"Well, all person can fight evil. But if you are very good and very brave, God sees your - sees inside you, sees all the good in you, and God give you holy warrior things. And then everyone can see you a holy warrior and know you will keep them safe, and then you fight for them, always."

Iomedae is SO GOOD and Lily wants her to be her big sister FOREVER AND EVER. 

...Lily doesn't know very many things about God. Her birth family didn't go to church. She knows that churches are like schools about God, because that was what Evelyn said. Probably people at school said other things about God but Lily isn't very good at remembering to put her listening ears on (is what Evelyn says) and she doesn't really have...friends.

She has a lot of questions although it takes her a while to say them.

Where does God live? What does God look like? Does God like dogs? (Lily really wants a dog but Evelyn says No Pets Because It's Complicated.) Can you write God letters? What does God do if he looks inside someone and sees that they're bad? 

God lives in - she thinks the English word is just Heaven though in her birth language there are technicalities. 

"God live in His city. It is so big and so rich, bigger and richer than this place, because all the dead can build any thing they want there, and they think of so so many thing. God when He was a person was Azlanti so His hair was dark like mine but so straight, and His skin was light like yours. Or that is the thing I saw. I don't know how good it was. You can wrote God letters or just think letters to Him and He'll hear you. I think to God every day. I tell Him to fix all the bad things in the world. He knows that but I tell Him anyway. If He sees people are bad then they can't be holy warriors, all holy warriors are good. He wants bad people to stop being bad because if they stay bad they are not allowed to Heaven, and go to Hell instead, or other bad places."

Lily considers this very intently for a while. 

"...I wa'be good," she says. "b'I be bad s'times. I BIG mad n'I broked Mummy pi'cur. Two pi'cur. Iggo shawp eeeeewwywer n'Mummy sad." This is so so so many words but Lily is trying very hard. "Izzat - w'God see all bad 'side me?" 

"- little kids are never sent to Hell, they go Limbo, where they can decide what to be. If you die you go Limbo and then you can choose Heaven with me if you want. And God gives me the power to see bad in people, and you are not bad I can see. God sees everyone and wants them to have Heaven, all of them, because it's good for people to have good things, to be better and get strong. And if you do some bad things, you can get good anyway by doing more good things than bad ones, to make it right. So when you give to the poor, and help people, and work hard to make things better, then that counts for good. 

If you broke your Mummy's pi'cur, then maybe we should make the whole house so clean for her, and then we have made things better."

Lily's eyes are big as she listens to this, but she doesn't look upset. She nods emphatically when Iomedae suggests they clean. 

"'Kay! I he'p!" Lily wants to be able to see bad in people's heads. "W'go c'ean now? Be s'pise!" 

"Yeah! Let's be quiet so we don't wake your Mummy up, that wouldn't be a good present. We can practice sneaking! Holy warriors need to sneak sometimes!"

Lily will be SO QUIET. 

She knows where the things for cleaning are! The vacuum is in the hall closet downstairs. Lily used to find the vacuum noise scary but she is going to be VERY BRAVE, as well as being nice, so that when God looks in her head he sees that she is good and brave and should be a holy warrior too. ...Actually they shouldn't though because it will make Mummy wake up and then it won't be a surprise anymore. They can take the broom and the mop and do the not-carpet places, which is most of downstairs, and then they can do the carpet places later. 

The dishcloths are in this drawer. The other things for cleaning - Mummy has a spray for the counters that smells like lemons and a special floor soap in a bottle that smells like pine trees and goes in the mop bucket - are in the child-locked cupboard under the sink that Evelyn told her Very Seriously that she isn't allowed to play in. (Technically she isn't supposed to play in the other cupboards either and it made Mummy sad when she made a flour snowstorm even though it was a very pretty snowstorm, but not supposed to is different from not allowed to, one of them makes Mummy sad and one of them makes Mummy scared.) Anyway Lily is pretty sure this is fine because Iomedae is a big girl and they aren't playing, they're doing a nice surprise for Mummy.

She can't open the door herself because she's a little kid but Iomedae can because she's a big kid. Lily can show her how.

(Lily is, in fact, physically entirely capable of opening standard child locks, and it's just that she would never, which Evelyn has been grateful for so many times. Lily isn't exactly good at remembering to follow house rules but for an idiosyncratic handful of them, they seem to have landed in her brain like facts of physical law.) 

(Evelyn would not normally sleep through even extra quiet child-sneaking and whispering and cupboard-opening, but she was up later than usual and she's very tired. And used to Lily waking her first thing, so she doesn't bother to set an alarm in case Lily happens to sometimes sleep in by an additional precious fifteen minutes, and also sneaking is not a standard Lily mode.) 

Iomedae is not very good at sneaking either, by the standards of soldiers, but the standards of foster parents are sometimes a bit more forgiving. She will thank Lily delightedly for all the inside help and tell Lily that she's doing an amazing job - and it's fun, too, isn't it, doing good usually is when you find the right attitude to have about it - and she's an adult so the rule about the cleaning supplies doesn't apply to her, presumably, and if it did she'd have been told about it last night, so she'll open the cabinets, get the cleaning supplies, clean the floor and the counters, put the supplies back and lock them, and then check if the laundry machine also folds the clothes or if she needs to do that. 

