Everyone in the room, including the normal-sized Alison, stared at Anna’s serene, expressionless face with bug-eyes.  Ashley hugged herself a little more tightly to her mother, and even Tony took a step closer to the clump of people.  No one spoke for a few seconds, with only the rain filling the silence.  Kevin’s brow began to furrow.

                “W-W-WHAT did you just say?” he stuttered, not out of fear, but out of a feigned sense of curiosity that clearly was hiding a growing fire of rage.  Anna knew this was to be expected.

                “You heard me.”

                “Anna…” gasped Helen.  “You… you can’t actually…”

                “Alison,” said Anna, turning to face her daughter and smiling reassuringly at her worried face.  “Do as I asked you to.”

                “Mom?” drawled Alison, raising an eyebrow, locking eyes with her.

                “Please do as I ask,” answered her mother more gently, knowing her daughter would be confused by her newfound sense of confidence in the face of her vile in-laws.  She locked hazel eyes with Alison, and in a brief second, with no exchange of words, managed to convey a deep sense of desire to help protect her daughter and ensure her safety in the future, no matter the cost.  Alison nodded, getting the picture though still uncomfortable, and turned back to the table.  Her arm lifted, her hand opening up, her fingers splayed.  She laid her hand on the table, flat, palm up, waiting for her passengers.  All four tiny people quickly backed up, clearly very insulted by the disobedience, although Anna, watching them closely, couldn’t help but notice the slightest stumble in Kevin’s step.  Almost as if he was getting nervous.

                “Anna, don’t be stupid,” grumbled Kevin.  “This is ridiculous.  I SAID, the conversation is OVER.”

                “Helen?” asked Anna sweetly, ignoring Kevin.

                “What?” answered Helen somewhat abruptly, although Anna could sense apprehension in her soft voice.

                “Please ask your daughter and her boyfriend to climb into my daughter’s hand.”

                “NO!” gasped Helen, hugging her daughter even more tightly against herself.  Ashley was beginning to sob with fear at this point, while Tony was beginning to look at least a bit off-put, standing closer to Kevin.  “We don’t have TIME for this; you have to get us help!”

                “Helen, please, you have to understand something…” whispered Anna, trying to keep her voice calm.

                “No, YOU have to understand something, and understand it WELL, Anna: the money is OURS, it’s perfectly legal, and we no longer have any ties to you now that my poor, poor, brother is dead.  Now find a way to fix the phone!” she barked, her words of fear turning very quickly into angry orders once again.  Anna studied her tiny face, actually smiling pleasantly for a moment, then began to tsk lightly at her.

                “Helen, I don’t mean to be rude, but maybe you’re mistaken here.  I didn’t ask if you wanted to discuss this.  I asked your daughter and her boyfriend to get into my daughter’s hand so she can take them out of the room and upstairs for us to talk.”

                “And what if we DON’T?” screeched Helen, now in full-terror mode.  Anna nodded at her, somehow knowingly, then turned to Alison.

                “Go ahead, honey,” she said.  “Take them.”  Alison shrugged, then lifted her flattened hand off the table, and instead outstretched her fingers into a claw shape, moving ever closer to her cousin.  As the tip of Alison’s soft finger gently brushed against Ashley’s back, the tinier cousin began to scream at the top of her lungs.

                “WAIT!” cried Helen.  “Stop.  Ashley… you need to give us some… alone time with Aunt Anna.”

                “But MOM!”  screeched Ashley in terror, eyeing her cousin’s still-looming and gargantuan hand, hanging tightly to her mother’s sides, the tears still pouring down her face.  “You can’t make me go with HER!”

                “I won’t hurt you, Ashley, I’ll walk really slowly,” said Alison, trying to be reassuring, but this only caused Ashley to bury her face deeper into her mother’s shoulder.  Helen shot Alison a dirty look before patting at her daughter’s wavy bleach blonde hair, soothing her.  Alison, getting the clue, retracted her colossal hand away from her cousin and removed the imminent threat of picking her up, allowing her sobs to soften.  She replaced her hand, palm up, into its original position on the edge of the table.  After another minute, Helen pushed her daughter off of her and Helen turned to face her cousin, a look of hate spread across her face.  Tony quickly rushed up to her, hugging her.

