A/N: Thanks for the kind words at the send-off! Now, I'll try keeping up a reasonable pace with these updates, but I'm also trying to accomplish a master's degree here so please bear with me, if I'm a little slow at times.


"How old are you, Misty?"

Misty held up her hand, showing five fingers to the fat lady, who they called Delphine. She looked down at Misty with a disapproving look, one that seemed permanently plastered to her face, whenever Misty was near.

"Say it", Delphine demanded.

"Five", Misty answered.

"Give me a whole sentence, child."

"I'm five."

"-years old. Now repeat. 'I am…"

"-Five years old", Misty said.

Delphine sighed. "You're not listening to me, child. You have to use whole sentences. Madame will not appreciate this barbaric language."

Misty bared her teeth and hissed at her. She didn't like her much. She didn't like the Madame either. She was cold and she looked at Misty like she was a pile of mud. Mud was a bad thing in the eyes of Fiona Goode, she had found this out soon enough. Misty liked mud. There was a strange comfort to be found in the dirt, but in here everything was clean. Misty had never seen a house this big before, so full of smooth surfaces and sharp edges. No soft, whispering leaves, no little rocks and not a single trace of dirt. The fat lady saw to that.

Misty missed her swamp. She could barely recall anything from before the year she had spent out there, but when she did think of it, she remembered feelings of danger and looks of contempt. She remembered being lead into the woods by a cold man – not unlike Mrs. Goode – and then it was all solitude and the smell of forest from there.

Delphine sighed and shook her head, while mumbling what that sounded like: "Impossible."

"Delphine, let me try." Cordelia emerged from the background and walked to the center of the kitchen. Misty instantly felt more at ease. This girl was the reason she didn't run away to try and find her swamp again. This beautiful, careful girl with her dual colored eyes – she had explained the word, but Misty simply couldn't remember how to pronounce it – was what made Misty feel at home in this giant cold, house. And she sensed that the girl didn't want her to leave either, so she stayed. Hers was the first human voice she had heard in ages. She had reached a point where she could barely recollect what such a voice sounded like. Those she did remember were a mess of loud exclamations that didn't make sense in her head. Sometimes she thought she remembered her mama's voice, but she couldn't recall any words. Words and voices had started to feel like a lost concept. Until the day Cordelia had spoken to her. Misty felt lucky in some way, that the voice to bring back the concept of talking had been such a soft, pleasant one.

Cordelia sat down at the table in front of her and waited until Delphine busied herself with something else.

"Just a couple more sentences, okay? Then we can play."

Misty nodded. She sat on the floor, looking up at Cordelia like an obedient student.

"Can you say: 'My name is Misty'?"

"My name is Misty."

"Good. How old are you?"

"I'm five." Cordelia continued to look at her, revealing nothing but patience. "- years old", Misty added and earned a smile.

"And what is my name?"

"Cordelia." She had to concentrate to say this name right and usually she settled for the shorter Delia, which the girl seemed to like.

"You have to say a whole sentence, Misty."

"Your name. Is… Cordelia."

"Good."

"She's Miss Cordelia to you, monkey. Don't forget your place." Fiona had just walked in. She took a glass out of a cupboard and a bottle of something dark and liquid out of the other. Misty bared her teeth in a snarl, while she stared at the Madame, as the fat lady told her to call her. Cordelia held up a hand to stop her, but too late.

Fiona's eyes narrowed as she looked at Misty.

"Don't take that tone with me, you little swamp rat, or you're out in the cold again."

"Mommy please don't call her that."

"It's my house. I'll call her whatever I want. Work on her manners, will you?" Fiona left the kitchen again, but not before casting a disapproving look at Misty. It looked a bit like the one Delphine always shot at her, only a little colder. Misty held her gaze without blinking and stared after her, when she walked out.

"I'm sorry about that, Misty."

Misty shook her head. It didn't matter what the Madame said. And there was nothing wrong with rats. They even made for decent food, when there was nothing else.

"Play now?" She asked.

"Just a little bit more, is that okay?"

