Nick

None of the guys believed me. Honestly? I didn’t blame them. Who witnesses something like this? I mean, some parents were probably around when their kids got magic, if the kids were young enough. But I had never seen someone getting their magic except for myself, and what happened in Scott’s dorm was probably more traumatic than what kids usually went through. The explosions of fear and anxiety that had accompanied his thoughts as they had tingled in my head . . . very weird. Not like commercial telepathy.

Of course the topic of first magics brought out stories, as we lounged on Chase’s bed, across from the TV and gaming console on Lucas’s dresser. I told my infamous “didn’t want an action figure to break so I caught it midfall from across the room” story. With plenty of dramatizations.

To our surprise, Chase admitted he’d found out he had been gifted healing by occasionally poking himself with sharp objects to see if he could heal them. I countered with the obvious.

“Were you trying to get yourself into a hospital? Or did you not realize that most healers are crap at healing themselves?”

Chase rolled his eyes at me. “Both my parents are healers. I knew. But that didn’t stop me. And when I proved I was an autohealer, my victory was all the better.”

Having the rare ability to help yourself out of a bind, instead of needing another eccentric, must be nice. But that shit was rare.

“You’re probably the only autohealer in Frannesburg, you know,” I pointed out, and Chase gave me a wide, toothy grin.

“I’m one of only two in the Sierra Territory. I’m in a registry and everything.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” Mark said, queuing up a video game. It looked to be a fighter game of the button-masher variety.

“Well, yeah. Sanya must have thought I was special.” He touched his necklace and got this cute little smile on his face. That seemed to be the way Scott thought about gods too. This . . . contentedness. Did it matter that I didn’t feel that?

“Man, you guys should have seen my cousin get fire weaving,” Lucas started, scooting closer to Mark and grabbing the second controller. “Her dad’s from a weaver family but never had weaving himself. She’s two years older than me and her younger brother, and we were such terrors to her when we were little.”

Chase chuckled, elbowing Lucas in the side. “Like you’re a terror at practice?”

Lucas laughed. “Worse. I had no focus. Anyways. We’re bugging her, kicking a ball around her room, jackass stuff. She’s yelling at us, but we’re totally ignoring it. She says she’s going to tell on us, and then worse, yells she’s going to tell her granddaddy and he’ll scare us with a fire show. She sweeps forward her arms like this”—Lucas demonstrated, controller still in hand, arms spread wide then flying forward—“and fucking sparks fly out of her palms. Scares the shit out of us, but maybe her most of all? We freeze, and my cousin’s like a statue with her arms straight out. She throws her arms forward again—more sparks. The third time? Orange fire.”

Lucas broke into his story with a laugh as he selected a character to play. “The smile she gave us, I swear, I didn’t know I could run that fast. You better believe we didn’t mess with her after that. Hey wait! I wasn’t ready!”

Mark had started a round, launching his character toward Lucas’s and dissolving the almost mystified silence into chuckles.

“Is your cousin doing anything with her fire?” Chase asked, and Lucas shrugged.

“She’s going into accounting, so probably not. It’s not like you have to have a job around your magic. This isn’t the olden days.”

I hummed. “But still, it must be hilarious to tell someone you’re a healer and you’ve gone into something like clothing design.”

“Hey,” Chase said, “Those sewing needles could hurt someone. The fabric scissors, even.”

I rolled my eyes.

Then there was a light tingling at the base of my skull that shifted to somewhere between my ears. Can I hang out with you guys?

Ah, Scott. I looked up, but the dorm door was still shut. Beside me, Mark and Chase had turned their heads in that direction too.

“Is that Scott?” Lucas asked.

Come on, man. Knock, and say it. They’ll say yes.

Oh gods, he was talking to himself and it was bleeding through. Poor guy had a lot to learn.

“Yeah, it is,” I told them.

Finally, he knocked, and Mark opened the door.

“C-can I hang out with you guys?” Scott met my eyes as he stepped into the dorm. His were a little red and puffy.

Mark shrugged. “Sure. But you’ll have to get in line to play a game, I need a rematch with Lucas first.”

Chase gasped, waving his hands excitedly at Scott. “We heard you! We heard you!”

