Welcomes

(About a month after The Day)

Reverend Burlew bent down to look closely at the little creature in the picnic basket.

She looked comfortable enough. More comfortable than he was, anyway. There was no air conditioning but there was a plastic bag of ice tucked under her little knitted nest. Burlew couldn't tell if water was sweating out of her or condensing on her.

He kept his hands flat on the desk. Brother Charles and Sister Carolyn had already proven to be sensitive about protecting their charge.

"Are you okay?" he asked the tiny woman.

"Scared shitless," she replied. She rubbed a hand over her extended belly. "I was hoping for a hospital birth, or at least a fireman at home. Now…."

"God will provide," Burlew assured her. He hoped God would. It was about time for things to swing in her direction again.

Carolyn had hissed at the vulgarity but Charles had smiled. Burlew gave him a nod. "God would prefer she was honest, I think."

"In that case," Charles started to say, "I'm scared-"

"Chuck!" Carolyn said in a warning tone. Charles just smiled wider. Burlew thought he saw the pet smile, too.

"-just as much FOR her," Charles finished with something of a superior grin on his face.

The Reverend leaned back from the desk. He glanced at the girls and saw both of their girls smiling as well.

"Brother Benton is rather upset with your family, Brother Charles."

"Brother Benton can go f-"

"Charles!" Carolyn snapped, elbowing her husband.

"He SAID he'd rather we were honest!"

"That's no reason to milk it," she replied. "You're going from trusting God's generosity to mocking his silence."

"But God's the one that made pigs AND rabies," Charles said defensively.

At the same time, both adults were reaching towards the basket.

Burlew raised his hands and leaned back. "I'm not taking his side!" he said. "I'm certainly not taking…"

"Buttercup," five voices said in a fine chorus.

"Buttercup," he nodded. "He'd have sold her! I think she's been through enough! Dead husband, shrinking-"

"Living with a smoker," the Buttercup said. The room was silent for a moment.

"Yeah, Carolyn," Charles said in a judgmental tone. She slugged him in the ribs, a full and meaty smack. "Okay," he grunted. "I'll only smoke outside, and I'll quit when the baby comes."

"Uh huh," Carolyn said. She turned to the Reverend. "Why do you bring up Benton?"

"Oh, just… Well, if you haven't gotten her registered, you might want to watch her carefully. He really thinks he should own her."

"Too slow!" little Denise said.

"Too stupid, too," Carla added. "I said she ran up the side of the altar and he LOOKED!"

"We're going to Savannah to register her after this," Carolyn said.

"With maybe a stop at the emergency room," Charles said, rubbing his side gingerly.

"But after that…." Carolyn ignored her husband. "Well, we're not sure what to do."

"What God would wanna have us do," Carla explained.

"Enunciate," her mother chided.

"What God would want to have us do," Carla repeated.

Burlew tented his hands before him. "Well, I've been thinking quite a bit about these new creatures," he said. "I think they're a test God gives us."

"Am I passing or failing?" Buttercup asked. "You're the test," he said with a smile. "Horribly powerless people come into our possession. They depend on us for everything from food and protection to getting lifted up from the floor so they can see the TV."

"Unless she wants to watch a show that's after our bedtime," Carla pointed out.

"Well, bedtime," Burlew said, his palms up. "Jesus is the one who said, 'For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’"

"She's not sick," Denise said.

"Well, no," Burlew tried to agree.

Denise kept on talking. "She's just got a parasite parked on top of her bladder."

"There's an image," Buttercup groaned. Charles dropped his face to his palm. Carolyn shot a hard look at her too-far-to-reach daughter.

"Well, what _I_ meant, or what I think Jesus meant, or how Jesus' words apply to this situation…"

"One more comma and we'll have to fine you," Carla said.

"This is why we don't visit people much," Carolyn said.

"I thought that was the lawsuits from you correcting people's grammar!" Charles said, gesturing at his savaged rib cage. His wife turned her gaze upon him like a battleship's gun turret swinging onto a new target.

