Eric's mind reeled. This kid was talking crazy! She couldn't be her mom, she just couldn't! For that to happen, she'd have to...have to...no! She couldn't do that! Unless...oh God, what if her heat cycle...what if she...and who knew where that would lead? It could be some random stranger and then she'd never see him again and have to raise the kid all by herself!
"Gawd! Gag me!" she said, nearly choking at the thought of it.
"M-mom?" the girl asked. "You're talkin' weird...you didn't used to do that. Are you okay? You look dif'rent and you sound dif'rent..." She clung to Eric's leg, and the teenager could feel her trembling. She felt bad now...this poor kid was lost and scared...and she must be confused. After all, the little girl was ten or so, and even if Eric could get to the point where she'd have a child, she hadn't, yet...
Yeah, that was clearly ridiculous. How could she have even entertained the idea? She must still be rattled from her escape...oh! She should get out of here, in case that thing was coming after her! And she couldn't very well leave the little girl, either...but if she mentioned some kind of weird bug-ogre thing, the kid would probably panic.
"Look, kiddo," she said. "I ain't your mom...I think you musta confused me with her. She look like moi? What's her name?" The girl must have it mixed up - after all, considering how much she looked like Eric, apparently skunk-people just looked the same or something...
The girl nodded. "Mom...she looks a lot like you, but older. An' she doesn't talk funny, neither. I...I dunno her name, I can never 'member..." She got a "thoughtful" expression on her face that even Eric in her distress couldn't help but find adorable.
"A'kay," Eric said. "Guess we'll try ta spot her by looks...what's yer name, kid?"
"'m Nikki," the little skunk-girl said. "Everything looks dif'rent...kinda like my mom says it useta look, back when the sun was all weird..."
Eric frowned. Huh? This kid was really out of it now...the sun still was weird, at least on Earth. Or...she had come through one of the cracks, maybe she'd come from...no, that was crazy, nobody could've colonized the other world yet! Unless...well, if some parts of the other world were still here on Earth, maybe some parts of the town were still there? Maybe her mom was talking about the sun on Earth as compared to the yellow sun in the other world?
She tried to figure out what to do. If the kid's mom really was in the other world, maybe they should go back through that crack? The one she came from should lead to the right place, right? But...she didn't want to go back in there, not when more of those things might be waiting for her...but if she didn't, how would this poor kid ever get home?
She picked up Nikki, wondering why it was the girl didn't have any clothes on. She wasn't wet, so she wouldn't have been in the tub...huh. Well, all she had to do was get her home...she stepped tentatively up to the crack.
Dinner went pretty late at David's house, the conversation well outlasting the actual meal. The angel-girl was relieved to see that, while her parents were still kind of surprised and a bit weirded out by her friend's appearance and mannerisms, they seemed to like her all right. The conversation touched on a variety of topics, though her parents' questions about the day-side figured prominently. David wondered why they hadn't asked her, but she supposed she'd only been like this for a week and had hardly been out much in that time, except to go to school. Rachel knew a lot more about the subject, having been a day-one transformee.
She wondered what Rachel thought; her parents she knew from years of living with them, but the devil-girl was less familiar and harder to read for her. Still, she seemed to be having a good time. Finally, though, they looked at the clock and agreed that it was probably time for her to be getting home. David saw her out.
"Thanks for coming with me today," she said, as they stood on the porch. "It was fun having you along. And thanks for staying for dinner..."
The devil-girl grinned. "Thanks for having me," she said. "It was pretty fun, and the food was good too. Besides, I wouldn'tve missed the chance to see what your guys's secret hangout is like."
David nodded. A silence followed stretching into awkwardness as both of them felt like there was something to be said, but didn't know what.
"...so, see you at school tomorrow?" Rachel offered, at last. The angel-girl smiled. "See you there."
Jenny felt tired, but a good kind of tired, a sort of pleasant haze as her body wound down after a busy day. They'd had a nice supper together; she didn't even know if she really liked vegetables, but there was a nice mix of them that her grandpa had picked, and the chicken was really good! And they'd had pie for dessert, too...she sighed happily.
But her mind was still elsewhere, as the grownups all talked, alternating between saying how nice she was and giving her mommy advice on being a parent. "G-grandpa?" she murmured, as she tried to stay awake. "Were you really a...army guy?"
The strange sphinx-man eyed her curiously, then nodded. "Yes, I was, Jenny."
She smiled. "I'monna be like you...when I...grow u..."
Muriel's father was about to respond, but realized that Jenny had fallen asleep in mid-sentence. He picked up the little girl and carried her to the couch, gently setting her down, then returned to the table. "What was that all about?" he asked.
"O-oh," Muriel said, "she's decided she's going to be a soldier."
Her mother frowned. "Muriel, honey, I...kind of get the feeling it's...more complicated than that?"
The insect-woman sighed; she'd never been any good at hiding things from them. But could she really hope they'd understand? To understand that her little girl had been...somehow the "right" person to become a...a magical warrior-child?
"We can't really give you parenting advice if we don't understand what's going on with your child," her dad said.
She sighed. "You're...you're right. Look, Mom, Dad, this is...pretty weird. Even I had a hard time believing it until I saw it..." She started to relate the whole story.
