As I walk out of dad's house at 4pm, I mark my place in my phsyics textbook and almost squeak in surprise as I spot a posh car outside Mr Persons' house. As I get closer, I can see Amy standing on the footpath with a large purse slung over one shoulder.
"Hey Amy!"
Amy looks up and smiles brightly, "Taylor! Sorry we're early, Carol wanted to talk to Mrs… She wanted to talk to Catlin to make sure I wasn't being taken advantage of or something like that."
I roll my eyes, "You're what, 18 now?"
Amy makes a shushing motion with her hands, "She's just looking out for me."
I sigh and set my shoulders before walking past Amy. I quickly squeeze her hand before I climb the steps to the porch and call through the open door, "Hi Catlin!"
Catlin calls back from the kitchen, "One minute."
I hear Mrs Dallon give a false sounding chuckle, "I guess that's my cue to go then."
I frown as Catlin follows Mrs Dallon with a clearly upset Connor, who's chewing on a pacifier. As Mrs Dallon passes by, I spot Selene's symbol light up on Catlin's head for a couple of seconds before she ends up leaning against the door frame. "Amy wasn't it, sorry about that."
Amy looks up from the ground, "It's alright Mrs…"
Catlin smiles, "Just call me Catlin, I'm only a few years older than you." As Carol drives off, Catlin sags and scowls after the car. "Sorry if this offends you Amy, but your mother is a real piece of work. Well, you best come in, and I'll introduce you to Bert. Just so that you know, if I see or smell any hint of drugs in the house, that's it you're gone."
Amy looks really offended as she says, "I've never done drugs!"
Catlin squints at Amy, "I guess you haven't at that, for what it's worth, sorry for jumping to conclusions. You sounded like you've done drugs on the phone. My advice, don't start and get your head sorted out before they start to seem like the better option."
I glance at Amy's face, which prompts me to ask, "Why do you say that?"
Catlin turns around and walks to the lounge door. Looking back she says, "Well, come on then. I'm not going to talk about where I came from on the doorstep."
I nudge Amy gently with my power and follow Catlin through the door into Mr Persons' bedroom. I'm not sure why I'm surprised that it's a bedroom, as he already told me that he moved downstairs. But I am.
From his armchair, Mr Persons reaches down for his remote control and turns the TV off as Catlin puts Connor on the floor and Amy closes the door behind her. "You must be Amy." He gestures to the other chair, "Take a seat, take a seat. I'm sure Taylor and Catlin will be fine with my bed."
Amy smiles slightly, "Thank you sir."
Mr Persons waves his hand, "Pish, call me Bert, you too Taylor. Now, what's this I hear about you being a troubled young woman?"
Amy coughs, rather violently, "A what?"
Mr Persons laughs, "Your mother don't know much about these old houses. Walls as thin as paper. Catlin probably didn't notice, but all the questions she was asking, they're the sort we used to be asked by parole officers who were checking up on the young-uns in the 70's and 80's. Making sure there weren't no corrupting influences."
Catlin's forehead glows momentarily as Amy prevaricates, "Well, she is a lawyer."
Mr Persons sighs, "Kid, I've known lawyers, and none of them ever talk about their kids like that."
Catlin looks between Amy and Mr Persons, before saying, "Taylor, could you take Connor to see the bird monkeys and squid birds? That will give us time to talk to Amy in private."
I look over at Amy, "Um, up to you."
Amy looks at Catlin and Mr Persons, "Go on, I guess this is my job interview so to speak."
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When I come downstairs after putting Connor to bed. Which was only fair, as Amy changed his nappy after he had an accident at the park before dinner. I spot Amy pushing a tissue up her sleeve.
Sitting down at the kitchen table, I ask, "Amy, are you alright?"
Amy blurts, "No, I'm not alright. What do you do when you find out your father was a villain?"
"Shrug and carry on?"
"How? My whole life, she…"
I reach out to touch Amy's arm, "Amy, I don't know what you found out, but you can't have an English Professor as a mother and not come across the 'sins of the father' stuff. But you're adopted. Whoever your father was has no bearing on who you are as a person. I know I'm only 16, but even I know that it's part of the nature vs nurture argument, and it falls on the nurture side. I think I managed to get two chapters into Kant's book on the subject when I was 10. It's still on the shelf downstairs in dad's house."
"But what if I am like him?"
