give kids the benefit of the doubt. 

She would kind of really like more background here! Being thrown in the deep end by having a child show up on her doorstep with half an hour's warning and two sentences of background from the social worker isn't exactly an unfamiliar experience, but this is taking it to a new and fairly ridiculous level. She's not about to turn around and ask the king or the generic guards in FRONT of the poor kid, though. 

Right. How to approach this? There are a lot of reasons why kids act out, and that must include kids whose tantrums can level cities. (Medieval cities, she reminds herself, they're probably a lot more flammable.) Generally it doesn't help to yell about how what they just did is unacceptable, especially when you didn't see it happen and don't actually know how it happened. Evelyn's default strategy, when she doesn't know anything about a child and is going in blind, is to be very calm and kind of just - ignore the misbehavior and move ahead like she would otherwise. 

She's freaked out, but honestly this has kind of gone past the point of absurdity where she can muster actual emotions about it. She pastes a pleasant but not too excessively bright smile on her face and takes a few steps toward the girl, moving slowly and in as nonthreatening a way as she can manage. Coughs slightly on the smoke. The ground is noticeably warm under her feet. 

"Hi," she says levelly. "My name is Evelyn. What's your name?" 

The blank-looking girl slowly turns to stare at Evelyn.

"...name," she says in a voice like she's singing the word off-key.

That's a very confusing answer! Her name is...'name'? Or maybe she doesn't speak English and is just repeating the last word Evelyn said in confusion. Come to think of it, it's weird that anyone speaks English in a medieval kingdom out of a YA novel. 

Evelyn takes another step closer. (She's still not very close in absolute terms; the kid has no reason to trust the weird lady she just met, that's usual, and it's also usual for kids to need space when they just had a tantrum. Also maybe the girl will set her on fire, but Evelyn is trying not to focus on that because it has not once, in her entire fostering career, ever been helpful for a kid to observe her being scared of them, and kids are like radar dishes for that kind of thing. So she's mostly not focusing on it.) 

She points at herself and says 'Evelyn' again, very clearly, and then points at the girl and makes a questioning face and hand gesture. 

She'll stare at Evelyn for another few seconds, then point at herself and clearly say "Evelyn," and then point at Evelyn and imitate the hand gesture, but not the facial expression.

Okay, this goes beyond not speaking English and is starting to look like not understanding the general concept of communication. It's not that Evelyn has never encountered kids this unable to, well, engage, but usually the reason they didn't understand the concept of communication is that they were one. This girl is not one, and also not severely developmentally delayed, probably, given that she's a) standing up and able to repeat sounds and gestures, and b) probably managed to cause an enormous disaster. (Evelyn is going to continue not focusing on the enormous disaster part, that's the kind of thing you address AFTER you've built some trust and are sure the child is calm.)

Maybe she's very autistic? Maybe she's one of those feral children raised by wolves and has never encountered a fellow human being before? 

...Evelyn is Making Assumptions and has to stop and remind herself that she has no idea, actually. She can try to get more background LATER, from one of the grownups who presumably did not just wake up mysteriously in this medieval city and can thus fill her in on the leadup to them, uh, apparently summoning her. To be a hero. To solve their problems. Which so far do appear to include a confused, sad young girl, which is at least vaguely in Evelyn's skillset. 

Evelyn is feeling pretty unsure of how to best handle this, but she ALSO knows that looking unsure of yourself in front of children is a great way to get them to act up MORE rather than less. She needs the girl to see her TAKING CHARGE here. 

She walks confidently over - though still not very fast, and still trying to move in a non-threatening way - and holds out her hand. "Do you want to come with me, and we can find somewhere more comfortable to sit? I bet you could use a drink of water." 

The girl looks DEEPLY CONFUSED but will try to (apparently) take her head off her shoulders, and when this fails after a brief moment, carefully step forward and tilt her neck to place her head in Evelyn's hand.

....Well. That was absolutely bizarre but - if you've never encountered another human being before then maybe you legitimately don't know that 'holding an adult's hand' is a thing.

At least the little girl is relatively calm and not screaming. Evelyn appreciates the lack of screaming. 

"Not like that, dear," Evelyn says gently, "you won't be able to see where you're going, will you?" She takes the girl's head in both hands and straightens her up again, then reaches to hold her smaller hand. "Like this. Is that all right?" 

She stares at where Evelyn is holding her hand, then says "See where I'm going" and wildly looks around in all directions before her head becomes still again.

Awwwwwwwww. Also concern, to be clear! Though it's reassuring that the young girl does seem to understand some English, or - who knows, maybe Evelyn isn't even speaking English right now and there's weird YA novel magic. 

"That's it. But you don't need to look around everywhere all at once, you'll make yourself dizzy." 

She...does not incredibly want to take the child back into the ??palace?? or whatever it is she just left, at least not without first having the chance for a private conversation with the king or guards about who this child is and exactly what was happening before she got here.

Is there any direction where it looks like things are less on fire and they could maybe go find some unburned grass or something to sit on? She appears to still have her handbag and shopping bag, which is convenient, it means she can offer the girl some water and maybe even a lollypop, she thinks she still has one or two from the last time she restocked her emergency Lily bribes.

(Lily, oh no– not going to dwell on that right now. THIS young girl needs her.)  

Not everything is on fire YET, and if you move away at an angle from the approach to the gate, you can find a section of palace garden with no fire particularly close to it, sure, with enough grass to sit on and also some fancy metal-wooden benches too.

Evelyn is not a firefighter or equipped for dealing with this in any way - she's never carried a fire extinguisher in her handbag even the time she had a child who liked to shoplift lighters and start little fires, though she does still have a mini one in her car, unfortunately not present with her. Hopefully someone else is going to deal with the fire. She will deal with the thing she's even slightly qualified for. 

She leads the girl over to the benches and guides her to a sitting position. Sits down beside her, not quite touching her, and offers her the water bottle. "Here. You'll probably feel better after you have a drink." 

...Does the kid seem to know in any way what to do with a water bottle, or does she need more prompting? 

She will hold the water bottle in front of herself.  "I have a drink.  I don't feel better."

Oh no cute and concerning. (Evelyn is definitely making a note of the apparently over-literal speech and comprehension, which is vaguely autism-flavored, she thinks? Though it's way too early to jump to any conclusions yet.) 

"You're allowed to drink it," she says, reaching over and unscrewing the cap in case that's one of the confusing parts. "You put the top in your mouth and tip it like this until some goes in your mouth, and then you swallow it. If I were you I think I'd be feeling thirsty by now, with all this heat and smoke." 

The child looks VERY DUBIOUS and like she is starting to feel GENERALLY SKEPTICAL OF THIS ADULT.

That's probably kind of fair from her perspective! Evelyn just showed up out of nowhere and is trying to mom at her! She's plausibly never been mothered in her life and Evelyn is aware that being treated nicely by an adult when that's not within a child's past experience can actually be unsettling or confusing for them. 

...Does it help if she takes a sip of the water first and then offers it back? (She is mildly ehhh about germs but that feels like NOT THE TOP PRIORITY right now.) 

She'll try to stand on the bench and then look into Evelyn's mouth, appearing EVEN MORE CONFUSED.