Annie 22: Caught

(Chronological index: Ray/Denise Married, Ruth known)

"Ray!" Sheila called from over the partition. "A little help?" Ray rolled his eyes and pushed his chair back from the desk.

Annie saw the motion and stepped out of the Crystal Globe. The browser tried to interpret her movements as surfing directions. It called up half a dozen websites before dying as she exited the hatch.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Doris," he said, holding out his hand. She shook her head and stepped aboard.

Down the hall and around the corner, one of the software developers crouched under her desk. She watched the feet of coworkers sweep past with obvious terror.

If anyone came within two steps of her desk, she whimpered and urged them not to crush her.

Most of the threatening giants ignored the 5' 11" woman and continued about their business.

"Someone needs their meds adjusted," someone muttered as they passed. Annie stuck her tongue out at the speaker's back.

"I'd give anything if MY fear of footsteps could be solved medically," she growled.

"Ignore him," Ray said. He walked carefully up to Doris' desk and sat in her office chair.

"Ray! Ray, be careful! I sylphed!"

"You know I'm always careful around little people," Ray said soothingly. "But you didn't sylph."

"No, no, Ray, this time I did! I can tell! It's not like the last time," she said urgently.

Ray shook his head and lowered Annie to the floor. The sylph remote project had died before any sales were finalized. It had been discovered that even the slightest use had a risk of causing microsomatognosia.

It was a psychosis where the afflicted imagined that her body was abnormally small, sometimes called the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.

Incidents of the psychosis had multiplied by a factor of twelve in the years since people started actually becoming abnormally small.

Research was inconclusive as to whether the remote system caused the syndrome, or just aggravated a condition that already existed. The number of users that developed the syndrome was statistically similar to its advent in normal society.

Either way, Doris had succumbed and was resisting her therapy.

Annie made soothing sounds as she walked carefully to the woman's hand. "Hey, Doris. How's it going?"

"I shrank! Dear God, Annie, how do you live like this? We could be crushed!"

"We won't be crushed, Doris. Ray takes good care of his little charges. He's like a big, stupid Boy Scout."

"Hey!"

"Um…Okay," Doris agreed.

"But first…we have to get in the box." Ray produced a cardboard container and quickly folded it into shape. He placed it on the ground before Doris. Annie held the flap open and waved.

Of course, the human couldn't get inside the container without busting it. Flaps burst from slots with regularity.

"There's something wrong with the box," Doris said. "Annie, I know that usually I can't… But this time. It's broken. It must be."

"Really?" Annie slipped inside and held the door shut. Then she stepped back out. "It works for me. And you know I'm a sylph. I've been a sylph since The Day."

Doris was silent and still for a moment. "I've had another attack, haven't I?"

"Looks like it."

"It… it feels so real, though!"

"It always does, doesn't it?" Annie asked kindly. There was an amused snort behind her somewhere. She put her hand behind her back and flipped the idiot off. She heard a snarl.

Then Ray snarled. Doris flinched but whoever the idiot was fell out of his chair.

"Come on, Doris. We'll take you to your doctor. Let Ray help you up, okay?"

"Okay." Doris closed her eyes and held out a hand. Ray took it and put the other hand on her head to keep her from bumping the desk.

Company policy for microsomatognosia attacks was for the victim and one of the designated escorts to get the rest of the day off.

They were trying to be supportive, and not just because so many groups saw the situation as some sort of sylphing conspiracy… However the hell that was supposed to work.

Annie and Ray had proven to be an effective team in making the victim comfortable all the way to the doctor's office. So much so, Annie was actually on the payroll.

"Clocking out!" she said proudly as they exited.

------

Even with the early departure, the two were a little late getting home. They'd stayed in the waiting room until Doris' husband came to drive her home.

Annie told her charge good bye and quickly put the work day behind her. Ruth was visiting tonight and actually sleeping over.

Ray didn't bother putting her in his pocket, just let her dance excitedly on the floorboard.

When they got home, though, Denise was looking worried. "Did you guys pick up Ruth?"

"What? No, I thought Gerald was bringing her by?" Ray put Annie down on the counter.

