[ It's nice, Madchen thinks, seeing something so tiny and meek grow to become something as broad-shouldered and tall as Kid's turned out to be. The world doesn't nurture things anymore, not the way that it used to, and on the rare occasion that someone's able to tease some life out of the fallow ground, it always comes up crooked and stunted. (There's nothing the Event hasn't touched, even now.) But Kid's proof that there are still good things to be had, that there's hope in children and that Mother Charlotte gathers only the best and most deserving.

Running her hands over her rain-damp arms she touches her hair, pushing it back from where it hangs in her face in whiteblonde, wet-grey stands. ] Favorite thing 'bout the rain?

[ She mulls it over, her head moving tunelessly as if listening to unheard music. ] Ain't nothing that can't be washed clean by the rain. If'n you've got enough of it, I'd wager. [ She talks a lot about being washed clean; Madchen does. There are sins for which she'd like to be forgiven, some of which she's guilty of but most of which she's not. It's the hook that Mother Charlotte's driven into her heart and it's the lead by which she drags Madchen and Johnny around. ]