The machine doesn't fold clothes. Lily is not allowed in the garage because she's too little (and she would never) so she waits outside. 

Evelyn sleeps until almost 7:15, by which point the sun is up enough to send a ray of light peeking through her curtains.

The garage is directly under her bedroom. The creak of the garage door - that one she hasn't oiled in a while - doesn't quite wake her all the way, but it's on a spring to close, and the muffled thump as it swings shut does wake her. 

- what time - oh no - there's no way Lily is still in bed and she's not exactly surprised that Iomedae apparently managed to whisk her off silently and keep her quiet for at least an hour, which almost feels like a miracle from God in itself - that part's fine, she really does appreciate the sleep, but what are they doing in the garage - 

Evelyn throws on a dressing-gown and sprints out of her room and down the hall and hurries at a safer pace down the stairs. 

Lily immediately glues herself to the entrance-way closet door opposite the garage door, to be EXTRA CLEAR that she was nowhere near it and was definitely not going to sneak into the garage even a LITTLE BIT. 

"I wash't!" she says. "'Meday get l'dee." 

(Is Mummy looking disappointed or angry or scared? Lily disappoints Mummy a lot and it makes her feel sad but she HATES it when Mummy looks scared. Mummy isn't ALLOWED to be scared. If Mummy is scared then maybe there's something scary and there are supposed to be NO scary things in this house.)

Evelyn mostly looks bleary, she just woke up. "Iomedae? Are you in there?" 

"Yes, ma'am!" Iomedae emerges with the basket of laundry. 

"Wow! You really didn't have to, but - that's so helpful of you, thank you. Lily, why don't we go figure out what to make for breakfast?" 

"'Kay!" Lily is SMUG and VIBRATING and bounces along beside Mummy. The laundry was only a little surprise since Mummy woke up and they didn't have time to fold it. She can't wait until Mummy sees the real surprise. 

All the cleaning things are put away and Evelyn actually gets as far as putting the kettle on before she cues in to the suspicious complete absence of any crumbs or mysterious stickiness under her bare feet (she didn't take the time to put on slippers upstairs) and, when she looks around, the equally suspicious absence of any dried food spills on the counter. Or stovetop. Evelyn manages a proper clean on the stovetop once a fortnight at best and it doesn't usually get this clean. 

Um. 

Evelyn turns to look at Lily, whose expression is also suspicious now that she has more context for it. 

"Lily, who did the kitchen?" 

"'Meday! b'I he'p!" Lily is fizzing like a shaken-and-then-opened-too-quickly bottle of soda. "B'not c'burd, pwmise. 'Meday BIGirl, do daggus l'kkids."

Lily knows that the "dangerous chemicals" in big bottles are why she isn't supposed to go in the cupboard, but she can't say 'chemicals' and they ARE liquids. The dishwasher pods are also dangerous on the inside and Lily is not allowed to play with them even though they LOOK like toys, but if Lily is VERY CAREFUL not to squish them she's allowed to be the one who puts them in the dishwasher cupholder. Evelyn calls it something different than a cupholder but Lily still thinks it's a cupholder. For little tiny cups. Fairy cups. 

"I do da SCUBSCUBSCUB!" she adds. She makes an imaginary scrubbing motion. 

It wouldn't help to get angry, and Evelyn - isn't, really. How on earth was Iomedae supposed to know that she shouldn't clean the house without Evelyn's supervision and recruit the seven-year-old for help? She probably cleaned at home and her little siblings probably helped. 

It also won't help to be belatedly upset and stressed that someone - either of them, really - could have gotten hurt. Lily is clearly fine and had a wonderful morning. There are...aspects of the situation...that Evelyn doesn't feel good about, but nothing actually bad happened that she can tell. 

She's - going to take a minute to think of what to say, because whatever would come out her mouth if she opened it right now probably isn't going to help. 

(She is not looking nearly as pleased with them as Lily had been hoping she would.) 

"Lily was so helpful and so good! She knew all of the rules and she took them really serious and tell me everything I need know! I am very lucky, such help. And you are very lucky, such a good kid." Does Lily want a hug. 

Lily does want a hug! She's so happy. She is going to be so good and so brave and then God will look inside her and make her a holy warrior and she can fight all the bad people forever and ever with the bestest big sister in the WHOLE WORLD. And she can send God the best thank-you letter EVER. And maybe give God a dog as a thank-you present too. Iomedae didn't say if God likes dogs but she can't think of a better present than that. 

(God likes dogs but Iomedae lacks the vocabulary to talk about the triumph of human will and ingenuity which was domestication of animals, so it'll have to wait.)

...Evelyn is going to feel like such a witch if she gets upset with the children over presenting her with a clean kitchen. "It's very nice, Lily, thank you."

She'll...talk to Iomedae later. She's not feeling happy about it but - probably Iomedae has supervised small children around dangerous things before. Aren't farms pretty dangerous? Iomedae was almost certainly competent not to let Lily eat the household chemicals. If anything, Evelyn owes her an apology before she says anything else, for completely not thinking to explain on her first night. 

"Pancakes for breakfast sound good?" 

"I don't know what those are! Lily?"