The problem with large cities is that even though they are infinitely more convenient than the strange little abodes we find on the outskirts of society, it is often quite hard to locate the essentials. Furthermore, the locals are often gruff and frankly not terribly sensitive to the issues my... family... and I currently face.

Take for example the gentleman I encounter on the streets today. I am going out to do errands, seeing as Elle is absent, and to perhaps locate the pharmacy so that we might purchase "cold medicine" for Adaline, which is Red and I's current compromise between a hospital and the woods. I am keeping all of this in mind (how hard is it to hold on when the mind cries out "let go") when I hit a man square in the chest. He is of around my age, with little face hair and a smooth, polished demeanor, though his face is marred just slightly around the edges by the cysts young people are apparently prone to.

"Hello," I say with my hands folded politely, heart bracing for a spark.

His eyes rove over my body, he mumbles "sorry", and continues walking.

What did you expect, I ask myself, and watch after him. He wears strange tentacles in either ear that extend down into one of the folds in his clothing. I have seen similar tentacles hooking computers up to the walls of buildings, though the more technical word is 'cord'... why would anyone put a cord in a human being? What kind of strange magic is being wrought here, exactly? I try not to cringe at the very idea.

"Hello," I ask again, after him.

He does not respond.

I consider walking after him, but this would be letting him win and Angel, dear, you were supposed to be at the pharmaceutical (what joy the word itself would give me were I spared from its connotations) and I really should be off. It would be so much easier if I weren't looking for a suitable paternal figure, then again, the chances of anyone else being allowed into our posse are nil. Perhaps I could ask Elle about this? She's knowledgeable about men, an area no book seems to provide answers to, but then, of course, the difficulty is Elle.

"You can't get to where you're going if you don't know where to go." says a sly voice, which unfortunately I would recognize anywhere. Just the sound of it makes my hair stand up on end, broiling with connotation, and I watch as Mary swings herself around a pole and jumps off by my side. Her face splits into a row of white teeth as her bag hits me in the side.

This is unfortunate, but I guess, in the direst of situations, I can ask anyone, even Mary, for assistance. I wish I had talked to Alex prior to my departure but I suppose I might as well take advantage of my current situation. "I suppose I'm not entirely sure of my position at current, but that's no trouble at all." I shift between dialects with an awkward squeak, grinning to ensure Mary that I don't need or want any assistance. "Thank you for the redundancy, but I'll be off now."

I walk a little ways off, shoulders sagging as I hit an intersection, and Mary is right behind me, the bag still bouncing at her side. "Come ooooon. I'm so bored right now."

"Mary. Regardless of how bored you are, I want you to know I have no interest in undertaking any errands with you."

Mary raises an eyebrow. "What if I told you I knew where the pharma- the ph-- I know where you can get the medicine, okay?" She angrily mumbles beneath her breath, "Why would they make such a stupid word for it?"

I fold my hands angrily, exhaling with as much dignity as I can manage. "I suppose if you know the way, then I can follow you over there. This is, of course, not an excuse for you to lead me down some dark road and abandon me in the middle of the city. Rest assured I will find my way back to Red and honey, you will have a massive storm comin'."

Mary raises her eyebrow even higher, the side of her mouth jerking upwards with it. "Why do you keep trying to fake that accent?"

"It's completely genuine." I say, "Why do you..." Mary is so dysfunctional on so many levels that it is unexpectedly difficult to pick out one thing for critique. I restrain myself with a smile, "Why don't we head on over to the pharmacy, now?"

Mary leads the way, tossing her hands behind her head in a self-satisfied fashion. Her gaze roams back over me, unpleasant as the oily, congested scents of the city unfurling around us, and I try to straighten myself back up. "Why were you out?"
Mary glances my way. Her eyes are dark beneath her glasses. "Library."

"You..." This surprises me. "Were at the library?"
"Uh huh." Mary says, her eyes on the road. She shuffles the bag around. "I can't believe they have a whole building where they'll just give you books if you ask nice."

Mary could be literary... yes, of course, but I can not believe how many further questions this raises. Does this make her a kindred soul with depth similar to my own? There are so many preconceptions that this challenges, just off the bat, but there's also the issue of how to approach her now. Does she read trite garbage? Likely. Should I interrogate her? The first thing that slips out of my lips is, "I didn't know you had a sensitive side."

"I don't." Mary grins. "Writing is badass."

"Reading is vulnerability incarnate." I object.

"I guess we'll just have to disagree to agree, huh."

No, unfortunately, Mary is still Mary. I very slowly reach down to her bag, and she snatches it away from me. "Do you even want to go to the farm?"