"Well, they're supposed to have been here at four…" Denise's voice trailed off. Ray whipped out his cell.

The call went to message and the teen spoke quickly. "Hi, you've reached Ruth, my choir director found sylph clothes in my purse and they think I'm in league with Satan. Not sure when I'll be able to talk to anyone. Whoops! Gotta go!"

He folded the phone and repeated the message to his wife. The sylphs had heard it clearly, of course.

"Well. What are they going to do?" she asked.

"Momma's gonna go off her rocker," Annie said glumly.

"How far, do you think?" Ray asked. "A talking to, grounding or an exorcism?" She shrugged.

"Can we go see them?" Pet asked. "Explain things?"

"I don't think that's a good idea right now," Denise said.

Buttercup put an arm around Annie and spoke softly to her. Ray was juggling his phone from hand to hand. "I want to call Gerald, but not if his wife is going to be around." He quirked his mouth for a second, thinking. "Maybe we can get him alone for a moment or two, find out what's going on."

"I'll stay here," Denise said. "If she runs away, again, she'll probably come here."

"Thank you, Denise," Annie said. The woman smiled down at the sylph.

"As Ray said, she's family."

"Okay, then let's get going," Ray said, reaching for his sylph.

"Wait, can we get my carrier?" Annie asked. "It might be a long wait, and it's more comfortable."

"Sure," he said. He stepped into the living room, snagged the ammo box and placed it on the counter.

"Can I go?" Pet asked. Both humans turned and shook their heads.

"No, Pet," Ray explained. "That'd probably be too many sylphs for the excitable Mrs. Trace."

"Well, okay," she said slowly, folding her arms.

Denise scooped up the dejected sylph and hugged her. "Come on, let's make some cookies."

Ray grabbed the carrier and headed out.

-------

"There's no car in the driveway," Annie observed.

"And no lights in the house," Ray agreed as he drove by the Trace's. "Where is their church?"

"Take the next right." Annie paced on the dashboard. "She's probably okay," she insisted. "Her church is more into lectures and prayer than exorcisms or anything violent."

"I'm sure," Ray agreed.

Ray parked in the dimly lit lot of the church. He turned off the engine.

"Well?" Annie asked.

"Well, what? This isn't a Hardy Boy mystery. If we don't see a reason to break her out of there, it's going to get me arrested for trespassing, maybe kidnapping."

"And?" Annie asked. Ray rolled his eyes.

"Look, the goal is to find Gerald or Ruth and talk to them, to make LESS drama, not storm in there and make MORE drama."

"My sister," Annie said, "could be in there being tortured-"

"You said she was fine. Your old church doesn't go into torture."

"My old church wasn't fucking insane on the topic of tiny fucking people!" she shouted. "There's no telling what they're fucking going to do to get the Satan out of her!"

"Annie-"

"Look, if you're not willing to go rescue her, then at least let me out!"

"Annie!" Ray said, pointing. A familiar figure was walking out of the church. "We'll talk to Gerald. We'll wait until he gets to his car."

But Annie's father didn't walk towards the lot. At the end of the walk, he turned in the opposite direction.

"Where's he going?" Ray asked for a second. "Well, let's go catch up with him." He reached for Annie.

"Let me get my sweater," she said, running to the top of her carrier.

"What?"

"Keep an eye on him!"

He did, watching the man cross the street and head for the far corner. He glanced to see his sylph step out, hood over her head, then grabbed her as Trace went out of sight behind a building.

"Come on!" He slid Annie into his shirt pocket and got out. With his attention on the street, he didn't notice the small object drop beside his leg and roll under the car. "Hang on," he warned.

"Uh huh," Annie replied and crouched down. He shut the pocket flap and started jogging down the street.

Back at the Foster house, Denise moved cookies from the cooling rack to plates. She looked around the silent kitchen for a moment, then picked Pet up by her waist.

"Pet?" she asked suspiciously, "where is Buttercup?"

"I moan fwow," Pet said. She pointed to her crumb and her mouth.

"Then swallow the cookie and tell me where Buttercup is."

"I moan FWOW!" she repeated, then crammed two more bites in.

"Pet…." Denise said ominously.

