"Catherine!"

"hi, Catherine" he whispers.

"... My apologies if he's just small right now, but where is her soul?"

Rebecca blinks at him a few times.

"Her soul?" she says, eventually, like she must have heard wrong.

"I believed witches kept their souls with them at least into late childhood and wanted to make sure he wasn't lost or stuck? My nephew's used to sometimes get twisted up in blankets and keep him up. I may be misinformed though, sorry."

"What?" says Rebecca eloquently. "Is this a video game? I don't really play video games."

"No? This isn't a game, arcade or otherwise. Are – sorry ma'am, are you not a witch?" The creature on his shoulders starts to look them over in some agitation.

"I'm a Mormon, I don't think we're allowed to be witches."

"I'm not familiar with the term, what does that mean? I don't see your soul with you, what are you if not a witch? Is her soul with her in there, do you need help?"

"I think I've slept about half an hour in the last four days so I really don't know how to figure out what you're talking about."

"Oh no! I'm worried that something is wrong with your souls, the parts of you that look like animals and hold your personalities. I'm a theologian and might be able to help find them?

"- Actually, the sleep issue sounds more pressing, if less overall important. Is coffee also illegal in your world? Some parts of the restaurant do time dilation, I could watch Catherine for a bit while you sleep in one, if that would help, although it would be totally reasonable if you didn't want that?"

"Coffee's illegal too but if you wanna watch Catherine I am actually totally cool with that wake me up if she starts nuzzling you," she says, handing over the baby and weaving over to a couch to faceplant on it.

Catherine, in arms, continues to have no visible soul.

"Sleep well!"

He can totally take care of a maybe-zombi baby! Tiny warm baby who is basically indistinguishable from a baby with a tiny hiding insect soul.

If he moves very slowly, can he pick up his notebook and head over to Bar without waking her up any further?

Yup. Catherine drools dozily upon him.

Good! Tiny sleepy zombi baby!

"Bar," he whispers, "do you happen to know which areas of the restaurant move most slowly in time, relative to the couch the woman whose name I have just realized I do not know is sleeping on?"

I'm afraid it's not consistent moment to moment, but you can arrange to be in potentially different flows of time as long as you aren't directly observing her.

"Is there anything I can do to make it likelier that more time passes for her than for us?"

There are various superstitions but nothing substantiated. Would you like to borrow a clock to watch?

"Yes, thank you."

A clock appears, ticking.

"Thank you!" He carefully takes the clock, then goes to sit at a table facing away from the non-witch to add the new information about time dilation and notes about his encounter with the woman and baby to his notebook, assuming that he can do so without waking her up if he uses his other hand.

He can do this, though she does stir and make a noise before settling back down to drool on another part of his shirt.

(Zombi-baby saliva doesn't seem to be particularly dangerous, and he's lost shirts to monster fluids for worse reasons even if it is. What a cozy, sleepy injured baby.)

He adds speculation about what might have happened to them and how and why in the margins of his notes in a simple Julian cipher, on the grounds that one shouldn't have plaintext speculation about brainwashing via intercision or reversing the effects thereof, even in a temporary set of notes.

Rebecca sits up after a bit. "Uh," she says, sounding much better, "mister armadillo-wearing dude?"

He turns, relieved. "Ma'am?"

It might be rude to correct the witch-or-zombi about his soul being a pangolin, so he doesn't, although she climbs to stare at the woman over his head.

"Thanks for watching Catherine, that must have been forever, I feel so much better, did she not wake up?"