Misty nodded. Cordelia seemed much intended on teaching her to speak and Misty let her. She knew she had to for the sake of pleasing the Madame, but mostly she just wanted to sound more like Cordelia, who spoke so many pretty words, that Misty didn't even know. She had her language hidden somewhere in her head, but in all her time living alone in the forest, she hadn't needed it. Now it felt like digging it out from the depths of the swamp. She caught glimpses of it, but most was beyond her reach, stuck beneath the dark waters. She was willing to work on it though, seeing as it kept her in here. The floors maybe be weirdly hard and even, and the house filled with noises she didn't know or like, but the thought of going back there and not live with Cordelia outweighed it all somehow. She felt safe with her, in a way she never could in the wild.

The rest of the evening they would spent playing. With games like hide and seek Misty quickly learned her way around the house. Hiding was something she had gotten good at and she could stay hidden – even in the light, minimalistic house of the Goode mansion – for hours. Usually she got too impatient to wait that long and started calling out, appreciating the echo. There were many sounds she found strange and alarming, but this one made her laugh, hard and long until Mrs. Goode told her to shut up.

Cordelia would sometimes sit her down and try to comb Misty's hair or try to pull it up in a ponytail like the one she often did on herself – and she usually gave up. Misty's hair had its own will and it was as wild as the rest of her. More often than not, after patiently waiting for Cordelia to give up, Misty would take the brush and switch their positions. Cordelia had the softest hair of pale gold and it fascinated Misty like nothing else. Perhaps apart from her eyes. Those were her favorite thing to study. It often made Cordelia nervous, she had realized.

"Why do you look at me like that?" She asked once, hints of insecurity poorly concealed.

"I like your face", Misty simply answered, making the other girl blush and snicker. That's how Misty liked her best.

O0O

It was strange watching Misty. An anarchic soul, no doubt, annoying like no other child and a bit mysterious. A dual personality almost. She didn't bow her head, when Fiona reprimanded her, but stared right back, daring her. It infuriated her. Of course she would never admit to a living soul that a mere child – a little, uncivilized one at that – got under her skin like that. God forbid, she would never hear the end of it.

Whether it was herself, Delphine or Spalding trying to get some sense into that big, ignorant head Misty hissed or ignored them, if she didn't think a request reasonable. Must be those thick curls blocking the input, Fiona thought. She could be a relative of Medusa. Wild and with eyes of some sort of unearthly strength, that Fiona felt staring back at her and for which she failed to find a name. It was just there, taking measure of her. Strange was it that as soon as Cordelia said the slightest thing to her, Medusa's child shut right up. Like a stroke of magic. That annoyed Fiona even more.

They were starting to notice at the office too.

"Is it true that you've taken a parentless little girl in, Mrs. Goode?" Cecily Pembroke, her God-awful secretary, asked her one morning. She was the most nosy woman Fiona had ever met, but coincidentally also the only one in the building resilient enough to stay her secretary for more than a few months.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear, Cecily."

"But Marsha told me? Marsha from customer support."

"I'm well aware of where my employees are seated, thank you."

"Well she said she drove by your house the other day and saw the little girl your maid's been asking about at the shelters, playing in your garden with your daughter."

Fiona could just picture it, her daughter and Misty down on all four playing fetch. She scoffed. "What am I supposed to do with this information, Cecily? Have your cafeteria friend arrested for stalking?"

"No, no, I was just curious", she said with fluster. "You just don't strike me as that type of person, is all."

"Mind your own business, will you? Send my ten o'clock in, when you're done drooling over my personal life."

Fiona didn't wait for an answer, but started walking away. She had almost reached the piece of her office, when her secretary called after her:

"Oh and your sister called. She said that you should call her and that no matter what you answer, she's coming to town next week."

"Well you tell her it sounds like there's no need for me to call her at all."

Fiona closed her doors and sat down, preparing for her budget meeting. The dim darkness of her office was just utterly depressing and she was itching for a smoke. Or something stronger. Soon, she heard the voice of the accountant on the other side of the door and stifled the urge to reach down to her second drawer for the little bag of powder.