Burlew found himself sharing a look of commiseration with the pet. A long-suffering look. And she'd only been with the family for a week…

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A week later, Buttercup was having trouble sleeping. She tossed and turned on the mattress they'd put in the dollhouse. Or tossed, anyway. It was a bandana stuffed with the softest rags they could find. Turning involved rolling uphill a ways.

And at that thought, she realized that she needed to pee again. "And here I am at the bottom of a gravity well," she cursed. Then she grabbed a handful of fabric and tugged.

"Buttercup?" Carla called from somewhere outside. "Do you need help?"

"Yes," she replied. She hadn't hesitated to admit that she needed the biggies' help since the day her life ended.

Standing naked and pregnant as Brother Asshole shouted about selling her, pride had been the first thing she'd consciously lost.

Now the front half of her house swung away into the darkness of the night-time living room. Carla was barely visible in the nightlight's blue glow. A hand floated in.

Carla was good about not yanking tiny grownups around. She crooked a finger and let Buttercup pull herself out of the bed.

She scurried over to the curtain and the cardboard potty Chuck had made. When she was done, she came back out with a little more panache. "Sorry," she said.

"S'kay," Carla said. Buttercup paused. "It's okay," Carla enunciated. Buttercup smiled and walked closer.

"What are you doing up after your bedtime?"

"Couldn't sleep," the teen said. "You?"

"Can't get comfortable," she replied airily.

"Thinking about where your kid's going to end up?"

The tiny woman stared up at the giant teen. "How old are you?"

Carla carefully picked the pet up and moved them both to the sofa. She worked a bit to get the sylph comfortable, nestled next to her mostly hypothetical bosom.

"It just seems obvious," she explained. "You haven't cared about anything but the kidlet since we met you."

"Well, I did offer one opinion," Buttercup pointed out.

"Oh. Yeah, you told Dad NOT to tell Uncle Herbert to pack sand," Carla agreed, eyes carefully rolling through 93 degrees. "I was hoping Dad would forbid him or his offspring to ever speak to us again."

"NO!" Buttercup snapped. "Family is IMPORTANT!"

"Right…" Carla nodded. "And all you have is your baby. And no control whatsoever about where it ends up. So naturally you can't sleep."

Buttercup sniffled and Carla's eyes popped open wide. "I mean, I mean, no. No, that's not… You're our guest, Buttercup, no matter what the laws end up saying. Your baby is YOUR baby! We're not… We wouldn't sell her."

"You can say that," the tiny voice whispered. "But you can't tell the future."

"I can tell you that you'll never be in a pet store," Carla promised. "And never belong to Brother Benthole."

Buttercup leaned back and gave the teen a critical eye. "You're skirting the edge of being naughty," she finally said. "Don't sass just because your mother is asleep, young lady."

"You won't tell on me," Carla said confidently.

"Why won't I?"

"Because we're family, now. And family is IMPORTANT." She provoked a smile out of the tiny woman. Then a tiny, tinny belch.

"Actually," Buttercup said, "you could probably bribe my silence with a pickle slice."

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One snack later, she was curled up on her side on the sofa cushion, getting a fingertip back-rub. Life was as good as it got. At least, if she ignored her worries about the future.

"Where will she end up?" she asked aloud.

"She, who?" Carla asked. "There's one man in the house, and he says he'll never leave this house. Unless there's a woman president, then he's moving to Ecuador."

"Really?"

"Really," Carla insisted. "I'm almost certain he's joking. But, well, Dad…"

"Yeah."

"Anyway," Carla continued after a moment. "If anything happens to Dad, you know Mom'll take care of you. And your little kidlet."

"Yes. And then you."

"Um…" Buttercup felt the girl squirm a bit on the end of the cushion.

"What?"

"I dunno. I just… Well, I don't think I want… A roommate. That talks." Buttercup rolled onto her back and stared, silent. "Nothing against you. Really! I like you fine, Buttercup. Except for, you know, Herbert. That'll come back to haunt us, I know it. But… Well, I have some secrets. I like having secrets. I mean, I like being able to keep secrets.

"If a cat catches me, I dunno, smoking? She's not going to tell on me."

"If you…" Buttercup took a deep breath before continuing. "OWN my kidlet and me, we wouldn't be so impolite as to tattle on you."

