"I...I'm not crazy, Mom."
Mrs. Violet yelped and whirled to face the strange girl, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She felt like she'd just had a heart attack; yet again, the girl made no noise when she moved! She could see a little guilt on the girl's face for having startled her, but she was too busy trying to go over what the girl had said to think much of it. "Y-you heard?" she stammered. Could this girl hear her even when she was in another room, keeping her voice down? Could she read minds!?
Artemis frowned. "Heard what? You're just actin' all weird and scared...you think I'm crazy, don'tcha?"
Her jaw went slack. She...was she that obvious? She'd been trying to keep her feelings from showing...but the problem with paranoia is that the more you let it get to you, the harder it becomes to hide it from others. She stared at the girl, feeling something like mortification tinged with horror. She...she hadn't meant for Harriet to know what she thought...not her daughter...she wouldn't have cared if it was just the other girl, maybe, but if they were both in there...she hadn't meant for her to know, she hadn't! If only she could go back and...and...make it less obvious...
It took her a moment to even begin formulating a response, and all the while the girl was just looking at her, with those big eyes...Harriet's eyes... She had a couple false starts, opening her mouth to speak before the words would come out. "I...n-no," she said, "not...not crazy, honey, I just...I think you're a...a little confused, is all...I don't know if you...just let your imagination run away with you, or...or..." ...or if the other woman is making you think these things, she wanted to say, but she had at least enough presence of mind to not say it. "I...I just...I get worried...you're acting so strange, since you changed..."
Artemis huffed and stamped her foot, frowning. "I'm not imaginin' things!" she said. "I've been there, mom! I ran up the rim of the craters and I looked back at the earth an' everything! I wanna take you, but you can't breathe...I wanna show you it's for real...it's so nice, Mom...it really is..." She trailed off, her lip trembling slightly. Mrs. Violet stared at her, feeling torn - she acted so strange so much of the time, but when she got upset, when she got emotional, she was unmistakeably a human little girl, unmistakeably Harriet...oh, how could it be like this? How was she supposed to feel about this?
"I...I know I act different," Artemis said, her voice a little shaky. "I...I am diff'rent, Mom. But I'm still me! I'm still Harriet...I'm just Artemis, too..."
"But...honey, you can't be a goddess," Mrs. Violet said. "There's only one God, you know that. Remember?"
The girl nodded. "'Course I r'member! Like you taught me, and like we learn about in Sunday school. I still believe in Him, mom!" She frowned. "But...I dunno, it's not the same thing, I guess. I dunno...ma-" She caught herself - she knew it upset her mother when she referred to Selene as her mother - "Selene says it's not like that. She didn't make the world, or anythin'. She's just in charge of th' Moon, and I'm..." She paused again. I'm her daughter, was what she would have said... "...I'm kinda in charge of it too, a li'l. She doesn't say who did make everything, but God did, right?"
Mrs. Violet tried to think of what to say - Artemis was wrong, she had to be wrong, but she kept insisting, and she kept telling her story in a consistent way...this was all so confusing, what was she supposed to say to any of this? How was she supposed to answer these claims? How was she supposed to...to get her daughter back?
Muriel sighed as she took the girls out to the car; she hadn't meant to stay this late. Of course, it was nothing for her, but she'd heard stories from some of her coworkers about how kids could get if they didn't get to bed at a reasonable hour. She had Melanie up in one arm and draped over her shoulder - she was only half-awake, and she was still adjusting to her new legs; she wasn't exactly stable on them yet, not when she was tired. Jenny trailed behind, bleary but a bit more coordinated, clutching Muriel's hand. She got Jenny seated and buckled in, then set Melanie down in the backseat of the car. The little insect-girl stirred, and looked up at her; even heavy with sleep, her eyes had that peculiar look to them, that inquisitive but detached gaze. "D-don't unnerstand," she murmured.
Muriel gazed back, curious. She gave a little smile; dealing with kids was still something she wasn't that experienced at, but you couldn't go wrong with being pleasant, right? "What don't you understand, Melanie?" she asked.
Melanie frowned for a moment, trying to think in her half-asleep state. "Dolls," she mumbled. "Humans. Everything." She paused for a moment. "S...sorry..." She was trying to understand human behaviors, but there was still so much that just didn't make sense...what if she never did understand?
Muriel leaned down and hugged her gently. "It's okay," she said, buckling her in. "Nobody expects a little girl to understand everything, you know. You'll learn, in time."
"W...will I...?"
Muriel nodded. "Of course you will. You're a bright little girl, you just haven't had a chance to learn a lot of things, is all. Now try and get some rest on the way home, it's pretty late."
Anneza surveyed herself in the bathroom mirror. It seemed she did get a bit grimy during the flight - or rather, during all three flights that she'd made today. Nothing really terrible, just a bit of dirt and sweat and the remains of what looked to have been a large mosquito plastered just above the bridge of her nose. She frowned - to have shown up looking like that...but it wasn't like it could have made her look less dignified than her breakdown had.
She sighed as she washed her face - what was she going to do, now? She'd certainly blown her chance for maintaining any appearance of detached, cool autonomy...but the more time she spent here, the less certain she was that she really wanted to go with that approach to begin with...but then again, what else could she do? If she didn't establish some boundaries, her parents might...might expect her to change, or something... Her mother had already said that she...she made a...a pretty girl...
Anneza shut her eyes, grimacing. Not really wanting to, she opened them again, gazing at the girl in the mirror, and the soft, rounded face, the big eyes, the soft hair, the petite but full figure...she cringed a little; she was...she really was...but...but just because she'd become...this, it didn't mean she wanted to...to start acting like a woman! (Like a girl?) Maybe...maybe her mother had just intended that as an observation...she hoped. But if that wasn't it, if she'd meant something like what Anneza feared she might have meant...oh, what was she supposed to do?
Like she'd ever find out! She yanked the towel off the rack and dried her face with an angry vigor that nearly gave her rugburn. Stupid, stupid Anneza! Too proud to admit to herself, except in her darkest moments, that she was unhappy with what she'd made of her life, too uncomfortable with facing up to the question of how to fix any of it to find direction for it herself, too scared and paranoid to trust anyone else with the running of it...what could she do? She just...just...
...just wanted to know what to do...just wanted to know how to stop messing things up...
