Author's Note: I'm probably not doing very well at naming chapters—I have this urge to go for all names starting with I, but I'm already really reaching for things that will work well. Also, I must point out that my characters thoughts, words, and deeds are not mine. Even before I was writing about Miranda Priestly, my characters have always been very forceful. I just go along with what they want.

Standard Disclaimer: I don't even know who these characters and world belong to, but it definitely isn't me. I'm dabbling in the world of a book I've never read, a movie I've seen once, real people I know nothing about, and the other much better written fanfics I've read about them.

Chapter Four: In the Beginning

Andy turned off the digital voice recorder and left without saying another word. Nor did the woman she once work for speak again. She texted both Priestly twins. "I just interviewed your mother."

Then she noticed that it wasn't quite yet noon. She wandered along the street, half blinded by tears, till the phone buzzed with a response.

"We're in study hall, aka our boring english class, using Caro's phone. How did it go? What did you talk about?"

"Wonderful things, terrible things," she replied, "I can't stop crying. She never does, does she?"

"What, mom, no, doy, not a tear," their response came quickly. "She insulted the crap out of you didn't she? We'll have a temper tantrum, Andy. What did she say to you?"

"Actually, she complimented me, several times. You would not believe, however, the things she said about herself. All the combined slurs used against her were nothing to what she said of herself."

"Yeah right, Andy. Mom may be the queen of insults, but if she trashed herself, we're getting real unicorns for our next birthday."

"That may be possible, I didn't ask," Andy typed, "oh, and please don't cuss when we text, as she now knows that we talk, ok?"

"Seriously? What part of interviewing somebody includes getting interrogated yourself?"

"It's been an odd day," Andy admitted, not sure what else to say.

"Yeah, and this is mom we're talking about. Andy, I bet you probably confessed without her even asking."

"You got it." Andy smiled, realizing that one of the girls had obviously snatched the phone from the other. "Look, is your mom secretly into fantasy or myths or something?"

"No way," the immediate text said, quickly followed by another, "except for that story of Eve and the Tree of Souls. Really a shoddy rip-off of the bible, especially for mom's standards."

"Can you tell me about it sometime? We actually talked about souls, which was totally insane, and not because I brought it up, that is for sure."

"Ok, we'll just go to the bathroom and call you."

"No, you are not skipping school. Call me afterward, sheesh, you girls."

"Fine, whatever, you spoilsport. We need practice to perfect our impression of nausea, you know."

They decided on a time slot in between various after school activities, and Andy continued to wander around the city, ending up in a random Starbucks, where she ordered a sub par muffin and excellent coffee and called it a lunch. At the appointed time, she found a secluded park bench and got her recorder and plugged it into her phone before waiting for it to ring.

"Ok, hi Andy, you there?" One twin chirped as soon as Andy picked up, before the other chimed in, "this is fun, we like never actually talk on the phone."

"Good. Hey, I want to record our call so that I can get the story right later, if you don't mind, girls."

"Sweet. Will it be quoted in your interview?"

"Probably not, unless your mom gives me permission. I just want to know for my own purposes, Cassidy."

"Hey, how can you tell our voices apart?"

"Dude, Caroline, I use your voices to tell you apart in person. What do you think?"

"Right, whatever, who cares if she and mom are the only ones who can tell us apart?"

"Shut up, Cass, we'll get her methods out of her later. Anyhow, mom only told us this story once."

"Yeah, after all that shit about her being a Jew who turned her back on her past, because people found out about her name change."

"Dad had just divorced her like, a year before that, too, and we wanted to know why people have to be so freaking mean."

"Actually, girls, I was interviewing her because of what I discovered when I went to check up on the research on that name change thing," Andy said with a grin the girls couldn't hear. "I went to the island that article said she was from, and everyone who could remember her said that she was a castaway who washed up on the shore with no name or knowledge of English. They gave her that Jewish name, and she went to London only a year later and changed it. I'm going to publish what I heard from those people, and I asked her about where she was actually from."

"Wow, who knew our mom could be so very mysterious. What did she say?"

"Your story first, my silly geese."

"Oh my gosh, you blackmailer!"

Andy was glad the little redheads couldn't see her wince at that. "Oh, come on, I wanna hear the story. I recorded what your mom said, I'm not about to forget it."

