Prologue

When Ada Mendelssohn was 12 years old, things started growing. At first, it was just plants. She would wake up to discover that her garden was a jungle, or her bean plant, Beanie, had sprouted into a Giant Beanstalk, or her mother's rosebush was flattened by buds the size of beach balls. Soon, however, she learned that her talent extended to hair (when her Grandfather tripped over his beard, twelve feet long and counting, and fractured his hip), to small animals (who became big animals within minutes), and to bread dough (her Montreal neighbourhood boasted the World's Largest Pizza record for five years).

When Ada Mendelssohn was 22 years old, things stopped growing. Puberty would have been difficult enough without eyebrows that required hourly trimmings, so it has a relief to discover that with a little concentration, she could control the effects of what she was swiftly beginning to consider her 'power'. Ada had married Ezra Zimmerman at 21, and eight months later, their marriage was already on the rocks. Bryce, Ada's best friend from CEGEP, had set them up in their third semester at McGill. Three weeks later, they were an item. Ezra was a true mathematical whiz-kid, a restaurant connoisseur, a compulsive nail–bitter (but his nails never got short, not after he started dating Ada, anyway), and a casual free-lance journalist, and Ada loved every bony, pasty inch of him. After University, they had traveled together around South America, where Ezra had proposed one early morning under a balmy Chilean sky. It was too good to last, and when the wild romance of youth gave way to the harsh realities of real life, Ada and Ezra were forced to admit that maybe they just weren't well matched. Cliché, perhaps, but sometimes, that's life. Ada watched Ezra dejectedly as he moved box after box of his Marvel Comics out of their Côte-St-Luc apartment, thinking of how her short life had been a failure from start to finish.

When Ada Mendelssohn-Zimmerman was 32 years old, her picnic lunch in Central Park was interrupted by a childlike shriek. A boy, climbing a tree while his mother was minding his baby sister, had foolhardily edged his way onto a rotting bough, and was now hanging on for dear life, too scared to budge. Ada sighed, wiped her egg-salad fingers on a paper napkin, and called up "Hang, on, kid, I'll get you down". She got him down. The bough grew, ten, twenty, thirty feet into the ground, forming a slide, and oh, he slid. A crowd of onlookers applauded when the boy's feet touched down, but despite his mother's tearful gratitude, Ada knew the meaning of the furtive look she shot her as she led her kiddies home. She thinks I'm a freak, too. Oh, well. And that was that. Except it wasn't. By using her power to save someone's life, Ada had unwittingly drawn the attention of the still-underground New York mutant community. When Ada Mendelssohn-Zimmerman was 32 years old, she met Eric Lensherr for the first time – and that's when everything went to hell, more or less.

Obligatory Disclaimer: The X-Men Universe doesn't belong to me in any way. Ada Mendelssohn belongs only to herself, and her tabby cat, Clement.