“Bye, Jaycee,” Jelly winked at him and wrapped her arms around her bent knees.
SCHWUMP.
The tiniest sound of the comb’s teeth racing through Jelly’s hair dispelled the otherwise silent atmosphere.
Wool closed her eyes and moved her face closer to Jelly’s head. She pressed her nose against the strands and breathed in.
“Mommy? What are you doing?”
“Be quiet a minute, honey,” Wool’s heart filled with light as Jelly’s scent engulfed her lungs.
“Mmm,” Wool felt a tingle roll down her spine. She whispered so quietly, she barely heard herself speak, “God… I love you so much. I hope you know that.”
Jelly scrunched her face, wondering what was going on behind her. Playful to a fault and still childlike in her naivety, “Are we going home soon?”
Wool waited a second to allow the last moment of wonder to escape her body, “Yes, honey.”
“Why do you keep calling me honey?” Jelly asked. “Is it because I’m the same color as it?”
“No, hon—uh, Jelly. It’s because you’re sweet. It’s a term of endearment.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Wool resumed combing Jelly’s hair, “Don’t worry. Our friends from USARIC will be here any moment, now. We need to look nice so we can meet them, right?”
She removed the comb and ran her fingers along Jelly’s scalp and brushed past her left ear.
“Look at me,” Wool whispered.
Jelly purred and tilted her head to the side. Wool’s knuckle ran through the fur on her cheek and down under her chin.
“I like it when you do my chin.”
The half-cat’s wonderful pupils glowed a dark orange. A mesmerizing sensation tumbled around Wool’s chest like a pair of sneakers in a washing machine.
“God… look at you, Jelly Anderson,” she muttered, utterly confounded by the girl’s beauty, “You’re so beautiful. I look into your eyes, and all I see is love.”
Jelly pulled a face of naive contrition, “I don’t know what to say when you say things like that.”
“Then don’t say anything,” Wool pressed her lips on Jelly’s forehead, “Don’t say a word.”
Jelly licked her lips as she received her kiss. She wanted an answer to a question that quickly formed in her head.
“Do you love me, mommy?” Jelly looked up at her with adorable dough-eyes.
“Yes, honey.”
“Are you in love with me?” Jelly asked without a trace of emotion.
“God, no,” Wool held her chest, troubled by the question, “Why would you think that?”
“Because when I was with Jamie, his mommy always said how in love with his daddy she was.”
“That’s not the same thing, honey.”
“Why?”
“Being in love with someone is…” Wool found the relatively easy distinction difficult to verbalize, “It’s not the same.”
“Why?”
Wool arrived at the simplest explanation available, “You wouldn’t want to have babies with me. Would you?”
Jelly didn’t say no. She was over the prospect of sharing a child with her new mommy. Wool, on the other hand, was seriously hoping Jelly would say no.
“Mmm. No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, thank God,” Wool exhaled and clutched at her heart, “But, uh, you do love your chicken pâté, don’t you?”
Jelly licked her lips and providing Wool with an inadvertent reminder of just how sharp her fangs were, “Mmm, chicken.”
“See?” Wool smiled. “The difference between being in love and love?”
Jelly shrugged her shoulders and planted her bare, furry feet on the floor.
“Not really. Sorry.”
“Never mind,” Wool tossed the comb on the pillow, temporarily disappointed with Jelly’s innate ability to learn the essentials but flatly unable to process anything past nuance.
Jelly turned around and held the bulge in her belly, “Do you think Pink Symphony was in love with me?”
“I don’t know. What makes you say that?”
The pink glow shimmied through her fur, “Because it gave me a baby.”
Wool considered the statement very carefully.
Jelly had a point. No one knew how the pregnancy could have happened, but, the end result was potentially an act of having made love.
“That’s too strange to even think about, honey. All we know is you went in the water and came back pregnant. God, just saying it loud sounds crazy.”
“I never wanted a baby,” Jelly lifted the bottom of the exo-suit up, “But now it’s here I’ve changed my mind. I feel like it belongs to me. Like I have to save it from harm.”
“Whatever that is inside you, we must protect it,” Wool placed her palms on Jelly’s baby bump, “At all costs.”
“Did you have a baby? Jelly asked.
“No, sweetie. I wasn’t able to have babies.”
“Why not?” Jelly asked.
“It’s a long story, honey. I’m not able to have babies.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Wool ducked her head like a sad child, “It makes me sad.”
Wool’s fingertips snaked across Jelly’s belly bump. The synthetic skin on the back of her hand cracked apart and spat pink gunk onto her wrist.
“Ugh, you must have nicked me with your claw, honey.”
“I didn’t.”
The pair shared a moment. Both knew deep down inside that something wasn’t quite right.
Wool shook her head and pointed at the wall by Jelly’s bed, “Let’s get a new measurement, honey.”
“Okay.”
Jelly walked backwards to the wall, “Do you miss Bonnie?”
Her question caught Wool off-guard.
“Press your shoulders against the wall,” Wool squeezed the thumb on her left hand as she marched in front of her. “Of course I miss her. Why did you ask me that?”
Jelly pressed her back to the wall and yawned. Her ears and mouth stretched across her face, inadvertently revealing her fangs and bright orange eyes.
Wool would never get over how horrific Jelly’s face looked when she yawned.
“I noticed you stopped speaking to Bonnie before we went to war,” Jelly asked. “Why?”
“I didn’t,” Wool dismissed the accusation and clocked Jelly’s height, “I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.”
She looked at the height marks on the wall beside Jelly’s leg.
3’3” – 4’6” – 5’4”
The latter recording marked chest-high to Jelly.
“You’ve grown so quickly over the past day or so,” Wool glanced at Jelly’s face, “Hold still a moment.”
“Why am I growing?” Jelly asked.
“We don’t know, honey. It’s something to do with the Symphonium.”
“Sim… fow… knee… umm…” Jelly repeated.
Wool tiptoed and pressed the fleshy part of her thumb on top of Jelly’s head. The sharp curve lit up and scored a line into the wall.
“Height reading, please,”
The mark on the wall throw a beam of soft, white light to the floor and calculated the distance.
“Seven feet exactly,” advised the thumbnail.
Wool paced back and took in Jelly’s towering height. A sickening idea popped into her mind. One that she felt couldn’t be repeated verbally.
“Is everything okay, mommy?”
Wool rubbed her face and tried to halt her emotions, “If you keep growing like this, it’s not good.”
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying,” Wool lied and sniffed away her tears. “Honey, please. You need to stop…”
Jelly didn’t know how to respond. She tried for a smile – a wry attempt to make her assumed mother happy once again, “Am I a big girl, now?”