"Fine, whatever, Andy. So it started with a weird version of creation, then the souls, not—"

"Cass! Come on, we have to actually tell her the story!"

"I was going to sum up the facts and stuff, Caro."

"There aren't any facts in stories, doy."

"Touche, Caro. Then you tell it right, or whatever."

"There's no rush, girls, and please stop fighting. I'm perfectly happy to hear this in installments if necessary. I know you're very busy."

"No, we're at Dad's, there's nothing to do, anyhow."

"What, Dalton didn't give you any homework?"

"Blech, fine, you meanie. I'll do the stupid homework and you can copy it, ok, Caro? Don't even scold us, Andy, it's super easy crap."

"As the distraction, I suppose I'm not allowed to complain. Just don't actually photocopy it or something stupid like that."

"Haha, Andy, as if. Ok, so the story starts with God in the void of empty space, and feeling lonely. So he or she or whatever, starts making stuff like stars and planets, which are totally boring, so he goes to one planet and makes animals, which are fun to watch for like, you know, an hour on the discovery channel. So he makes mermaids and angels, but all they do is talk about how awesome he is, or how cool all the stuff he made is, which is majorly embarrassing after about one minute."

"I can only imagine that you are telling this exactly how your mother told it to you, word for word." Andy snickered, settling more comfortably into her seat.

"You know it," Caroline giggles, "especially the use of like, you know, and stuff, her favorite word. Anyhow, he wants something totally unique and interesting to talk to, so he makes a person. Adam, obviously. But Adam is only clay. He literally scorches from being around God, and has to sleep and eat and stuff. So they can't be together all the time."

"I'm not going to lie, that's a fabulous explanation for why God only visits the people in the cool of the evening, in the bible," Andy interjected.

"Exactly. So Adam gets lonely when God isn't around, and even God can't make another Adam, since he was made to be unique. Something about how making another one would unmake him because that is part of what he is, and God doesn't want to do that. Maybe he can't. So he makes Eve out of Adam, so she's got his uniqueness, which makes her different, but the same kind, or whatever people talk about when they say everyone is special. Somehow, though, this bending of the rules warps reality. Totally warps it."

"I'm impressed, Caro. Both by how interesting the story is, and how well you remember it."

"Yeah, well, mom's like that. She told it much better, and there's no way I could forget."

"True. I was more traumatized by interviewing her than by reading about the Holocaust when I was a kid."

"Great, now I know you actually won't tell us everything mom told you," the girl groaned. "Be glad I'm going to finish the story anyhow."

"I appreciate it, and promise to tell you everything unless your mom specifically told me not to."

"I guess that's the best we can expect. So, everything is warped—the tree of souls just appears, right in the middle of the planet God made for the people. God is wigged. The angels are wigged. One of them decides to stop praising God, and convinces a bunch of them to side with him. God figures the best he can do is to tell the people not to eat from the big freaky tree. I mean, why would they? Mom said it was this freaky black thing, like a cut out of space in the exact place Eve had been made, all twisty and taller than the redwoods, with glowing silver fruit, perfectly round and having this sickly sweet smell."

"Then the lead bad angel possesses the snake?" The brunette felt the need to see if the story parallels continue.

"Yeah, well, the angel doesn't think he is bad, but that God screwed up, and that getting rid of Eve will make things go back to normal. So he talks to her, and says that the souls will make the people like God. Eve thinks this is a pretty sweet deal. See, the people were supposed to be fruitful and multiply, like the animals, but they aren't. She thinks this is because Adam wants God more than her, and if she has a soul and is like God, then he will want her."

"Now that is an interesting twist on the original sin thing—I mean people have tried to say it was something about, you know, but they were all figurative about it," Andy said awkwardly. "So she wanted Adam, but he didn't want her?"

"Jeez, Andy, we've had sex ed, you don't have to be all stupid about it. Actually, she wanted God, too, but she wanted to please God by doing the multiplying thing, since there wasn't much else people were supposed to do. Adam, though was hearing all of this, and thought she had a good idea, so they split a fruit, instead of each eating one. This made them each get only half a soul, so they were even more lonely. Plus, they could now tell how unique they were, all those differences. They were all freaked by looking at each other, so they covered those parts, and just straight up hid when they heard God coming."