"Oh, sure. But, you know, you might reveal something by accident."

"That's true." Buttercup started to curl up again.

"But you could go to Denise. She has no secrets."

"She's FIVE! No one has secrets at FIVE!"

On her fifth birthday, Pet work up at the crack of way too early. She wiggled in excitement as she realized what today was.

Buttercup cuddled her daughter closer without waking. She was used to Pet being a bit of a spinning top during the night.

Pet was used to being hugged tight. She relaxed into the cuddle and her mom relaxed. She then crept out and away. She slithered between the blankets and crawled out of the bedroom on her belly.

Mr. and Mrs. Their Owners had found a lot of stuff for the dolls house that Pet and Buttercup lived in. The floor was crowded, but Pet knew every toy and marble and made it to the front room without a sound.

She loved this time of day. When she stood on the porch and watched the dark living room, she couldn't see much of anything.

But then the sun came up and things started to form in the darkness. Big huge blurry things that bore no resemblance to what she KNEW was in this room that she'd spent almost her whole life in. And that was the fun bit.

The best part of sunrise was seeing a horsie or a spaceship or a robot or a cowboy or a train looking like it was trying to decide whether or not to become real in the giant living room.

Buttercup had told her not to tell anyone else about doing this. It worried her.

"Why?" Pet had finally asked.

"Because I'm not sure if anyone wants their dolly pet to have that much imagination," Buttercup had whispered.

She was all the time telling Pet to be a good dolly, to be a good pet, and to be a fun little girl that their owners would like to own and play with and keep.

Pet figured Denise was going to be the perfect, perfect owner. She loved Mr. and Mrs. Their Owners, and she really liked Carla (although to be more accurate, what she really hoped was that she believed Miss Carla liked her). But she was comfortable with the idea of going to live in Denise's's room because Denise had a record player with a stack of 45's and Pet could help hold the needle while she changed them.

She wasn’t allowed to do that with the living room stereo.

And Denise was practically Pet's age.

And they both liked pink and ponies and they didn't either of them like cats or coffee and it was just going to be cool living way back in the back of the house.

She crawled out the kitchen window, the one that was stuck open since it had broken and Chuck had tried to fix it. Then she tip-toed to the porch.

She settled into the porch swing and waited for the darkness to wake up.

Something neat would appear on her birthday, she was certain of that.

And it DID!

She heard breathing before she saw anything and leaned over the rail and watched closely and watched and when a car went by on the road, the headlights swept across Denise sleeping on the sofa.

Had the giant decided to move her room to live out here? Or had… Had the darkness turned things all around and taken DENISE to give her to PET!?!

So excited she could hardly breathe, the little blonde ran along the table in front of the dollhouse and jumped to the table with the lamp.

Mom still got fraidy cat about how far sylphs could jump but this was the only muscle-mass ratio that Pet had ever known. Her footsie pajamas slid her down the table to the base of the lamp and she ricocheted towards the arm of the sofa. That jump led to a hop up to the back and then a run along the spine until she could drop by her hands gripping the sofa covering and get down really close to Denise's face.

There she hung for a bit, looking for any sign of a gift tag saying that Denise was her gift.

JUST before she stepped over onto Denise's shoulder, the giant girl's eyes popped open, already staring directly at the little sylph.

"Pet!" she whispered. "Denny!" Pet squealed.

"Happy birthday!"

"I know! I mean, thanks!"

"I snuck out here to be the first person you saw this morning."

"It worked! You ARE! I didn't even see Buttercup this morning! She's still asleep."

"She was," Buttercup's voice droned from the sylphs' bedroom.

"Whoops!" Denise and Pet said at the same time. "Sorry!"

"Why," Chuck's voice drawled from the hallway, "are we apologizing at oh dark much too damned early in the morning hours A.M.?"

"Sorry," they echoed together.

Breakfast was blueberry pancakes, Pet's favorite. Carolyn even let Pet help stir the batter.

Carla made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, and managed to toast Pet's initial onto the bread.

And dinner was Carolyn's famous Pet And Bacon Quiche, named for it's bestest fan in the whole world.