                “It’ll be okay, babe, just hang in there; I’m right here for you,” he said, walking her forward.  Together, they climbed onto the cushy plain of Alison’s hand flesh and were lifted up as Alison began walking for the hallway.  Helen held out an arm after her daughter, as if worried for her safety, before hugging herself back to her husband, drying her tears.  Kevin was absolutely livid, his face a deep shade of beet red.

                “Now…” said Anna calmly, pulling out a kitchen chair and taking a seat so that her face was in much closer proximity to the puny couple before her.  She brought both hands up to the table and calmly laid them together, crossing her fingers as if in prayer, while Kevin and Helen jumped back in surprise.  “Let’s chat a little.”

                “I can’t believe you’re doing this to us, Anna, I just CAN’T believe it!” wept Helen.  “You’re holding us HOSTAGE, do you realize that?”

                “Anna… do you know who the hell I AM?” bellowed Kevin, uncorking his anger.  “I’m KEVIN FUCKING YEAGER.  When we get out of this, I’ll have your sorry ass thrown in jail so fast, you won’t even have time to buy hooker shoes and try to get a job!” he spat, shaking a little in his excitement.  Helen tried to shush him, rubbing his shoulders, while Anna just kept staring at him, a curious smile spread across her lips.

                “Kevin…” she chuckled with confidence.  “There’s no need to get your panties in a bundle like this.  All I want to do is talk some solid business.  That’s your thing, I thought?  Stocks… bonds… cash in general, I guess, right?”

                “Anna?” whispered Helen.

                “Yes?” she responded.

                “W-What will Alison do with Ashley and Tony?”

                “Don’t worry about them; she’s very sweet, she’d never hurt a hair on their heads.  Not that you two would know… you spend so much time waiting hand and foot on that brat of yours…”

                “How DARE you!” squeaked Helen.  Anna shrugged.

                “It’s the truth; sorry, someone had to tell you.”

                “Listen, you stupid BITCH!” bellowed Kevin, garnering Anna’s full, smiling attention once again.  “Get your ass off of my chair and get on the phone.  You’re not going to get a single thing by trying to talk us down.  You’re only making it worse for yourself, the longer you sit here not doing anything.”

                “Are you sure I won’t change your mind?” asked Anna.

                “Oh, I’m sorry,” sighed Kevin in a fake voice of ignorance and sorrow, chuckling playfully.  “Did I not make myself clear?  You’re not getting ANYTHING!” he yelled, his feigned smile instantly faded.  Anna nodded, then calmly raised a hand.  Before they could react, Anna had her middle finger held back against the pad of her thumb.  She moved it closer to Kevin, then released it, flicking very hard against his crotch, the ivory plate of her nail smashing into his body with a soft tap.  He staggered back a few steps in an effort to remain standing then groaned in abject discomfort, dropping to his knees and holding his wounded jewels through his pants while Helen looked at Anna with disgust.

                “W-What are you DOING?” she yelled, to which Anna shrugged again.

                “It’s just a little friendly encouragement,” she answered kindly.

                “Y-Y-You… you stupid… you stupid, fucking…” growled Kevin, his face flushing purple with rage, sputtering in his attempt to unleash the perfect retort as he tried weakly to stand up fully again.  However, as he did, Anna’s hand shot out again.  Her long, soft fingers wrapped around his sides, pushing him forward a step.  As he did, he found himself smushed against the warm palm flesh, the fingers curling almost fully around, tapping at Anna’s hand heel.  Then, squeezing ever so slightly to make sure she had him, Anna lifted him off of the table, holding him closer to her gleaming hazel eyes to study him.  Helen screamed, holding her arms in the air and reaching for him.  Kevin was at a loss for words, his body rigid, his eyes bugged, as he looked down.  The distance to the table wasn’t terribly far down, and would certainly not have caused him any permanent damage if he was dropped.  The real terror of the moment came when he suddenly found himself grasped in the warm yet unmovable pod of peachy hand flesh of his sister-in-law.  For the first time yet, Kevin truly had nothing to say, but simply sputtered a little in his throat.

                “What’s that, Kevin?” asked Anna nicely, keeping him at eyelevel.  “Didn’t quite catch that last bit there.”  But he had no other answer, and remained silent.  “What?  No retort?  Nothing else to say to me?   The Great “Kevin Fucking Yeager” has run out of witty remarks?” she giggled lightly, rubbing at her chin with her other hand as if in thought.  She lowered her hand slightly so that he was just below her eyelevel, allowing her the pleasure of looking down at him, while he was forced to look up.  She could feel him beginning to tremble in her cushy grip.  She wriggled her fingers ever so slightly, just to remind him from every angle how completely she had him, and to her delight, he began to tremble even more, his voice still unable to find itself.

