She's pretty sure that's not how adoption worked last week but it would certainly be nice to have a roof over her head for the next while. "That would be very kind of her. Especially if she has any idea of how to get me a legal identity." Probably what she'll get is a ride to a police station and a comment about how imaginative children are but that's fine too. Right now she just needs to keep moving forward because if she stops to think too seriously about any of this she's going to have an emotional breakdown.

"Don't worry," she adds, perhaps sensing some doubt. "She won't balk. She'll be ecstatic. You're a living human being who I'm provisionally willing to speak to. She can't possibly pass up an opportunity like that."

Even with no details on her own childhood this is so relatable that Miranda laughs out loud. "Fair enough! I suppose I'll try to keep being entertaining, then." 

"You're a very intriguing mystery! I will graciously forgive you for not being a ghost."

"If I happen to kick the bucket and an opportunity to come back as a ghost arises I shall almost certainly take it. But for now I much prefer being alive."

"Chacun à son goût. Shall I fetch Mother?"

"Sorry, my French is terrible, what to their what? I'd be happy to meet your mother."

"I believe the English proverb is 'to each his own', but I prefer the French."

She gets up.

"Please don't leave the room without me; I cannot guarantee that exploring the house on your own will not lead you into any deadly traps," she says, and on that ominous note, departs in a swirl of black skirts.

The tea tray is still there, if Miranda is interested.

Between the probable eggs and the comment about deadly traps and what she's tentatively calling isekai jetlag, she doesn't end up touching the food.

She does, however, relax just enough to start crying silently about how she's probably never going to see any of the people or things she cared about again and doesn't even remember what they are and has very little control over her life and not a lot of avenues for getting more. If the tea tray happened to include napkins she'll get a lot of use out of those.

There is totally a neat little stack of paper napkins on one side of the tray.

Well now there's a gross wad of napkins in the back pockets of her pants and her eyes are red.

A tall woman in a long black dress sweeps into the room, sleeves trailing like wings behind her.

"Miranda, is it?" she says, smiling. "My name is Morticia Addams. It's so lovely to meet you."

(Wednesday, as a consequence of her shorter legs, is trailing behind.)

"It's great to meet you too. You have a lovely home." 

"Thank you!" she says, with a small but glowingly sincere smile. "I've worked very hard on it."

She seats herself at the end of the couch closer to Miranda; Wednesday takes an armchair across from her, leaving Miranda in the middle of the arc the three of them make around one end of the coffee table.

"Now," she says seriously, looking at Miranda. "My darling girl has told me all about you, but I'd like to hear you tell it in your own words, please."

Oh boy. Time for truth and/or consequences.

Morticia isn't looking at her like she thinks she's a silly kid playing a pretend game, or a brain damage victim who needs to be prevented from walking out a window. She's looking at her like a person having a conversation. Miranda repeats the story, mysterious closet light and sudden discontinuity and memory wipe and everything. Ends with an embarrassed shrug and the keen awareness of being broke and homeless.

Morticia nods slowly.

"Wednesday has suggested the direct approach," she says. "I could adopt you, and create a legal identity for you along the way. It would solve quite a few problems, and of course if it would make Wednesday happy I would be glad to welcome you into our home. But I think it would not be as simple as it sounds. Although you arrived in our graveyard under mysterious circumstances, I think there is still a risk that you might be..." (she pauses momentously) "...ordinary."

(Wednesday looks confused.)

"It would be very kind of you to do that. But I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by ordinary and it's entirely possible that I am whatever it is." There are so many psychological, legal, or magical possible things Morticia could mean that Miranda's speculation engine crashes trying to list them.

"An ordinary person is one without any supernatural origin," Morticia explains. "My family are what is now called 'outcasts'—those who have some connection to powers outside the mortal. And I think, though your origin is clearly supernatural, you might nevertheless be ordinary in your nature. Which would mean," and here she turns to Wednesday, "that Miranda may be much more fragile than you are used to, and if we adopt her as your sister, you cannot treat her the way you treat Pugsley."

"Pugsley is weak," Wednesday grumbles, not meeting her mother's eyes. "He would never survive without me."

"Look at me, darling, I'm serious. I will not adopt this girl if you cannot promise me that you will respect her differences, just as I will ask her to respect yours. That means no torture, Wednesday."

She glares uncomfortably at the tea tray.

"I have no reason to believe I will not die of--being stabbed, or any other thing that would kill a baseline human from the society I remember." She should probably be scared, this really seems like a fear kind of situation, but what she in fact feels is embarrassment at her lack of robustness. Something something social model of disability. "Uh, also possibly this is obvious but just in case it isn't, I will be permanently damaged both physically and mentally by a wide range of nonlethal injuries." Ah, there's the fear, showing up fifteen seconds late with Starbucks.

Wednesday takes a deep breath and tries to smooth the hint of a scowl off her face as she finally looks up at her mother.

"'Ordinary' means 'like the kids at school'," she says. "Doesn't it? It means—" She stops, breathes, starts again with more precise and careful diction. "It means that she is like a pet. Easy to hurt and hard to care for."