"I moan…(gulp)…I don't know. Not exactly." She twisted one leg against the other and turned half-away from her owner.

"If you had to guess…?"

"She may…be helping…Annie find Ruth." Denise reached for her cell. "So when you asked to go, that was a distraction?"

"Annie owes me a Hershey's Kiss."

Ray's phone rang and rang in the empty car. Pet tried to look even more innocent under Denise's glare.

------

Ray found a small neighborhood bar. It was the only thing open on the empty street. He crossed the street for it. "There's a bar," he said. "Your father may have fallen off the wagon."

"Uh oh," Annie muttered.

Ray found Gerald in a booth. There was one shot glass of amber fluid in front of him. He sat with his hands on his thighs, staring at the drink.

Ray got a soda at the bar and slid into the booth opposite Gerald. The older man's eyes flickered up then back to the glass.

"Ruth was telling me your AA was going well." Ruth's father nodded. "This doesn't look good, Gerald."

"Nothing's good," he replied.

"What the hell's going on?" Ray asked. He sat patiently while Gerald's face worked. Several expressions crossed it. He was surprised that Annie waited so patiently in his pocket.

"Ruth had a gift for Annie in her pocket," Gerald finally said. "Fell onto the floor when May was picking her up from choir practice." He waved his hands. "Could have called it doll's clothes. But Ruth… She's been getting more and more independent lately."

That's when Annie squirmed. Ray nodded. "I've noticed. Her gamble to find her sister paid off, worked out well for her. She's found out that she can do things."

"Yeah," he said sourly. "Well, May asked her what the dress was for, she looked her in the eye and said, 'A gift for my sister.' Then all hell broke loose."

"Crap," Ray muttered.

"I dunno. I screwed up with one daughter. Now… I choose to screw up with my wife, or with my other daughter." He reached out and started to spin the shot glass. "Or, well, I can screw up impartially."

Ray reached out to Gerald, not quite touching his wrist. "Come on, man, we can figure something out. Maybe you don't have to pick sides. You're not alone. Ruth needs to know she's not alone."

He reached into his pocket and scooped out his sylph. "Maybe we can come up with something."

Gerald sat up straight at the sight of the tiny woman. "Is that…?"

"She's just here to help," Ray assured him. He glanced down at the still figure. Annie seemed subdued. She usually was around her father, but with Ruth's situation she should have… He tilted his head. Wait a minute, Ray thought. That's not Annie's ass.

He reached out and pinched the back of the hood. After a slight tug, Buttercup gave him a small smile. She turned to the other man.

"Mr. Trace, you remember me? I'm Annie's friend, Buttercup?"

"Shit," Ray shouted. He spun and ran out of the bar. Gerald stared at his back, then turned to the sylph.

"So, uh.. Hi?"

"Hi. What's bothering you, Gerald?"

He snorted. "Almost everything seems to stem from the fact that my daughter's a sylph."

She walked over to the shot glass and perched on the rim. "Really? So's mine."

He stared. After a moment he shook his head. "Let's start over." He offered the tip of a finger. "I’m Gerald. Can I buy you a drink, Miss Buttercup?"

"I'll take an icewater with lemon," she replied. He signaled for the waitress. Buttercup squirmed.

"That doesn't look too comfortable," Gerald said. He looked around for a second. She stood when he gestured, then he emptied the shot glass into Ray's abandoned drink.

The upended shot glass made a nice stool for her. She smiled at the waitress as Gerald ordered two icewaters.

------

Ruth flicked through a pile of pamphlets on the podium. Most of them offered answers to questions she wasn't asking. Bored, she wandered to the row of padded chairs to the left of the podium, to see if there was anything more interesting than the right side had been.

The door rattled a bit in the frame. She spun around and sat in the chair, assuming a position of prayer. She didn't hear the door open though. She heard…profanity.

The teen ran to the door and grabbed the doorknob. She was afraid to open it, though, fearing that she'd hit someone. Someone small and fragile. She'd hate it if she hurt Annie, especially by inconsiderate action.

"Goddamned hairball!" something shouted at her feet. Two tiny legs were sticking under the edge of the door. She gently pinched one and started to tug.