Pet's family loved to shower attention on the birthday girl du jour. Pet and Buttercup's legal status as pets hardly mattered to any of them.

Most of the gifts she got that year were for the new dollhouse. Chuck carried it into the living room for Pet's first view.

There were magazine pictures of ponies everywhere and bits of foam covering every sharp corner and great big windows so Carla and Carolyn and Chuck and Denise could always see exactly where Pet and Buttercup were.

The cake was shaped as a mountain with a train-tunnel running down the center. The tunnel was big enough for Pet to crawl through, though she couldn't do it without brushing against the icing. Often. And coming out covered with chocolate.

Chuck stated that she looked good enough to eat and she fell flat on her back and screamed.

Clean-up, both emotional and frosting, took a while and left everyone feeling drained.

Or sticky.

But soon enough, Pet's natural disposition drove her to forgive Mr. Chuck, Sir and Buttercup approved of a forgiving Pet so she did, too. And Carolyn couldn't come up with a reason to stay mad at the offending party if the offended party wanted to go on with the birthday party so everyone was soon smiling over cake and ice cream.

When it got to be time for little girl's and little little girl's bedtimes, a small flaw in the plan came to light.

Months previous, it had been decided that spreading the responsibility for God's test that the sylphs represented would be a good thing. And it had been decided that Denise would be the best place to spread it. And that at age five, Pet would be ready for the spread-out testing.

And everyone was on board with that plan.

Pet was excited about sleeping in her own room in her own dollhouse in Denny's own bedroom and being one of the first people Denise saw in the morning.

But no one had ever actually told Pet, clearly, that Buttercup wasn't moving into Denise's room with her. Until Carla.

"Gotta say, kidlet, you're handling the separation better than I'd have expected."

"Sepration?" Pet asked. She was standing by the sink 'helping' Denise was the ice cream bowls.

Buttercup, who'd been suffering pangs of anxiety about the coming separation, which were not made any better by Pet's indifference to the change, shook her head sadly.

"You know. When you move out of Buttercup's dollhouse and into your own."

"Why's that a separation?" Pet asked. She shrugged. "It's just a house."

"Pet," Denise said slowly. "Your mommy isn't moving into my bedroom. It's just going to be you and me in there."

"I'm staying in the living room, dear," Buttercup added. Only Chuck noticed the small catch in her voice.

Pet stared at Buttercup, then Denny, then every other face around the kitchen.

"Nuh-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh," she replied.

Chuck scooped up Buttercup and Pet into one hand, then sat at the head of the dining table trying to calm everyone down.

Pet had been okay with having her own room only because she had decided that Chuck would somehow hammer the old bedroom to the new house so their windows would look in on each other.

Buttercup was trying to persuade her daughter to stop wailing, while inside she was gratified that it had just been ignorance, not indifference.

Which made her feel guilty, which hampered her efforts to calm Pet.

Denise was trying to list all the fun things they were going to do together, like singing lullabies to each other and describing dreams.

And Carolyn was at her husband's shoulder, trying to help Buttercup.

Carla watched from across the table. Her bedroom was next to Denise. She'd been prepared for the two to giggle like idiots every night and for most of the night. But if this was a preview, she was going to run off and join the circus.

"Hey, hey. HEY!" Chuck snapped. "Listen up. I've solved it."

"Solved what?" Carolyn asked.

"Everything."

"Ah. Well, that's sorted, then. Let's get ready for bed, girls."

"What's the solution?" Denise asked.

"Tonight, Buttercup will tuck Pet into bed and stay with her until she goes to sleep," he said, matter-of-factly. "And we'll keep it up as long as we need to."

Everyone nodded except Denise. She'd been looking forwards to having a co-conspirator. She hadn't wanted another grown-up watching over them.

"I guess for a few nights," Buttercup said, "I can sleep in her room."

"Oh, I'll come get you when Pet's asleep," he said.

"How will you know when that is?" Carolyn asked. She didn't think Denise would enjoy her father coming into the room at random through the evening. "With your big boots, if she's not quite a sleep you're going to stomp her awake when you come in."

"I told you," he said, "I won't pick Buttercup up until Pet's asleep." He turned back to the sylph. "I always know when Pet goes to sleep."