"We're in the middle of the city."

Mary's eyes narrow to silvered slits. "The medicine place."

"Oh. Yes. Right." I stiffen up and let her guide me through the streets. "Say, how did you acquire a library card?"
"The dumb rectangles?" Mary asks. "I just ran out the exit."

"Mary," I whisper, absolutely incredulous.

"Think that's the place," Mary whistles.

"You were the one who kept stealing my library card, weren't you?"

"Well, yeah, and then I realized that you can just take books, so sorry or whatever." Mary rolls her eyes, pushing the door to the pharmacy open.

"You can't."

Mary looks sideways at me. "That can't be true, 'cause I totally did. You know, like we're just about to take this medicine?" She says this as loudly as she can given that we're in a public place, and I feel my face flush red. I hold my hand up to it and move through the empty pharmacy, which smells white, for a lack of a better word. Everything there is sterile and packaged, full of waxy plastics and false sweetness. The sparing humans are reflected back to me through the mess of mirrors and shelves, all their expressions distant. Every time I catch their eyes, grasping at familiarity, I am interceded by Mary, who has moved into going off about a book she's been reading. "So then a dragon cuts in, and I was like, woah, what's a dragon, even? Apparently it looks like Kali, but with legs... so there are huge monsters like us in books! Isn't that cool?"

See, Mary doesn't understand that some books are filled with falsehoods. They're called fantasy and they serve essentially no purpose other than to entertain. I can at least respect the artistry, but with a world large and incredible as this, why would you ever want to get so needlessly sidetracked?

I nod understandingly and pick up a medicine that reads 'Cold Reliever'. It mentions that it stops congestion, which might refer to oil, but I've never seen humans become inundated with the sticky, black refuse that Adaline keeps coughing up. Regardless, it might...

"But it turns out the prince is kind of a dick, and I said, ha! Duh! I knew the whole time, but it's kind of funny to see how dumb everyone else is. You get it? Okay, so I might have read to the end, where he betrays her, but honestly I didn't care. I was kind of just upset the dragon died. Do you think I could turn into a dragon if I wanted to?"

I take out the Cold Reliever, put some money on the counter, and apologize under my breath for my acquaintance. "Mary," I whisper. "Could you be a dear and peep down?"
"There you go with the accent again. Do you realize that everyone else thinks it's annoying?" Mary rolls her eyes. "So, I was thinking, you might want to read the book too, because you like reading. Maybe Adaline would want to read it?"

I whip around, noticing she's drawing the book out, and shove it, gently, back into her bag. I stare into her eyes. "How do you... read if you're so dense?"

Mary's face draws back into a snarl. "I just wanted to talk."

"You have other friends," I say. "We are not friends, Mary. You are a nuisance."

Mary opens her mouth, closes it, and then crosses her arms with an undignified huff. "You're wrong," she affirms with a pout. Her eyes grow wild again beneath their glasses as she puts the book back and draws the bag around herself a little tighter, yanking the strap. "I was being helpful right there and you're being kind of snooty about it. What do you have against the rest of us, Angel? Are we not good enough for you because you can't boss us around? Huh?"

"Why did you come after me?" I ask.

"I wanted to talk."

I tilt my head slightly. "Did you?"

"Red wanted me to come after you. He was worried about you and I had nothing better to do besides getting books, so I thought I might have a little fun." Mary starts walking back in the opposite direction, no, she's practically storming off, cheeks flushed. Her hair forms a huge halo around her, long as it is, so that for a split second it looks like she's moving through water. "You're not fun," she calls back.

I narrow my eyes and walk after her. "You're going home?"

Mary nods.

Nothing better to do than follow her. I catch people on the street, wave at a few males or women with children, and stop a few times to pet someone's dog (I know it all sounds ridiculous but apparently domesticated animals are communal property of a sorts... you can just approach them and lay hands on them), all the while keeping an eye on the babies, which are what really fascinate me. The humans are so small that they can't function, and they often erupt into fits of emotion that would make Kali or Adaline pale, completely without reason. Yet the mothers are so patient, and so kind with them... Mary watches over my shoulder, looking incredibly bored with me the entire time. She taps her foot on the concrete, jerking her head to the side, and I eventually follow along with hushed thanks.

The dog waves back with its tail. It does not know that I am as close to it as I am to the woman tending for the children, and it is only when I am inside the building that I realize that I'm crying. I put my hand over my mouth and Mary presses one of the buttons in the elevator.

