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Jolyne awoke with a start in the middle of the night, instinctively rolled over to hug Mr. Bear, and found that he wasn’t in his normal spot.
She squinted through the bars of her crib at the room illuminated by the single nightlight. Where had he gone? Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t have taken him, they knew how important Mr. Bear was to her. He must have fallen out sometime during the - there, a dark, rumpled shape on the ground. She reached her short, pudgy arm through the bars and whimpered. Too far away.
If she cried, someone might come into the room and retrieve him, but they might waste time trying to feed her or change her or comfort her, and she just wanted to get back to sleep with Mr. Bear safely by her side. She reached through again, straining, and felt something gently tugging inside her arm, more ticklish than uncomfortable. The tips of her fingers stretched out into the darkness and she felt them wrap around the soft fake fur of her favorite stuffed animal.
Good. That was easy. The strings coiled back into her hands, and she snuggled up to Mr. Bear and closed her eyes.
***
Daddy went to answer the phone and left her snack on top of the dresser. Silly Daddy! It was a bowl of her favorite fish shaped crackers, and she wanted it now. She remembered how she was able to reach Mr. Bear a few days before and stretched her arms out as long as she could, trying to make her fingers strings again. Finally, she felt the pulling through her elbows and wrists and reached… and still couldn’t reach far enough.
She grunted with frustration and reached again, and felt a soft sensation all over her body like a soap bubble popping. Suddenly, in front of her, was another kid. A weird kid, one who was light blue all over and wore sunglasses and looked kind of like the “R is for Robot” page in her alphabet book, but who somehow felt friendly to Jolyene.
“Hi,” she said, waving her little hand back and forth.
The kid said nothing.
Say hi, Jolyne thought, and the kid raised its arm and waved back. Jolyne laughed.They were friends now!
She held up her hand and showed her new friend how she could make strings. “You,” she said, and the Friend turned its fingers into strings as well. Jolyne laughed and toddled across the room, strings trailing behind her. The Friend followed. They made a web of them around the legs of the crib and dresser, past the door, trapping her toys in the middle.
Daddy came back from his phonecall and tripped on the web, hitting his knee on the dresser and yelling one of those words that always made Mommy frown at him. Hide, Jolyne thought, and the Friend vanished, the strings coiled back into her body. Daddy looked down in surprise, under the crib, in the corners of the room. He scooped Jolyne up and stared at her, eyebrows knitted in concentration.
Another Friend appeared, even taller than Daddy, and began to look around the room. “Hi,” said Jolyne, waving again. The new Friend paid no attention. “HI,” she said again, with more emphasis. Daddy stared at her again, then the Friend did. It moved to the left, the right. Jolyne watched it, and yelled, “HI!”
“You can see Star Platinum?” said Daddy.
***
They had just gotten back from grocery shopping, which was boring because Daddy wouldn’t let her have candy or ride on the horsie toy outside the supermarket, but now he was putting away the cans and had left the carton of eggs on the counter. Jolyne made her hands into strings, grabbed the faucet, and pulled herself up. Eggs always looked fun, but she was never allowed to play with them.
She pulled open the carton and took one in both hands. Smash! It made a great mess on the counter. Daddy spun around.
“Jojo cook!” she said, picking up a second egg.
“How did you-?”
Smash!
“Absolutely not.” He picked her up in one arm and she arched back, trying to wiggle free.
“Nooooooo!!!” Her Friend appeared and kicked Daddy on the ankle. He looked at it in shock. Slowly, he crouched down, reaching for the sunglasses. The Friend collapsed into string, and Daddy quickly stood straight up again, watching. A minute passed. Jolyne got bored and told the Friend to hide, and tried to squirm towards the eggs again.
Daddy strode towards the living room and plopped her in the playpen. He picked up the phone and dialed a number.
“It’s Kujo.” Pause. “Is there a way to suppress a Stand?”
Jolyne found a ball in the playpen and rolled it against the wall.
“My daughter’s. I’d suspected it for a while, but I saw it for the first time just now.”
She called her Friend out and rolled the ball to it, caught it as it rolled back.
“Jolyne. J-O-L-Y-N-E. Eighteen months.”
Could they cover the whole ball with string?
“Because Stand users attract Stand users, and she’s just a baby. I’d rather her make the choice when she’s old enough to defend herself, and understand the consequences.”
The ball was too smooth and the string kept falling off.
“Uh…” he squinted at the Friend. “Like a kid. Small, blue. It unravels.”
The Friend toddled over to the edge of the playpen and looked at Daddy.
“No, not like Hierophant Green. More like… string. Also, I said, it’s blue. Light blue.”
Jolyne hurled the ball as hard as she could and it bounced twice outside of the playpen and rolled into the corner.
“And, uh, it has sunglasses.” He frowned. “No, more like… beach sunglasses.”
Jolyne found some blocks and started stacking them.
“I don’t appreciate what you’re implying.”
She got the blocks stacked five high and knocked the entire pile down.
“That has nothing to do with it. It’s dangerous, she’s a little girl, and I’m - I’m not going to see her with a hole punched through her. I said-”
Jolyne was bored again. “Daddy,” she said, and raised her arms to be lifted out of the playpen.
“Okay. I’ll bring her in Friday.” He hung up the phone and went off to the big bedroom.
“Daddy?” She couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about her. She made herself into string and slipped out through the bars, and followed him.
He was sitting on the bed, looking at that old picture, the one with Great-Grandpa and Uncle Pol and the doggy and the two other people she didn’t recognize, out in the middle of the sand. She climbed up next to him. “Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy DADDY Daddy DADDY.” He glanced at her, and back to the picture.She flopped in his lap and looked up at his face.
“Daddy sad,” she said.
He ruffled her hair. “Daddy sad,” he agreed.