"Mm, if you pass for eighteen, you might get around some of the things. The number of things you need to know how to do to get around in the world as an adult has gone up. I guess Mexican immigrants who don't speak the language manage but it's not an enviable lifestyle."

What kind of things?

"If I imagine a thirteen year old trying to live on her own, even a magic one... well, money's a problem, for one thing. You can't legally hold a job and places that'll illegally hire child labor, or even just labor that can't produce ID but look at least 18, are going to be doing other things wrong, too. I don't think you can legally rent a place even if you can figure out money - again, that's an ID thing, more than a how old you look thing. I'm not sure about hotels, but hotels are much more expensive than long term places to live in. You'd run into people who wanted you to have guardians if you needed a doctor for anything ever, or if you did any crimes or were near any crimes trying to get money and shelter. If you made enough money, you'd need to do taxes. I guess most of these are ID problems more than knowhow problems but I do think a typical thirteen year old trying to make this work just fails in ways a typical twenty year old doesn't even if you assume they're both without ID."

She could maybe figure some of that out but it sounds like a lot, yeah.

"Yup." Pat pat.

It's pretty unlikely she'll need to, at this point, at least.

"Delighted to hear it!"

Yeah. This is pretty great actually.

Julie hugs her.

Winona reports that they will probably have to wait months for a court date, and that Dusk can probably attend either of the public schools in that time but the Montessori can't take her till there's formal guardianship. "But I think you might do better catching up on your own," Winona says.

Yeah, she'll do that. Do they know if there's anything in particular she should be working on?

"Let me see what I can dig up," says Winona. "I can probably get you some regular textbooks for social studies and science and copies of whatever kids your age read in English. Math you've already got a lot of."

Okay. She's going to want to visit the bike place sometimes probably, but that can wait until her days are empty again... she wants to go back to the institution to talk to Janet soon, too.

"School's not seven days a week, you can sure spare some time to go to the bike place," says Julie.

"You were going to get near it in the woodsy side and talk to her from there, right?" says Winona.

Yeah. Right at bedtime, it's too risky to startle her any other time she's awake and her thing can't wake people up.

"Do you want one of us to be with you? Or both?" Winona asks.

That might make it safer, yeah.

"Then we can come. Tonight?"

Sure.

She's not sure how long it's going to take to fly there, it was a night walking and most of a night biking to get to the church.

"Flying's faster, since we don't have to follow roads or worry about hills. Still might be a trip. Let me find a map," says Julie. She pulls one up on her computer. "- we can do that in two hours tops, probably less."

Sounds good.

Bedtime there is pretty early, they should probably have dinner a little early. Or stop on the way.

"Let's pack sandwiches," says Winona, and she goes to do that.

Yeah, that works.

She'll have to go over what she wants to say - wait until night or until they're going to be alone, get wings, make a fancy outfit until they get magic and then a fancier one if they need more, and then directions to the church by air, anything else?

"They might not all have magic that lets them escape," Julie says. "Especially not inconspicuously. Somebody like me or Winona would be stuck just making a big hole in the building."

Yeah. She's not sure there's anything to do about that - shapeshifting enough to get out that way would make somebody a cryptid, she's pretty sure. She should explain cryptids, though, yeah, girls who don't get good magic should know what their choices are there.

Also what the other choice really is; did Winona find out what happens to those girls now?

"There's a specialist chain of facilities," Winona says. "A lot of their patients fall into the mysteries and whether it's because they're not educating them or because the place is just that unpleasant is unclear - their official line on it is that mental illness just makes it that much more likely, my project at work lately is to find out whether that's true under other conditions."