"And then, if this is a total knock off of the bible," Andy grinned, "they then proceeded to suck at hiding, by telling him about it."

"Of course they did. They were just little kids still, and that was why they couldn't multiply yet. God was really mad, and scared they would screw with the tree more, so he moved everything to a planet with out the tree of souls, and it wasn't as nice, because he'd been playing with making dinosaurs there. He moved them somewhere else, but the plants were still not as nice. That's why we only have dino bones, and there is the whole thing about the earth being cursed with thorns and whatever. And people couldn't seem to see God anymore because of the stupid souls, because of course the angel came up with about the exact opposite of what the tree of souls really did."

"Was that the whole story?"

"Well, yeah, everything else was more about what mermaids and souls were like. Especially the souls, cuz she was talking about how they make people act like jerks to each other, since they can't feel each other's pain because of them."

"Alright, cool, as she basically already told me all about that."

"Good. I still don't get that stuff well enough to explain. Cass could prolly tell you all that, facts style."

"Good to hear you are aware of each other's strengths, not just always fighting. I guess we should move on. So, about the interview," Andy said, "what exactly do you want to hear?"

"Hang on! Cass, get in here! Andy's gonna tell about the interview!"

"Why do you guys even bother with separate rooms, anyhow?"

"They gave them to us, along with enough crap to fill them both, so we need to store junk in them, at least. I'm sure you could imagine our closets."

"Nice of you to join us, Cass. As if you hate our stuff. Come on. Andy said mom talked to her about souls and mermaids."

"You mean the ones with no souls that only talked about how awesome stuff God made was?"

"Yes, exactly, Cass." Andy braced herself. "She was telling me about soulless mermaids because she was telling me that she was one before she washed up on that island and became human and developed a soul. She told me all about growing one."

"HOLY MOTHERFUCKING BATSHIT CRAZYTOWN!"

Andy found herself struggling not to be creeped at the thought of redheaded twins swearing in unison. "Talk to me, little geese."

"You mean goslings, sheesh," one said in a more normal, if faint tone.

"You want me to call you goslings, Cassidy?"

"So not the point, you big dork. Why would she say that to you?"

"I have no idea. She said her name was Mpalaysia before she had that Jewish name."

"Ok, so she like included details? It wasn't just some random remark?"

"Yeah, we talked all morning, actually."

"You said something about her insulting herself, too?"

"Yeah, Caroline. It was mostly stuff about how cold and unlovable she is, and how she deserves people being mean to her."

"Basically all the usual insults. I thought she didn't listen to that crap."

"You know she is a big liar, Cass," Andy pointed out, thinking of a certain hotel in Paris, "when she says she doesn't care what they say."

"Besides, she isn't unlovable. Anyone who says otherwise is a jerk."

"Do you guys ever tell her you love her, Caro, Cass?"

"Well, like, not really. She's our mom, she knows."

"Dude, we totally should say so, though."

"You should. I kinda bailed on her today when it got all weird, you know, when she got into the bad parts. I bet if you called her, you'd knock her socks right off, make her day."

"Alright, Andy. Thanks for telling us some stuff."

"You have to tell us more later. We'll call her now."

"It's cuz she hates November, you know." Then they hung up suddenly.

"They are so her kids. Not the slightest clue what the word goodbye is meant to be used for."

Andy let out an exaggerated sigh, and headed to her apartment to try to type something for her article. She struggled with titles, producing gems like "What's in a name?" and "Mysteries of Miranda," which are only slightly worse than what she produced to go with them. Of course, she made many references to the article that had inspired her research, as well all the quotes from Lambsly island residents. She included Miranda's comments regarding her fondness and rapport with foreign models. Andy pulled an all nighter, in fact, carefully crafting her comments about how Miranda had comforted her children with stories after the damaging criticism produced by the older article's allegations regarding her name change. She ended the article by saying "As for Mpalaysia, and who she was as a child, well, I prefer not to pass on facts I cannot prove."

After she emailed the mess to her editor, Andy slept for about a day, waking up only to report to her office the next morning, bright and early. The article had run that very morning, and she has always been under orders to be in the office when people might be calling in to ask reporters about their articles. Andy strolled into the main room of the Mirror headquarters only to find La Priestly herself, sitting on the edge of Andy's personal desk, Prada pump dangling off her toe as she swung her leg slowly back and forth.