I can hear her hair scrap against the back of the elevator. "You must be really scared about Adaline," Mary says, as if this is some incredible revelation on her part.

I hadn't been thinking about Adaline at all. I clutch at my shirt. "I'm always worried about my girls," I tell her, faking some disgusting laugh. "Bless them, you know they can't handle themselves without me..."

I think of the babies, screaming in their cradles. Their tiny bodies kick out relentlessly, but they can't get out of the strollers. Adaline's coughing fills my memory like smoke not long after, and I can almost sense her sickness down the hall.

Mary kicks the elevator on the way out. This is a Mary thing, the likes of which I might never understand in my life, so I merely roll my eyes and re-enter the room with the key I've been given by Red. There are a few of us in the room, if not many, and I notice the other mischievous middles out on the balcony. Mary throws herself on the bed nearest us and clicks on the television, head slumped against her hand. She kicks back and pulls the book open, flicking between screen and page.

"It's good, really," Mary calls to me. "It's a lot better than whatever it is you read, and you should try it. I think you'd like the prince."

"Didn't you say he was antagonistic?" I ask.

"Yeah, but he's hot, so you'd like him," Mary announces.

I'm flattered by her high praise of my character. In the other room, which is dimly lit and occupied by Trace, Adaline, and a sleeping Elle, I fall down onto my knees besides Adaline's head. Trace shifts out of the way, begrudgingly. "Young lady, what have you been doing this whole time?" I ask.

"Nothing, I guess." Trace picks up one of the math books I recently acquired for her and forces her head into it, pretending to be reading.

I run my hand over Addie's forehead, sliding her white-blonde hairs out of the way. We're almost a matched set when it comes to hair, even though she's a little fairer. It reminds me that we're a family. Adaline's eyes flutter open as I do so, and she smiles, her teeth stained by oil. "It hurts so much," she whispers, and I note that her canines are spiked.

"Hold tight," I command.

"It hurts," she whispers.

I lean in to kiss her forehead, then whisper,"If you think it has anything to do with her, then you can't let her win. You don't want to become a scary monster, do you?"

Adaline's pale, startled eyes stare back at me. My heart beats faster. "Am I monster?"

"Of course not." I say, quieting her with a finger and placing a pill in her mouth. She swallows dutifully, eyes shutting again. "I'm going to talk to Red about taking you to a legitimate hospital. Hon, where is she?"

"He was just getting some ice." Trace says, from her textbook.

"Look at me when you speak."

Trace's eyes dart up. "He's getting ice."

"I don't like that tone."

"That's unfortunate," mumbles Trace.

Frustrated, I finally steep to accusation. "You got her sick." I'm hardly trying to hide every sharp shard of hurt that splits my body like swallowed glass. How am I supposed to feign kindness around the perpetrator of such insidious disobedience? She knows that some actions necessitate punishment but there's nothing that I can do that would properly address her rebellious habits. I'll ask Red about it. I could ask him in front of her. No, better for her not to know. Adults don't speak in front of children about this kind of thing.

Red enters the room, his copper hair framed by light from the other room, where some awful program still roars with noise and light.

"I got the drugs," I say, placing them on the bedstand. "They were over the counter. If we want to do better than that we're going to need to get Elle in there."

"It would have been easier to send me in," Elle says, her voice like spider silk. I hadn't even realized she was awake.

"Might've. If we need anything tougher, we'll just... send you." Red shuffles one of his sleeves. He puts some ice in a glass near the bedstand, and Adaline turns towards him. "Addie, are you all good? If you need anything else, you just have to ask."
Her head tilts slightly in assent.

"Do you want to speak? Alone?" I ask, gesturing towards the bathroom.

Red looks behind me, towards the room, and his face contorts in an unfamiliar way. "H-hallway," he says.

I almost go for his hand as we walk out and he draws it back. When he stands in the hallway, he looks at the lights instead of at my face.

"I take it you're not interested in talking with me." I say, holding my hands together as I fix him in the eyes.

Red fidgets with his glasses, the twin mirrors catching my face at a peculiar angle. "To be honest, Angel, I'm not right now."

"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm trying, honest, but I just can't..."

"There's no easy solution for problems like this."

"But there is! You just have to forgive me and everything will go back to normal." I smile at him. "Right? You always forgive them, no matter what happens. This is the point where you... fix everything." I draw a strand of hair about my finger. "That's what I've always admired about you. Somehow, you always know just what to do."

Red nods. "I'm not angry. Consider yourself forgiven."

"Thank you," I breathe.

He taps his foot impatiently, searching down the hallway. I see him with a halo of light around his copper hair, like a crown.