"Like who?"
Through the wall, Mr Persons shouts, "You'd be an honorable sort who has likes that she won't cross and always tries to do right by their own people."
I glance at the wall and back to Amy, who says, "Marquis."
I clench my fist, and then levitate my spear out of my pouch so that I can grip it instead. "Amy, you don't know anything about him, or why he became a villain. You know I was bullied at school?"
Amy nods, "I guessed from the way you and Vicky don't really talk about it."
I nod, "I'm sure I've mentioned it while you've been around. Either way, what I haven't told Victoria is that the main bully used to be my best friend, right up to the point where she got a new hair cut just before high school and made a new friend. They kept escalating until they did something big, and then pulled back for a bit before doing it again. Last time was when I got powers in January. I'll probably never know why that happened, and Selene's helping me come to terms with what happened. But looking back, something happened to make her change. Maybe the same thing happened with Marquis. Something awful happened and he didn't feel like he had a choice anymore. Hell, if I hadn't met Selene, and found a place to escape to, I could have ended up doing the same thing. I mean, I was terrified that Lung was going to hunt me down, that's why I started home schooling. Then I was terrified that the Undersiders were going to try and get revenge on me. When Skidmark turned up I as seriously considering making a costume there and then and starting to hunt down the merchants preemptively. It's only because we spent three months with Selene that I was able to calm down and think about it. That and the training Selene gave me so that I wouldn't be helpless in a similar situation."
Amy interrupts, "Wait, you've had your powers for four months, and three of those you spent with Selene?"
Mr Persons shouts, "Wherever they go, time passes faster there. Don't think about it too hard."
I huff and open my physics book to the chapter on waves that caught my eye this afternoon, specifically the section on how they can amplify and cancel out each other. "Give me a sec Amy, I'm going to try something that should hopefully let us talk in private."
Amy looks at the book in confusion, "What do you mean?"
I close my eyes as I try and picture what I want, which is for the wall to vibrate in precisely the opposite direction of the sound waves hitting it through the air. For a moment, I can hear every breath Mr Persons is making, and he shouts a booming, "Hey!…" before I manage to get it right and everything else is cut off.
Connor's crying comes through the ceiling, and Amy grabs the book and says, "It's your fault, you get to deal with it."
I slump upstairs, then straighten up and put a smile on my face as I open the door to Connor's room, "Did the loud noise scare you? Did it? I'm sorry, how about we rock you like a leaf gently floating on the wind huh? Would you like that?"
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Once I've got Connor back to sleep, I walk back into the kitchen to see Amy flicking backwards and forwards in my physics book. As the door clicks closed behind me, she waves at the wall and asks, "How did this help you do that?"
I sit back down and put a kettle on to boil, "Do you remember I mentioned that I could possibly learn how to heal as well as you do?"
Amy tips her head from side to side, "Maybe."
I balance the sensor spell on the tip of my finger, "My power, is. Well Selene calls it magic, and for want of a better word it fits. From what I understand, there are three main ways of learning to use this power. The first is instinctive, the second is through practice and learning, and the last is through spells. But on its own, it doesn't actually do anything."
Amy reaches over and grabs my hand with a frown, "I believe you. But how does that translate to healing?"
I bring my finger down with the sensor spell floating over it, "This allows me to ugh!" I almost vomit as Amy pokes the sphere with her finger. Just as fast as it came, the sensation vanishes.
"What was that?"
"That was me suddenly seeing, feeling, sensing? the inside of your finger. Please don't do that again."
"Is that all? I see that whenever I touch something."
I wince, "That must be pretty horrible to experience."
Amy shrugs, "You get used to it."
I nod, thinking about my slowly growing 'hearing' of everything that's happening around me, "I suppose you do. Anyway, the better I understand something, the easier it is for me to do it with my power. The same is true for healing. Once I know enough to understand how the body should be put together, I could use this sensor to find out where it's not right and use my magic to put it right. In theory, I should also be able to do anything they could do in the ancient Greek and Roman myths and legends."
"What, including turning men into pigs?"
I nod, "I'm not looking forward to learning how to do that. I was more thinking things like building the walls of Troy, or throwing mountains, or making Medusa. I can already give people magic, I accidentally did it to Connor… Um, could you keep that one quiet."
Amy sighs and nods, "Sure, it's not like you've not been saying you can give out powers already."
