Mimi let the older woman’s head go and finally Jamila could witness the incredible spectacle in front of her. The lake, the mountains of which she could now see the tops, the cities in the distance and much more. Her gaze followed the coast, and finally reached her own feet which were emerging from the lower water in front of her old town. She then turned back and gasped.
“Oh my … Oh my! Miss Madeline!”
“What?!” Taunted Mimi.
“Look, everything’s so … it’s so small! I mean, it’s tiny, it’s minuscule. Oh my …”
“Yeah I know!” Mimi was really enjoying this part. And I could not resist but share the same feeling. Seeing Jamila react to her growth, seeing another person which was our own size but for the first time right in front of us, it was enthralling. It was like feeling it for the first time once again, but with far less stress from the surprise. Jamila’s innocent reaction to having become a walking force of nature made it all look extremely exciting. An excitement I had never felt before focusing on my own experience of the thing.

Maybe that’s what moved Mimi to be so optimistic. She must’ve empathized with other giants far before than me. I must’ve been once again the stereotype of the teen male completely self-absorbed and incapable of taking someone’s else perspective. But Jamila’s continuous gasp in surprise at everything had broken that fog. I could now see in her eyes and through them that being giants was in fact not just an infinite amount of problems but also something actually magical and incredible.

Mimi had rushed to her side because she wanted to join in her first exploration of the titan life. I watched them both pointing at things and remarking again and again how insignificant they were. Jamila caught a medium-sized ferry and lifted it out of water. She foolishly started saying hello and she didn’t seem able to contain her joy. Mimi on her side was over the moon participating in the maid’s games of size. It was incredibly tender to watch and I marveled at how I wasn’t immediately worried for the people on the ferry. I mean, I got aware of that too, but this time it took me a bit more of reflection and it didn’t hit as it had just half an hour before when Mimi was almost trampling that same tourists’ ship. I couldn’t explain it, but the growth of Jamila had made everything more relative. As if the fact that someone outside the Young’s family had grown and was thus allowed to the toy world, made it less problematic to treat it like … well, a toy. “Z… Z … Zachary!” My train of thought was interrupted and cold shivers traversed my spine.

“Zachary, is that you?”
I turned to my back and there stood Ginevra in her full majesty. She was a sixty-something years old woman with a very well toned body. Her belly was still flat, the skin on her legs and hips were still tight. Her tits and ass were giving in as the age commanded but they still retained a discrete roundness and firmness. Of all the woman in the family Ginevra had been the most beautiful in her time. She was a model and a singer at the local theater, and this was a good bunch of the reasons her husband sixteen years older, and already an affirmed entrepreneur, had chosen and married her when she was only twenty one. The fact that she had worked almost nothing and focused mostly on prolonging her beauty as much as possible had done its job in preserving at least the vestige of the former splendor. And now, the growth had once again done its own proper magic. Both on her body and her face wrinkled had diminished dramatically. The blond mossy hair were more tonic than I’d ever seen them, her small and elegant breast stood even firmer that every supporting bra could do. She looked ten to fifteen years younger at a superficial inspection.

“Zachary! You trembling boy!” She commented with a smirk.
“Mrs. … mrs. Compatt!” I used to address her only with her married name.
“Oh you! How many times did I tell you to call me Ginevra. Mrs. Compatt seems so old. And even older now that we’re in this new … condition. Didn’t you listen my Madeline? We’re living a new life now” She was trying to sound solemn but it looked like she was just mocking her granddaughter.
“Now come here! Be good! And assist an old lady while she gets used to her new … attire!”

