Sublime

“Dezzy!” Tovah said, recognized the girl now. She sank to a knee, which was not only the proper way to address children but a nifty evasive maneuver vis-à-vis their crypto-creepy progenitors.

She had spent her life alone in her strangeness, and had met only one other person like herself. When she joined the Academy, she was like an exile who had returned home.

“Clara used to work in infant wear,” the manager explains, “selling onesies.”

She wasn’t some little tugboat, drifting along with the tide. She had created herself.