"How?" everyone asked.

"Well, the real answer," he said to Buttercup, "is that I always know when YOU stop worrying if Pet'll ever go to sleep."

"How's that?" Carla asked, though she thought she knew. They'd read a book in class about the near-telepathic powers some sylphs seemed to exhibit with some owners. Sometimes.

Her father shrugged. "Beats me. But it's how I knew that she knew that Pet had gotten up this morning."

"Giggles?" Denise asked.

"A spike of fear that woke me up. By the time I was on the way into the living room, THEN we both heard giggles."

"So she's, like, your familiar!" Denise squealed. She reached down to cup Pet's shoulders. "That means you're going to be MY familiar!" Pet looked curious and hopeful.

Carolyn looked worried. "Familiar? That's…witchcraft, isn't it?" She looked at the sylphs with a concerned expression.

That made Chuck look worried. "I don't… Well. I don't feel like I've lost my soul or anything," he muttered.

Carla started to giggle. Everyone stared.

"Oh, such a subtle tempter is the devil," she said over barely-controlled snickers. "The other churches are right. He created sylphs as an act of evil."

"Hey," Buttercup started to protest.

"And slipped them among us, innocent and pure and friendly and pretty." There were more giggles.

"I'd have said beautiful," Carolyn said, brushing Buttercup's back with a fingertip. The sylph flashed her a smile.

Carla continued, "All so he can one day seduce my father into witchcraft." The giggles became laughter. "That means… That means… Buttercup's mission on Earth is to… To get my poppa… To dance naked under a full moon."

"Well, good luck with that," Carolyn said with a grin. "God couldn't get him to dance at our wedding."

"I was wearing a tuxedo!" Chuck pointed out. "I'd have looked ridiculous dancing in a tuxedo!" He slapped his beer belly with his free hand. "Naked? I could carry it off."

The thought of a skyclad husband, father or owner sparked a laugh out of everyone else in the kitchen.

The panic died down and Denise carried Pet over to pack her things.

------------

For a week, Buttercup lay on top of the covers and held Pet until she sniffled herself to sleep. An hour the first night, a half hour the next two…

After the week, though, Chuck was walking into his daughter's room to retrieve Buttercup inside of ten minutes.

He walked all the way to the living room before asking. "Is she faking it?"

"She's snoring like a cartoon character in a coma," Buttercup snorted. "Just like Denise. So, yes, you were right."

He sat on the sofa as Carolyn turned on the TV. She handed a bowl of popcorn to her husband who slipped one kernel up to the sylph on his shoulder.

"I was right," Chuck said slowly, savoring the comment.

"And now you're going to be insufferable," Carolyn sighed.

"So. Your daughter has her own room. And a roommate that giggles almost as often as she does. About the same things. Pet knows she's loved. Denise is accepting responsibility."

"AND Denise knows SHE'S loved," Carolyn added.

"And you," he gestured for Carolyn to turn the volume up a tiny bit. "You get a more adult bedtime. And you get to hang out with grownups."

"Except for," Carolyn said, "those horribly strenuous joint-custody visits with Pet at breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, sylph after-dinner and bedtime."

Chuck held up one finger as if he'd just thought of something. "And you get to vote on TV shows that do not belabor educational content by putting it to music."

"I like musicals," Buttercup said.

"About the alphabet? Sharing? The use of 'thanks' in a social setting?" Carolyn asked. She started to hum the Sesame Street theme.

"Well…."

The music started on the TV and the hunky detectives ran across the credits, chasing a drug dealer down an alley. Buttercup's husband, a police officer shot in the line of duty, had always voted against cop shows. It had been fine with her at the time. He spent the whole hour telling her what they were doing wrong.

Chuck liked to point out errors, when he noticed them, but not as often. Still, she liked it. With his critiques she could almost hear her husband agreeing with him, bringing back a part of him, if only in her imagination.

And if she started to cry because that reminded her that she still missed him, her owners never said a word about it. And with the new sleeping arrangements, she didn't have to worry about making Pet sad when it happened.

"Yeah, you were right," she repeated. "This is better."

Welcome to grownup-land," Carolyn said.

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