She giggled maliciously with that last word. I didn’t know what to say. She had listened to Mimi’s speech which was intended just to calm Jamila. She surely didn’t look as confused as the innocent maid had been. She looked like in full control, and in fact without me even noticing she was already holding firm my arm and hinted me to start walking.
“So, don’t you want to reach Madeline and Jamila. They’re already a good piece ahead of us!”
I looked at the other two giantesses and Ginevra was right. They were already in the middle of the lake splashing each other with water. I wondered what had been the fate of the ferry collected by Jamila.
“Come on, Zachary. It would be rude to make them wait."
I was completely annihilated by her presence she was a giant since a couple minutes and already completely in charge of my life. As if by growing her I had shrunk and was now completely in her hand. I was in fact in certain way. Still holding my arm she guided me on her side walking painfully slowly toward our objective. It took me just two steps to notice we weren’t walking in the water anymore but on land, or at least Ginevra was completely while I was in a more hybrid situation, depending on the shape of the coast.
“Mrs. Comp … ehm mrs. Ginevra! We are standing on land now, we have to go back into the lake.”
“Oh no … no! I prefer to walk on land, darling. I had enough of bathing for today.”
She winked after that last sentence and every single cell in my body wanted to implode for the shame. She may have been barely aware while she was growing, but she remembered perfectly how she happened to grow in the first place. Some small gestures and less than a hundred words had been enough to completely erase even the memory of that enthusiasm that Mimi and Jamila playing had given me just minutes before. And so we kept walking along the coast, which very soon would’ve signified encountering human constructions.
“So … how did you grow in the first place? And, most important, is my daughter and her husband involved in this too?”
I gulped down hardly. “Wha … what? I mean, yeah … yes. Yes, they do. We grow in different places when we were on the coast and we met back there at the town.”
“Oh I see! And how many … well, giants like us do you think are there apart from my family and you?”
I didn’t like how she had remarked that it was her family that was giant.
“Oh … eh. Well, there’s this woman. And her kid! She’s called Elsa and the little boy …”
“Anyone else?” She interrupted me showing she couldn’t care less for strangers’ names.”
“Oh … well. By now, I think … my mom, too.”
Ginevra kept nodding and smiling at me gently, but she still was as scary as it gets to me. “Good! That’s superb! So now, we’re all this big. We don’t have to worry for anyone … left behind.”
I considered telling her of Ellie and Samantha but I didn’t dare adding any more information unasked.
“Mrs. Ginevra! Sorry. We’re still on land. There’s some houses and buildings right in front of us.” I tried to point at the small buildings just one step ahead of our feet.
“Oh, dear! You’re right! Look at them. They’re indeed minuscule. I know a woman like me has seen enough in her life, but apparently there’s still something that can surprise you regardless of your age or your experience. And it’s always the little things.” She concluded ironically. She was looking intent at the houses and I could clearly see plenty of people either transfixed by the appearance of these immense colossi right at their front doors or scattering in all direction looking for safety.

“Mrs. Ginevra, I think we should step in the water now because …”
“You’re always so polite, Zachary! I really appreciate that of you. You were raised very well. Cynthia’s a … formidable woman.”
“I … ehm … thanks, I guess!”
“Now look at these buildings, and these … small little things on the ground!”
“Yes, exactly! - I exclaimed finally feeling heard – That’s why ...”
“Zachary!” She exclaimed imperatively. I looked at her. She was staring back at me, not even with the typical malice, just very serene and clearly amused by my embarrassment.
“Dear boy, may I ask you a question?”
I would’ve done everything just to stop our walk. My guts kept communicating only one unfulfillable order: run!

“I … yeah, sure, I guess …”
“What do you think of them?” She looked intently into my eyes, I felt like she was drilling within my brain.
“Aye … ehm, what? Sorry! I mean, who do I think … Sorry!” I was in total confusion by that moment.
Mimi was still a small piece ahead, two towns down the lake at least and too excited to show Jamila every minutia on the side of the mountains. Differently from many other times before, she couldn't rescue me from her grandmother.
“Oh Zachary. What … a … funny … boy?” The emphasis on each word made it feel like she was slapping my consciousness back and forth. If this had been a boxing match, the technical knockout would’ve been called a long time ago. I felt as if I was drowning in her fake kindness.
“About them!” She pointed vaguely at the town.
“I … I don’t know. I mean, I never had any thought about the inhabitant of this one town. I am not even sure which one is this. I just think, maybe we should reach Mimi and Jamila! Eheh, your granddaughter would be thrilled to see you!” This was my last call.