Annie slid into room, waving a blade for a hobby knife behind her. When she was clear, she relaxed on the floor and breathed deeply a few times.

"Annie! Are you hurt?"

The sylph rolled over on her back and glared up at her sister. "You know there's a cat that lives in this goddamned church?!?" She dropped the knife blade. "Thank God it's a domesticated one. If that was an alley cat I'd have been done for."

"Are you okay?" Ruth repeated, trying to hide a smile. The fact that her sister thanked God and cursed God in alternating sentences was typical, but not what she was used to.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She held up a hand, Ruth tugged her upright, then used her other hand to lift the tiny woman up to her face. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah," Ruth replied. "They just want me to sit and 'think about what you've done, young lady.' You know how that goes."

"Yeah, Ray tells me that all the time." The girls laughed together. "But they don't want you to think. Thinking leads to forming conclusions. What they really want is for you to sit there until you agree with them. Until you adopt their conclusions about whether or not candor is appropriate during a funeral, or fireworks should be used indoors."

Ruth nodded and smiled. She sighed and looked Annie in the eye. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm rescuing you. Let's go."

"Go where?"

"Ray's and Denise's. And mine and Pet's and Buttercup's. And, um, yours. If you want it to be." Ruth stared. "It's okay, Ray said you could run away and live with us!"

"I don't think he did," Ruth said slowly.

"Well, not exactly, but he did leave an opening, and if we both ask him just right…"

"Annie," Ruth said, shaking her head, "I don't want to run away." She walked to the front row of chairs and sat down. "I actually love my parents. They're great people, except for this… this…"

"Sixteen years of lying to you about a sister they drove away as cursed?" Annie snarked.

"Yeah." Ruth frowned. "Yeah, except for that. But running away…that's what dad was doing with the alcohol. It's what mom's been doing with her faith."

She curled up in the chair, holding her sister close. "I want to be open. If honesty gets me punished, then so be it. I'm tired of lying, sneaking around." The doorknob rattled as it opened. "Quick! Hide!"

Annie jumped out of her sister's hand as Ruth tried to slip her under the row of chairs. She landed on the cushion one seat over and waited.

Momma Trace and a minister were walking up the aisle of chairs.

"Ruth? Who were you talking- YOU!"

"Me," Annie said. "Your other loving daughter."

"Mom, don't be mad, she came here to help!"

"Help?" the minister shouted. "She's Satan Spawn!"

"If I were," Annie pointed out, "I'd have brought someone along to shoot that fu- freaking cat of yours."

"You have no power in this place!" he said, raising his bible to swat the offending presence.

"Twenty five thousand dollars," Ray said from the doorway. He was holding the frame with one hand and breathing deeply, but his delivery remained even.

"What?" Ruth and the minister asked.

"That sylph was appraised. She's worth twenty five thousand dollars on the open market." He stood straight and took a step forward. "If you kill her, or otherwise damager her, you owe me at least that much money."

"She's trespassing!" the minister pointed out.

"But she's still my property. If you want to call a cop about intruders, fine." Ray glanced down at the floor and picked something up off of it. "We'll pay the fines and whatever it takes. If you hit her, though, I'm going to find a lawyer to sue you so bad you'll have to take up a collection to buy a new collection plate."

The minster paused, looking from the man to the sylph. "God will look out for his own," he said.

"Yeah, there aren't any churches closing down for lack of funds, either." Ray held up the bloody Exacto knife. "How about I help you find your cat, instead? Looks like she could use a trip to the vet."

"Lilith?"

"Yeah. Let's go find Lilith." Ray took the minister by the arm and led him out the door. He glanced back at Ruth. "You guys okay?"

"We'll be fine," she assured him. She reached down to pick Annie up and turned to face their mother. The door shut behind Ray.

"Momma, I found Annie. I like Annie. I don't think she's evil. And even if she is, I want to visit her."

"Oh, dear, you know that can't happen." May Trace avoided looking at the figure in Ruth's hands. "You're going to have to pray and get this obsession out of your mind. Or, well, we'll have to make some changes. Take you out of choir, take away your allowance, stop those visits to friends."