I nod, "I know, but I didn't have to take Connor to another world to do it. It's like saying I could make people as strong with magic as I am. I'm sure they're going to work it out eventually, as I just know the PRT is going to want to test that aspect of my magic. But that's different to being able to walk up to someone and say, 'Here, you have powers now'."
"I guess, and I'm not going to tell you everything I could do, as I can't just skip off to another world if people find out."
I shrug, "Honestly, I think I'm sharing because I'm afraid of what it means. I mean, at some point I'm going to be strong enough to really face Lung and win. What do I do when that happens? I mean, wouldn't I be obligated to deal with him. What about the other big threats, like the S9. But if I do, where do I stop?"
"I wish I knew…"
Catlin appears in the kitchen, causing Amy to stop talking and take in her costume. As she does, Catlin swears and lifts up her veil, "Shit. I forgot you were here. Well, I'm the Emissary of Selene, or Emissary for short. If you don't mind, I'm going to have a beer. Fucking PRT!"
As a beer shoots out of the fridge I ask, "What happened? If I'm allowed to know."
Catlin waves me off, "You're Selene's apprentice, so it's not a secret. I'd be more worried about Amy. But no, I've been arranging to take that reporter from the paper, Stewart something, I've got his card somewhere. I've been arranging to take him to interview Selene. At the same time, the PRT want to verify her existence, only they keep trying to send an entire team when Selene will only permit one person to go. I just spend most of the last four hours saying no in different ways. They finally agreed that it would be your Liaison officer that gets to go. Um, a Lt Susan O'Donnall. That's all going to happen on the 27th, and I think Selene wants you there as an official thing. I know she mumbled something about building a new temple."
I nod and make a note in my diary. Amy, on the other hand, stares at the glowing crescent moon on Catlin's forehead, "What do you mean Emissary?"
"It's my job, and I get paid for it." She taps her forehead, "This mark gives Selene a direct connection to my brain, so she can see and hear what I see and hear. She can also talk to me whenever she wants."
Amy shivers, "I don't understand how you could stand that."
Catlin shrugs, "The mark was a small price to pay to know that Connor will be 18 once he's twenty, rather than being two for the next few thousand years."
I lay my forehead on the table, "Catlin, I hadn't mentioned that particular side effect of our power."
Catlin shrugs, "You trust her, and I need to bitch. Oh, and watch out for Commander Calvert. He was in some of my meetings, and he's a letch. I mean, I've been visually undressed by the best, but the way he did it… He's also the one I said had the mind that's too big. Selene says yours is too big too Amy. Be careful of the director too, Selene won't say what, but she has a thing about parahumans, so she's likely to try to screw you over and force you under the PRT umbrella if you give her a chance."
Amy frowns, "Should you really be saying that?"
Catlin's eyes go slightly unfocused for a moment, and then she says, "Selene said that she won't share what she learns with other people. But there's a difference between warning friends and associates of problematic people, and sharing their secrets. If you wish to pray to her, she'll share some specific examples that you might relate to better."
Amy mumbles something under her breath, and then her eyes widen in alarm, "How did… Like breathing?… She will?… But… Warn them I guess. Taylor, you better not ever think about reading my mind. Otherwise I'll give you genital warts that will never go away."
I groan, "Amy, I really don't want to learn how to do that at all. But Selene's told me that it's something that will just happen, and I hope it's at least a few centuries down the line before I do. It's one of the things that scares me about my own fucking power. I could so easily become the worst thing Earth Bet has ever seen apart from the End Bringers."
Catlin shakes her head, "No you couldn't Taylor, that's just not who you are. I could believe you could do terrible things, but you'd never revel in it."
I shake my head, "I'd have thought the same thing about Emma, and look what she did."
Catlin lays a hand on my shoulder, "Taylor, you're forgetting something. She did, but you didn't. Anyway, let me get changed, and then I'll walk Amy to the bus stop. As I promised your mother that I'd see you to the bus stop and onto a bus tonight. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't immediately step off the bus again, and be teleported home."
Amy smiles, "I think I'd like to take the bus thanks. It will give me time to think."
Catlin nods, "Don't forget what we spoke about, and do talk to Selene."
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April 19
What did Catlin mean by "She did, but you didn't?"
Amy just called my name to thank me. I'm glad that she had a good time this evening. I wonder how dad's getting on with Selene.