“Ah ah ah! Of course, of course! Why would you think about them …” She caressed my arm, but it felt like she was pouring acid on it. I was terrified.
“But what do you think of them, now? I mean, have you looked them closely?” She let me go, my ankles almost instinctively made me do a suppressed jump like I had just been freed from an insufferable weight. She did a squat, which was quite impressive for a lady in her sixties, but I suspected that the growth didn’t just solved her ailments. It probably gave her an unexpected strength, and she was exploring all the new possibilities opened by this sudden turn in events.
“Look at them. So puny! This growth, this incredible gift that you and Mimi brought to me … it’s liberating. I feel like something has been finally established. Now I really can look at people like they are in their right place.”
She was toying with a chimney under her finger, and when she finished the sentence she let it just crumble down.
“But I’m very curious about you! What do you think of this little people here. Are they of any interest to you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just let words flow out of my mouth. “I … I mean, no. They’re just normal people … doing, like, well … their business, I guess.”
“Oh sure, sure! They indeed were doing their business up to some moments ago, when we appeared.”
She finished examining a car and then flattened it between her index and thumb. “But now, we’re here. I mean, now we are giants. Titans to puny mortals. And they know it. Look! Look how they flee.” She pushed her finger into the asphalt of a larger street and then traced a groove long several tens of feet trampling everything in her path, vehicles and people included.
“To us, they’re like nothing” She shrugged the durst from her fingers. “To them, we’re like deities!” She finally stood up.

“I am a deity, I can do with them whatever pleases me. But I’m not the only one here. Zachary, look at you.”
I gulped very audibly.
“Look at your body, your height, your strength! You are very young god among these insects. You can just go wherever you want, do whatever you like. Moved only by your own will and instincts.”
“Mrs. Ginevra, I honestly think that we shouldn’t bother these people. We can walk into the lake, join Mimi and Jamila and …”
“Zachary, please! Wouldn’t you answer me.”
She made a pleading expression which looked just as dangerous as the scariest of grins. “What do you really think of these people? Don’t you think that we are a superior form of life now? Don’t you think that they can indeed mind their own business, but just as easily we can mind ours. I mean, such small and futile creatures … they are just dirt under our feet. It’s just that the majority of them didn’t had such an honor, yet!”
“Mrs. Ginevra, I don’t think it’s correct to say that these people are dirt … They are … people! Like me, or like you!” I blurted it all out waiting for her to incinerate me.
“Oh well, that’s strange though.” Unexpectedly she just changed her expression from a grimacing smile to curiosity.

“What? Why?”
“Well. Just some minutes ago, you and my granddaughter, in the form of immense giants, appeared in front of my house, and the town where I’ve spent my vacations for forty years. You grabbed me like I was a speck of dust and did as you pleased. My granddaughter, God bless her, got on all fours just in front of the whole citizenship. She even destroyed several historical buildings in the process. And then you consumed an intercourse with close to no care for anything outside yourselves.” I felt personally attacked, but I couldn’t really object to the facts that were being presented.
“Oh no! That’s just a big misunderstanding. That was inevitable. It was just meant to make you grow.”
“Oh … and why did you wanted to make me grow in the first place? Don’t misinterpret my words, I’m very thankful for your … effort. I really appreciate this gift far more than any other received before. But now I wonder why did you come so far north, up to my house at the lake, just to insure I’m a giantess like you, and Mimi, and all of my family … and your mother, apparently.”
I felt impaled by those words. I had no answer and when even, I felt like no sound would’ve exited my mouth. But I tried again
“It’s because we made this rule! I mean, Hannah and Micheal, Mimi’s parents, they put up this rule, to be reasonable. That since we’re giants and so big, and there’s people everywhere, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything, not even walk ... we can’t look for all of them ... and some are inevitably destined to … to …”
“Ow, Zachary, darling!” She stepped toward me and put one hand behind my neck and another one firmly tightened around my forearm. She pushed my face toward her chest and embraced me softly while caressing my hair.
“Zachary, my dear boy. My gorgeous boy!”
I didn’t know how to react and just let her handle me like a was a small puppet completely deprived of any will of my own.
“Zachary … don’t you see? There’s no rule!”