                “Anna…” breathed Helen softly from the table.  “Please… please put him down…”

                “Wait a minute, Helen, we’re just having a friendly conversation here.”

                “Anna, please…” she gasped again.  “Look at him… y-you’re s-scaring him.  Please, please, put him down, bring him back to me…” But at this point, Anna wasn’t even looking at her sister-in-law anymore, her rotund hazel eyes instead locked devilishly to Kevin’s, her plush lips spreading into an even wider smile.  They opened up, exposing her gleaming white teeth to the nervous wife who was still standing on the table.  Anna calmly breathed in an out, her cool exhalations blowing down into Kevin’s face from her nose and making his hair stand up.  She batted a long wavy lock of hair off of her shoulder and back behind her again, wrinkling her nose and squinting at him with greater intensity.

                “So whatcha think, tough guy?” she asked calmly.  “Remember what you were going to say to me yet?” Kevin still had no answer.  “Please answer me, Kevin,” she requested, squeezing in ever so slightly with her fingers, pinning his arms even more powerfully against his sides and making them go numb.  He struggled for breath for a brief second, his chest heaved against the thick pad of Anna’s hand skin, before Anna untightened her grip.  It was just a warning, but Kevin was already starting to hyperventilate.

                “I… I-I…” he struggled, gulping hard, while Anna raised a serene eyebrow patiently.  “I don’t r-remember…”

                “Ahhh… you don’t remember,” grinned Anna.  “That’s too bad.  But you know what, Kevin?”

                “W-What?”

                “Whenever my daughter or I forget something that we REALLY need to remember, we have a system.  It’s pretty simple, really.  We go into a dark room, and just take a little bit of time for ourselves to think clearly.  Like a meditation exercise.  How would you like to try one of those?” she asked eagerly, casually beginning to flex her pointer finger in and out against the back of Kevin’s head, tapping at his hair.  He shook a little at this new touch, then tried to speak, but his throat was far too dry.

                “I… I… I, um…”

                “Good idea, isn’t it?” she asked, moving her hand over.  Helen jumped out of the way as Anna’s hand passed by, moving right over the half-filled glass of wine.  Then, she screeched as Anna’s cushiony fingers unflexed, releasing the pressure on her husband.  He fell for half a second into the glass, then landed with a liquid plunk into the wine.  His clothes instantly became stained red and purple, his face dunking underneath for a second as he struggled to stand up in the slippery, dome shape of the wine glass.

                “KEVIN!” yelled Helen, cupping her tiny hands around her mouth.  “Are you all right?”

                “Ugh…” groaned Kevin, his hair stained purple, finally managed to stand up, but he quickly slipped back down into the strong-scented drink.  Helen gasped, muting it by covering her mouth.  At this point, Kevin realized standing up wasn’t quite possible, so he resolved to stand on his knees, pressing his hands against the smeared, wet glass sides.  He looked down at his terrified wife, and then again at the movie-screen-sized face of his auburn-haired sister-in-law, who had a distinctly uncaring and ho-hum smile on her face.

                Kevin rolled back in surprise, then, re-dunking his shirt into the purple pool, as Anna’s hand approached, filling his field of vision almost entirely.  The amazing girth of it was breathtaking; he watched as her long, pink fingers extended around much of the circumference of the glass, the grooves of her fingerprint becoming visible as she softly pressed her flesh against the glass to grip it, turning the pads of her hand a slight off-yellow color, and finally her palm followed, covering up most of Kevin’s view in a wall of cool, creased flesh.  He felt the glass begin to vibrate and tiny waves forming in the liquid as it was lifted up slowly in Anna’s hold.  Kevin held his breath in terror as Anna stood to full height, the floor now becoming a death-dealing plunge if he were to be dropped.  He clasped his soaked arms around his cold torso, having nothing else to hang onto in his state of shock as his body continued shaking.  Still no words came from his dry throat, despite how soggy and sticky the wine was making the rest of his body.