Scott’s eyes grew wide, and my head tingled again. You did?

“Yeah, man! Bright as the stars!”

Scott’s shoulders slumped. “All of you heard that? Not just him?” he asked, gesturing at me. He scanned the scattered shoes around the dorm entrance, and pushed off his sneakers before stepping further into the room.

“I heard it too,” Mark commented, beating Lucas’s fighter against a wall as Lucas grunted, spamming buttons with that familiar clack clack.

“Welcome to the eccentric club. Current members are me and Mr. Autohealer Soccer-star, with our two disciples, the normal gamers,” I offered, and the perplexed expression Scott shot me made me stifle a laugh. “Still not cool with it?”

“You’re not keeping in mind how much this has changed my life.”

Okay, he had a point. But I was having a hard time seeing downsides. Magic was fun. I clapped his shoulder with telekinesis. “It’s not a bad thing.”

He stared at his shoulder, and his chest rose and fell. “I know. But I want to know why me? Why now? And how? My entire family is normal.”

Lucas tossed his controller on the ground. “Sometimes it skips generations.”

“Does it skip three or four? Maybe her parents had . . .” He sighed. “I’m sorry I sound so . . . sad about this? I’m gonna go. Sorry.”

I stood and telekinetically tugged his sleeve. “Naw, man, don’t leave. Play some games with us.”

“Who am I beating to a pulp next?” Mark declared, and Chase shot his hand up. I sent the controller through the air, and he caught it before it smacked him in the face.

Scott gave me a hint of a smile, and I echoed it back to him.

“Anyways,” I started, “You need an eccentric to show you the ropes. Teach you the ins and outs of wielding your godlike power.”

He snorted over the wails of Chase who was getting his ass handed to him by Mark’s own godlike power to wield a controller. “Shouldn’t I see a telepath for that?”

I stroked a nonexistent beard. “I guess, I guess. Or there is always me.”

Now that was a smile. “Okay then,” Scott said. “But I want to help you too. How about you teach me about being an eccentric, and I could show you where your comics come from and tell you about the gods.”

His counteroffer caught me off guard. But something in me immediately said yes. Maybe because he could share his knowledge in a way no adult had been able to. Teenager to teenager, as equals. Warmth blossomed in my chest. I glanced back at the others, but Mark and Chase were absorbed in their game and Lucas was sitting on the couch behind them, rooting them on.

Scott kept his eyes down, his cheeks and ears flushed, and I tapped his chin with magic so he’d look up. His brown eyes met mine, and I smiled. “That sounds great.”

Scott

Mom knew something was up the moment I answered the phone the next afternoon.

“Are you getting sick?” she asked, her voice raised.

“No, Mom, I’m fine. Can I tell you about my classes?” There, a good ten-minute distraction. I swiveled my chair around to face my altar.

“Ah, yes, but . . .” she paused. Swing and a miss. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I sighed, repositioning the cat paw-print charm I had gotten at the student store that morning. It’d substitute as a talisman for Laesth until I could get an appropriate statue.

“I’m sorta okay. Nothing bad about school. School is great. I’ve made some friends.”

“That’s good?” My parents’ terrier Bernie yipped, and the bark cut through me. Hadn’t realized I missed the little guy. “Scott, I told you the city wasn’t going to be like Ralston.”

“You got that right.” Natalis help me, I didn’t know how to tell her.

“So what happened?”

“I . . . I’m . . .” should I do this in person? Was this too important to just . . . say?

“Scott.” Her tone had gone curt. “Please tell me.”

Now I had to tell her. With a lump in my throat from missing my previous life, my normal life— “I got something new for my altar?” I finally squeaked out.

“You . . . did? Oh gods. I prayed and prayed for this not to happen.”

What on earth did that mean? “You did? No, Mom, maybe you don’t— I have telepathy.”

And to my surprise, she choked back a sob. “Gods, Scott, I’m so sorry.”

“Wait, I thought . . . I don’t understand, isn’t this good? Shouldn’t you be happy?”

“No, no, it’s not like that—” She sighed heavily, and I waited, my breath held until she continued. “This is wonderful. This is a gift. In fact, I have a little something for next time we see you. I got it for you and your sister a long time ago. Just in case.”

And here came the tears.