That last sentence whispered to my left ear made me freeze in complete terror. I felt her arms were tightening around me, it was like her physical proximity was slowly absorbing every remnant of my vital force. I was but a pile of anguish ready to definitively crumble.
“My daughter and her husband didn’t make any rule. They just got acknowledged of the situation. That’s just how it is! We are giants. We are too big to actually care for these people. They are bugs. I know it sounds harsh, but that’s how it is. I am old enough to not care anymore about keeping hypocrisy intact. As long as language is polite I would insist in calling a spade a spade. And I won’t call what to me is less than a mite, a person. I think there’s nothing wrong in this. I value honesty above anything else in friends and foes alike. And I’m just being as honest as it gets. It just so happened to us that we are titanic beings … and the rest of the world is not. We have to accept what life gives us and what it takes away. It had taken a lot from your family Zachary. And finally it is giving back something. You should stop being so worried about everything. I always wanted to tell you that. Always so trembling and circumspect. Like a small terrified animal in the big dark wood. Maybe you were like that … before. But now, life has given you a new perspective, a new role to play. You should enjoy your youth, your time with all this … with my granddaughter above all. My Madeline, you make her so happy. I don’t even remember feeling what she feels when she talks about the two of you. Look!”

She signed me to turn my head toward the lake but she didn’t let go off me. “Look at my granddaughter, isn’t she beautiful. And look at my naive servant, Jamila. Always so meek and polite and faithful. Look at them, just enjoying what life has given them. They are now gigantic and powerful. A condition, this latter, very rare for women to acquire. They are not as worried as you! They just enjoy their size and their bodies, even if some unfortunate seafarer has to endure the consequences of it.”

Mimi and Jamila were really not making a big job of proving my point about the necessity of being careful. They were just playing in the lake completely unaware or uninterested in the hundreds below, small boats were being swallowed by the waves in every direction. Jamila was always extremely well behaved in the presence of Ginevra, but she was eager to become instead very playful with Mimi. She had witnessed a large part of her childhood and adolescence and they formed a deep but always pretty lighthearted bond. When the two were together they tended to become pretty enclosed into their bubble of fun and didn’t pay enough attention to the world outside. What in normal condition would’ve turned out in scratching someone’s car and fleeing before anyone noticed, or eating stuff directly into the mall just for the rush of doing something forbidden, in this situation looked more like teasing each other with ferries inevitably destroying them completely.

Watching them playing had been a blessing for a while before but now Ginevra had poisoned that moment. And the worst part is that she had poisoned that with the truth. Mimi and Jamila were immense uncaring beings and plenty of people were being crushed for the sake of child play. I wanted to facepalm but I couldn’t actually move a muscle, plus I could clearly feel the grip of Ginevra on my harm which had never faltered. The two goddesses of the lake, though, probably finally felt the weight of our gazes and turned in our direction. This pushed Mimi to finally run in our direction causing several tsunamis to splash on the coast where we were standing. By the moment Mimi was close enough to be heard clearly, the only remnant of Ginevra’s grip was a fading red mark on my skin. She was instead smiling wide welcoming her granddaughter between her arms. Jamila joined us as well cheering the reunion.

The town below suffered all the consequences of that. Ginevra had just scratched one small street on the borders of it, but her mere position so close to it had led first to the flood following the waves generated by Mimi’s run, then more than one neighborhood was trampled by the teenager’s feet and finally also by the larger feet of the massive ebony maid. Almost the whole town was flooded but the part closer to us had disappeared completely leaving behind just a muddy sludge signed by several titanic footprints. Ginevra returned her granddaughter affection and kissed her on the forehead. She hugged Jamila as well. Something that surprised everyone a little bit. I considered if that was just a way to exhibit even more how much she liked her new condition and to generate even more commotion under their feet. The trio of giantesses had erased the lake town from the maps and the face of earth in a few minutes and all of that happened within the boundary of that same rule Ginevra had just argued being substantially phony.

“Oh my … I’m so glad everything went as planned! I can’t wait to reunite with mom and dad! Oh yes, grandma! Mom and dad are …”
“Oh don’t worry, cupcake! Zachary here already updated me on all the recent events! We had some small talk before you arrived”
She glanced at me with her green reptilian eyes and I felt another shard of ice pass through my skin.
“Oh …" Mimi welcomed that news like it was as harmless and casual as Ginevra wanted it to look like "That’s great! So let’s get on the march! We have parents to rejoin! And so much stuff to do yet!”
“That’s for sure! A generous amount of ‘stuff’ to do.”
I was the only one to fully catch that last sentence from the gruesome gigantic grandmother, and I gulped down.

