Chapter 114

Dear Willow and family,

First I want to thank you for letting your concubine Brianna write to our beautiful Lily. She has revealed things to Brianna that she had not told anyone here. I don't know why, though I'm working with the Civil Service Officers here at Atlantis-At to find out if there are any people who were practicing family therapists who could be induced to help her. And I suppose also help us.

I don't know if it is writing to Brianna or Will's disappearance, but something has sharply focused our little elf. I suspect that she will test as a sponsor level individual the next time she takes a CAP test. Since no one is sure when her birthday is (as she had a CAP card that was not apparently her original when she was picked up) our arrival at Atlantis-At has been set as her default retest date. I do hope that she doesn't decide to move out of the house, but in the end we will all have to live with her making her own choices. After all that is what becoming a sponsor really amounts to. You make your own choices and you live with them.

She showed me her letter before she sent it on to Brianna, not that I couldn't have accessed it any way, but I'm glad that she trusted me enough to show me what she had written. What an awful life. And what an awful way to have to grow up. Or rather to be shoved into an adult world not of her own choosing. I hugged her and told her I loved her and that I was sure all the others in the family did as well. She cried a long time in my arms. But honestly I don't know if she has really become a member of the family or if she is simply treating our home as shelter from a hostile world. I entered her letter into the colony files on her so that the Governor could better understand why she wants to have control over her person. Even if in a way she's given that control to me by asking to wear a chastity belt.

I'm going to cut this note very short and go and hug and kiss my babies. Then I'll find Lily and hug her and hold her as long as she'll let me.

Your sister in law,

Marissa Phillips-Murphy