O0O

Her new best friend might be the ultimate soul of nature, but Cordelia thoroughly enjoyed the outside too. It felt like the epitome of inner piece, just walking through the long grass on an autumn day like this. The afternoon still managed a little warmth and the fiery orange, red and golden colors of the changing treetops added a sense of heat. Cordelia hummed to herself while walking, her gaze jumping from tree to tree, through the paths of the forest and to Misty, who ran around while squealing up ahead. Delphine walked behind them, sulking because Fiona had forced her to follow them wherever they went in here and not let them out of her sight again. Fiona herself couldn't be bothered to take an afternoon stroll with her daughter. Her two daughters perhaps. Cordelia had overheard her musing these things to Spalding. Her mom often talked to him, consulted him even and Cordelia never understood why. He couldn't answer.

Cordelia marveled at the prospect of Misty living with them permanently. The thought was so good it almost hurt, because she was scared to think it. She dreaded she might start to believe just in time to have her hopes crushed. She had never felt this close to anyone before.

Misty seemed to want to stay too, but Cordelia could tell she missed her swamp. Cordelia didn't blame her. The wilderness that lay beyond the paths she tread was frightening to her – perhaps a little less so now with the strange power Misty possessed – but it had been Misty's home and Cordelia understood the pain of leaving home. She missed Boston sometimes, mostly her old school, but with Misty here it wasn't so bad. She hoped Misty felt the same way.

"Misty don't go too far! Heavens, that child. Miss Cordelia, make sure she doesn't stray."

"She won't, Delphine. She'll come back. She always does, doesn't she?"

Delphine reluctantly agreed, but mumbled something dubious that Cordelia couldn't make out.

After a while, it started to rain, which completed their maid's misery. She flunked her arms around and stared hopelessly into the sky. It wasn't heavy rain, rather a soft prickle on her hands and face, the only places her skin was exposed. She looked up to see the sun still shining faintly, peeking through the cloud cover.

"Look Delia, Look! A sun shower!" Misty came bouncing back through the long grass, her messy hair floating through the air. Even a drizzle of rain couldn't tame it.

"A what?"

"Misty, you're supposed to call her Miss-"

"When it rains and sun shines! Sun shower." Misty's ecstatic voice drowned Delphine's rebuke and she sighed heavily, eyeing the child with defeat. Cordelia found the whole scene quite amusing.

"Look for a rainbow Misty! They come out it weather like this."

Misty spun around on her heels in a full circle, staring at the sky for any sign of colors. They stayed like that until the rain started gaining strength, soaked through their clothes and Delphine all but dragged them home by the cuff of their jackets.

They dried off before dinner and while Cordelia took a seat at the table, Misty patiently waited on the floor for her plate. When she got it, she dug into it with her hands and ate greedily, as if someone would come and take her food away, if she wasn't quick enough. Now and then, she eyed the table with a longing glance. Cordelia quickly deciphered her look and turned to her mom.

"Mommy, why can't Misty eat up here with us?"

"Because she eats like a goddamn savage, that's why", Fiona answered without looking up from her paper.

"But she doesn't like sitting down there."

"She looks satisfied to me."

"Mommy look at her!" Cordelia turned to Misty. "Misty, would you rather sit up here?"

Misty nodded and her eyes wandered between the two.

Fiona spared her a glance and looked down at the paper again. "I'm not having that at my table, Cordelia."

"What if I taught her how to eat with knife and fork?"

That made her drop the paper and she shot her daughter a look of heavy doubt.

"You expect to teach that one?"

Cordelia resented it, when Fiona spoke of Misty, as if she was not there or as if she was a lesser being, who didn't well understand every word she said, but she didn't dare say anything to it. Instead, she said: "Yes of course. You wanted me to teach her manners, didn't you?"

She received a long, scrutinizing look from her mom for that. She said: "I will not have her up here a second before she can handle service like a normal human being."

"Does that mean I can teach her?"

Fiona sighed. "Fine. If it'll make you shut up. If you can manage it by next week, when Myrtle's coming, I'll consider not hiding her away."

"Myrtle's coming?" Cordelia practically squealed, which made Misty eye her curiously. Cordelia smiled at her and she was too excited to notice the shadow that fell over Fiona's face.