"Those visits, Momma, are to Annie's house! She's the only friend I have!"

"I think," Annie pointed out, "that Pet, Denise, Ray and Buttercup would argue that."

"Not helping," Ruth said softly.

"You know, I can't help but notice something, Momma," Annie said. May's eyes flickered down but wouldn't stay. "See, when you lied to Ruth about me, you thought she was happier not knowing.

"Then she lied to you about knowing where I was, which she did to keep you happy. And she was happy.

"But once she finally was honest with you, she gets punished. Is that what you think of as a good relationship? Never mind me, but between you and Ruth. Lies are happiness, truth is punishment. Is that about it?"

"It's not like that," May said.

"It's exactly like that Momma," Ruth said. "I want to be happy. I want to be honest with you and I want you honest with me. Can we do both? Or do we have to choose?"

"You're… you're letting this…thing sway you. You're listening to her and she's poisoning you."

"Not likely," Gerald said. He walked in the door, holding Buttercup carefully in both hands. "If they were evil, this one could have had me drinking easily enough."

"You… You were… You were going to drink?" May asked. "Drink alcohol?"

"It seemed like the best choice of several crappy ones," he said with a shrug. He placed Buttercup down on a chair. Ruth placed Annie beside her. "You should talk to this little woman, May. You might like her. She reminds me of you."

May stared, speechless, mouth hanging open. "She loves her daughter," he continued. "And her considers her friends to be family. She'll risk just about anything to help family. And she talked me out of taking that drink."

He moved in to hug his wife close. He offered an arm to include Ruth in the hug. His daughter paused until May offered an arm as well.

"I think our work here is done," Annie said. "Back to the Batcave, Robin."

"Is she still in trouble?" Buttercup asked.

"I don't think so," Annie replied. "They're going to have to have some long talks, but at least it's all out in the open."

May broke free from the embrace of her family and knelt by the chair. "Thank you, little woman. If you stopped my husband from drinking again… Well, maybe you're not all evil."

"She isn't," Annie said. "She doesn't even cheat at solitaire."

"And… Annie. I… I'm not… I've never…"

"Take your time," Annie said. "Figure out your and Ruth's relationship. Then… Maybe we'll have lunch?"

"I… I don't know." May shrugged.

Annie shrugged back. "Honesty. That's cool."

"I think it's kind of like gays," Buttercup said. "When they were all in the closets, everyone could accept whatever authorities said about them. But the more that you know, personally, the harder it is to accept blowhard bigotry about the whole group."

"You think?" Annie asked.

"Oh, yeah. After Ruth talks about knowing you, and she spends an afternoon or something getting to know you herself, she'll come around."

The sylphs looked up as a shadow crossed the overhead lights. Ray stared down at them. One of his sleeves was in shreds and his face bled.

"Lilith is not in a good mood," he said. "You guys ready to go home or do we need to find Pet, too?"

"Our work here is done," Annie said again. Ray scooped up the women. Goodbyes took a few minutes, then he was headed back to the car. The Traces spoke in low voices as they walked out behind him.

"Wait," Annie said. "You had me appraised? For twenty five thousand? I thought top-of-the-line sylphs got thirty?"

"It was the company, for insurance," he replied. "And I'm sorry, but the market considers you one or two levels below top-of-the-line."

They were silent as he climbed back into the car and settled the sylphs.

"Is it…?" Annie asked. "Is it because I'm…uncooperative?"

Ray glanced down as he started the car. In the light of the street lamp, the little sylph looked forlorn, strangely unsure of herself. For all her disdain of sylphs being property, she still took the assessment to heart.

"No, no," he assured her with a little pat on her head. "It's not personality. It's cup size."

"What?"

"Hey, 25K is nothing to sneeze at. And I like svelte. You're just too slender for the high rollers. The market judges sylphs collectively and-"

"My BOOBS!?!?!" she shrieked. "A D Cup is five THOUSAND dollars more than my glorious mammalian secondary reproductive characteristics?"

"Fraid so," he said. He checked the traffic and drove out of the lot. Annie continued to rant.

Buttercup and Ray's laughter didn't help calm her down, either.



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