“But first – Ginevra interrupted everyone before we could make the first step – Jamila!”
“Yes, ma’am!” Jamila answered promptly and stood straight on her toes. It was pretty out of place for the ebony goddess to speak and behave as if she was still a maid and Ginevra her employer, but probably that answer came as a muscular memory more than a conscious action.
“Jamila, dear! Due to the current situation I have to recognize you as freed from any further service among me or my family. Given our current condition neither could I give you any more money in return for your services or could you express any interest in receiving them. Therefore I’ll make it clear, as it is in the matter of things, that you can make use of your newly gained size and your freedom completely. Don’t feel obliged to any further reverence. You can leave for whatever path you prefer.”
Jamila was visibly shocked by those words. Both because they felt in part as a slight suggestion to actually choose for a different path from ours, and it sounded a bit unpleasant to dismiss so easily a person which had been in the life of the whole family for years. And because probably those things really resounded for the first time in her head.

She had already get a bit used to her new size, to the point of toying around with ships and ferries like they were nothing and redesigning the mountain landscape like it was small dunes of sand. And yet, she probably still considered herself first and foremost as a maid, the role she had covered for the last decade or so. As a nanny for Mimi and Jo, a confident for Hannah but above all as an assisting figure for Ginevra, regardless of the fact the woman was a more or less nice employer. And now the old lady had just made it publicly clear that all of that, all of her life so far, was over. She had no formal relationship anymore with the family she considered at least in part also her own. She was a gigantic goddess capable of upturning cities and deciding the destiny of thousands, but she had been cleared to be alone.

We were all caught off-guard by Ginevra’s words and Jamila’s incapability to answer. Although I took that as an occasion given by fate itself to me, to rain just a little bit on Ginevra’s parade.
“Of course, you can come with us anyway. I think that Mimi will feel much better to have you on our side and Hannah will be very happy to meet you again!” I spluttered out faking a confidence that I never detained. This one time also Ginevra was surprised, but she contained her reaction.
Mimi which took my word as a breath of fresh air insisted “That’s for sure. Jamila, please! Come with us! I’m so glad you’re a part of our family even now and I’d be so happy if you decided to stay!” She pleaded sincerely.
Jamila was clearly embarrassed to be at the center of everyone’s attention and even more for the fact that everyone was waiting for her answer. She stuttered a little but finally was able to articulate. “Owww, of course Madeline. Of course I’ll be on your side. You all are my family, not just my employers. And well … actually I have no proper reason to remain here, neither do I have to start a long travel back home. That’s a place very far in space, but also in time. There’s very few for me over there. Instead, here with you I have everything I’ve built in these years. I hope you all will accept me as a member of your community of … well, big people.”
“Oh yay!!!” Mimi screamed out of joy and jumped on Jamila to hug her. The giants woman returned the enthusiasm and both started kind of dancing to celebrate. The town below was a memory at that point, but this last event spread the destruction to nearby areas through small earthquakes.

Ginevra observed the scene retaining her disappointment. To let Jamila go had been also a way to start affirming her leadership among the “big people”, and I managed to ruin that moment. She knew that, and I looked in her direction fearing another incinerating gaze, but she resisted the urge and kept just looking at the other two giantess causing further destruction. Of course we moved through the lake, and Ginevra, as it was very easy to expect, made no resistance to follow everyone else in the water. I was the last one of this parade of titans.
The three women walking in front of me occupied a good portion of what was considered to be a very large body of water. I made some raw calculations and counted four giants in our improvised troop, three on that of Mimi’s parents including my mom, and three more with Elsa, her son and Jo. Ten titans already, plus some smaller giants. I feared the moment such an amount of power would eventually be brought together and unleashed upon the world. I needed to reunite with my mother as soon as possible and talk with her about everything. She would’ve understood what kind of threat were we all to everyone and helped me avoid or reduce further damages to things and people.