“What do you mean ‘just in case’?” I managed, sniffling, but I already knew. I knew what she was about to say, and chills racked down my limbs.

“I have telepathy too.”

“I can’t believe this. Does Dad know?”

There was silence, then a halted inhale. “No.”

“How . . . what do you mean no?” Momma, you never told Kat and me. You never told Daddy, why would you lie to us about something so wonderful and important? But she couldn’t hear me. It was the first thing I’d researched—most telepaths had a functional range of a hundred feet.

Mom stuttered as she began to respond, but then went silent. I sniffled, standing from my chair, the news thrashing through me and taking with it everything I had known about Mom and our family. I was eccentric. She was eccentric. What else did I not know? “You’ve lied to the whole family. Why? Eccentrics are special. They’re human divine.”

Mark stepped into the dorm, and I startled, wiping my eyes quickly. With a half wave, I squeezed past him and out into the hallway, hoping he hadn’t heard any conversation, or, gods forbid, rogue thoughts. I’d have to be focused to keep others from hearing my thoughts, according to the Laesthan Resources page. Though I had only been able to read so much about telepathy last night before I was overwhelmed.

“Your father and his family don’t necessarily believe eccentrics should be regarded so highly . . .” Mom talked in hushed tones, and I heard a rustle as she moved. Dad shouldn’t be home from work yet, but maybe she was trying to stay out of earshot of Kat.

I dug the toe of my sneaker into the carpet, my free arm around my waist. A bunch of guys were talking and laughing down the hall. “So you hid it from him. Then from us. For two decades.”

“I did what I thought was best for our family, and prayed to Laesth to keep you and Kat normal.”

“We need to tell Dad and Kat.”

“Please, no. Maybe, since you’re away at school—” She paused, and exhaled with a fuzz of static. “Do you want them to know about you?”

“Yes!” I said, my throat tight from trying to swallow down tears. My mom was a telepath and had never told me. My whole life . . . “When’s the last time you even used your telepathy?”

She hummed, and it sounded so sad. “Your father never understood how I got you to settle down so easily when you were a baby. You loved me singing to you, and no one else would hear.”

My chest ached with how much I missed her, how mad I was at her. But our family had to hash this out.

“Can you all come visit?” I asked, picking at a chip in the wall’s paint, thankful for the relative privacy of the hallway.

“This weekend?” she asked.

“Please.”

Down the hall, Nick left his dorm and started toward the stairs, and laying eyes on him and wanting to hang out with him again was enough for him to look over. Gods, I needed to get control of this.

“We’ll be there, Scott. But I am not telling them about me, and neither are you.”

I exhaled. “You can’t be serious.”

Nick waved at me, and I raised a hand back. He tapped at his phone.

“It’s been too long. It would ruin everything between your father and me,” Mom said distantly.

“How is that easier?” My phone vibrated with what was probably Nick’s text message.

“Relationships are complicated, Scotty.”

Why on earth do adults say that? “So Dad doesn’t know. And it’s been decades. I don’t know how you’ve done it. I can’t keep other people from hearing everything in my head for five minutes.”

“You need to learn how to shield. I’ve been shielding since I was nineteen.”

“How do you do it?”

“You imagine a barrier around the people you don’t want to hear.” Mom’s tone had gone hushed again. “Imagine your thoughts can’t get through. Imagine they bounce off.”

That didn’t seem too hard, but . . . “How do I trust what I’m imagining?”

“Recall Laesth’s parable of the Thief. Your imagination is powerful. I gotta go. Love you, Scotty.”

My phone clicked silent, and for a moment all I could do was breathe. The parable of the Thief was about putting your trust in faith to guide your instincts, but to not underestimate the strength of those instincts. Fair enough, Mom.

Finally, I remembered Nick’s text, and found him leaning against his doorframe, eyes on his phone. I checked my messages.

Nick: Want to join us for dinner?

I had passages to read for one of my religious theory classes, some statistics homework, and that conversation had worn me out. But Nick was waiting, his foot tapping the floor playfully, not impatiently. He was so cute and inviting that I shoved down my desire to be alone.

“Yeah, I’ll join you,” I called to him.

Nick smiled. With a push of determination, I smiled back.