                Anna came to a stop in front of the pantry.  She twisted the latch and stepped into the reasonably expansive food closet, which had enough space for her to stand inside of it and look around at the various shelves.  She admired the walk-in space and the massive amount of food that Kevin had apparently been able to afford.  With a slight chuckle, she realized that the thing wasn’t much smaller than the only bathroom in her own house, shower included.  Shaking her head in disbelief, she extended her arm and placed the wine glass on a marble shelf with a soft chink as the glass touched the surface.  Immediately Kevin pushed forward, slamming his hands against the slippery glass dome, looking out at the smiling face of his colossus sister-in-law through the slightly distorted image of the wine-bubble smeared flute.  The liquid sloshed around a little as he did, his nose tingling and beginning to sting.  The intense smell of the wine, which Kevin normally enjoyed at a regular size in moderation, was simply far too much in such a high dosage, and he was already beginning to feel light-headed.

                “A-Anna?” he gasped, with much less fury than before, his voice having become more docile.  “Y-You can’t l-leave me in here.  You j-just can’t…” he trailed off, looking at her pleadingly.  She nodded at him.

                “Take a load off, Kevin.  It’s a meditation exercise, remember?  I’ll be back in a little bit to see if you remembered what it was you were going to call me.  Here, I’ll even start you out:  your first two adjectives you used, I believe, were “stupid” and “fucking.”  I’ll let you figure the rest of it out, big guy,” she grinned, stepping out of the pantry.  She closed the door behind herself, thrusting Kevin into near-pitch black, the only light coming from under the door as he continued wallowing in the fruity and alcoholic wash and scent.

                Anna sauntered calmly back to the kitchen table, her foam flip-flops softly slapping against her soles as she stopped in front of the table, sitting down.  Helen was trembling violently.

                “ANNA!” she screamed.  “You can’t DO that!  Let him out of there; you have NO idea what I’m like when I’m this pissed off!”  Apparently, her utter fear and mortified, emotional strain had come to a stop, or at least been halted long enough for her to release her inhibitions.  Helen was so rarely at a loss for words, and Anna tilted her head, cocking an eyebrow at her; this was the woman she was much more accustomed to.  She sniggered at her as she pitifully continued her rant.

                “Well, I guess you’re right, I don’t have any idea of what you’re capable of.  But I can’t imagine it’s very much at all when you’re like this, huh, honey?” she asked sweetly.  Helen sputtered, holding an accusing hand out and pointing at her, her shoulder quivering.

                “You BITCH!” she screeched.  “I don’t know where my parents went wrong with Tom.  He was always so promising; he became a lawyer, just like he should have, like our father, but he was always… held back.  He never understood the measures that were necessary to do well in the business…”

                “That’s because he was an honest man… unlike that little speech-maker husband of yours,” quipped Anna, hoisting a fist up.  She rested her elbow on the table, allowing her place her chin upon her raised fist as if bored, her eyes still locked to her sister-in-law, who was absolutely beside herself.

                “No, it’s because YOU were always there, getting in the way!” cried Helen, tears of anguish rolling down her cheeks.  “You took him away from us and turned him into something unsuccessful.  A flop.  A total flop.  So much potential, all wasted…”

                “It was never wasted.  He became twice the man your entire family ever was.  He cared about people.  It wasn’t about the money.  It was his friends and family that he loved so much,” answered Anna, twiddling her thumb under the table in her other hand, which rested calmly on her thick quads through her white skirt.

                “You never really KNEW him!” gasped Helen.  “The man he was going to become… I mean, so much that would have been accomplished.  And he threw it all away to pull you out of a gutter and put some bread crusts into your UNGRATEFUL MOUTH!” shrieked the tiny woman, convulsing slightly.  There was silence for a minute or so as Helen’s chest rose and fell with great ferocity, her breathing trying to regulate as she gritted her teeth angrily in the face of the gargantuan woman before her.  Anna herself remained poised, just staring down at her husband’s sister.  Finally, she spoke up.

                “Helen, I think our problem here is that we got off on the wrong foot about twenty years ago, and we never got around to fixing that.  What do you think?”

                “What do I THINK?  Why, you…”

                “BECAUSE,” continued Anna, loudly cutting her off, which easily caused Helen to shut up.  “I think it would do us good to have some good old-fashioned girl time.  Sound good to you?”

                “GIRL time?  Anna, I…”

                “C’mon, honey, it’ll be fun…” sighed Anna with a smile, extending her humongous hand expectantly toward her cowering, frozen sister-in-law, her outstretched fingers wiggling and almost tingling in anticipation of putting the irritating woman into her authoritative grasp.