Part 1

21. Jabbering

2022, March 23th
Collapse – 27 years

After Sibyl’s outburst, Sakhr went to talk with her privately. They returned as Katherine was getting ready to head home.

“I’m really sorry,” Katherine said as she gathered her supplies.

“It’s okay.” Sibyl was calm, although still a little frosty as she sat at the table. “I’ll get used to it, but you should warn people before doing something like that again.”

“But I couldn’t! I had to trick you. It was the only way to get you to do it, or else you would have expected it to fail, and it would have.”

“Hmm,” Sibyl seemed doubtful.

Sakhr spoke. “If you ever think you can trick me into improving my power, you have my permission to go right ahead.”

“Same here,” Josephine said.

“Same,” Christof added.

“Okay.” Katherine brightened. “I do have some ideas I want to try on you guys, but I guess I should probably keep it to myself.”

“It is your call,” Sakhr said. “Josephine? Sibyl? If you’d drive Ms. Faulk back home?”

They did. Katherine was back to her old excitable self by the time they dropped her off. Josephine walked Katherine to the house while Sibyl waited in the car.

Her father answered the door. He looked as he always did when Josephine dropped off Katherine: tired, worn, and old, despite being in his thirties.

“Hi, daddy.” Katherine hugged him.

He returned the hug awkwardly as though this was unexpected behavior. It probably was. Ever since Josephine had approached Katherine that day at school, she hadn’t once reverted to that shrunken version of herself that slunk away from her tormenters. That was a different girl.

Her father disengaged. “Do you have any homework left?”

“A little.”

“Then why don’t you go do it and let me talk with our guest for a moment.”

“Okay,” Katherine agreed readily enough. No reason not to. Her father wouldn’t remember any conversation he shouldn’t.

She turned to Josephine. “You’ll pick me up tomorrow?”

“I will.”

“Cool. See you then.” She disappeared inside.

The father turned to Josephine. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Name’s Allen.”

Normally Josephine would wipe his memory and walk off. She didn’t though. “Nice to meet you.”

“My daughter has been spending a lot of time with your kid. She never got around to telling me who they are. You’re not Allison’s mother, are you?”

“No. Not Allison. Jesse.” Jesse had been a safe name Katherine and the coven had agreed upon for a cover story.

“Never heard that name before. I’m not too surprised. I have to waterboard that girl to get her to tell me anything about school. How long has she and Jesse been friends?”

“Not long. They met last week.”

“Huh. Just that long? Well something’s really working out. I haven’t seen Katherine this way in years.”

“How is she normally?”

He seemed to consider whether to get into it or not. “It’s been rough. She’s been having some trouble at school with the other girls. I really only know what I hear from the teachers, but it’s been pretty bad. Really bad actually. It’s been affecting a lot at home. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear she’s spending time with someone. This week it’s like she’s actually back to normal. Wouldn’t tell me for the life of her what’s changed. So how’ve they been spending their time together?”

“Oh, you know. Whatever kids do these days. They spend most of their time in their room.”

Allen nodded. “I’m just glad she’s spending time with someone. I’d say they’re welcome to spend time here too, but I don’t want to rock this boat.”

“Is it just you and her?”

“Yeah, it is. She lost her mother a few years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged it off. “Her mother and I were separated. Kat though, she lived with her mom. The thing is, coming to live with me meant changing schools, and that’s when everything went sour. I was honestly considering transferring, or… something. Just get her back to her old school. Maybe that could help. I can’t tell you how relieved I’ve been this week.”

“Yeah.” Josephine forced a smile. By this time next week, this man would be contacting the police about his missing daughter. Kat would be happier with the coven, but that didn’t make Josephine feel any less nauseated about what they were about to do to her father.

“Anyway, thanks for dropping her off,” Allen said. “I hope I’ll be seeing more of you.”

“Yeah, I hope so too,” Josephine turned and headed down the walk way. Allen waved goodbye. Josephine cleared his memory before he closed the door.

She got in the car where Sibyl waited behind the wheel.

“Why’d you stay and talk?” Sibyl asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I shouldn’t have.”

Alexander and Anton came back near midnight, long after Sibyl and Josephine returned from dropping Katherine home. They burst into the hotel suite laughing and joking. Josephine would have awoken if she’d been asleep. As it was, she was on a couch in the common room watching quiet television to sooth her insomnia, something she’d inherited from her current body.

They removed their coats and boots as they chattered drunkenly in mixed English and Russian. Even though others were trying to sleep, Josephine knew from experience that telling them to be quiet was pointless.

Alex looked around. “Oh good. The sleepover’s over.” He sprawled onto the couch beside her. Anton collapsed into the armchair opposite Alex and withdrew a bottle of Scotch from a paper bag. Shrink wrap crackled as he unscrewed it.

Swell. The night wasn’t over.

As he filled two glasses, he glanced at Josephine. “How was the interrogation? She run out of questions yet?”

Josephine ignored him. Whenever Anton was drunk, his accent came out. It would work perfectly for any In Soviet Russia joke. “Maybe next time we’ll find out if I can fax my Authority. Or maybe it can work over smoke signal.”

Alex stretched to grab his glass. “And she’s going to be living with us.” He sipped. “It’ll probably get better once she’s easier on the eyes. Think Sakhr’ll let her dump that chubby body early?” His eyes were on the television, but Josephine knew he was waiting for a reaction out of her. “Course even then, it’s not like she’d be worth sleeping with. Could you just imagine that would go? ‘What happens if we fuck with the condom on backwards? If we fuck upside down, would it feel different?‘” He held up his finger. “Hold on. Actually, fucking her might be fun.”

Anton chuckled.

“Of course,” continued Alex, “chances are we’ll just end up with another lesbian in the group. I’ve seen her thoughts. She’s the kind of person who’d start with some harmless college kissing just to get attention.”

Josephine couldn’t help herself. “You shouldn’t worry. She won’t stay with us long once she realize what enormous assholes you are.”

Alex barked laughter. “Like hell she would. We could demand she fellate every one of us for entry and she’d still do it. Even with all her bubbly excitement, you still have no idea how badly she wants this.”

“I’m not saying she won’t join. I’m saying she’d run off after she figures out that she’ll get just as much bullshit from you as she gets now.”

“Nah, she’ll stay.” Pause. “You stayed, didn’t you?” He craned to look at her. She avoided his eyes. Within her reach was a table lamp. She envisioned smashing it across his head, then making him forget. He might think he’d hurt himself while drunk.

Sakhr emerged from an adjoining room dressed in a hotel bathrobe. His eyes were bleary.

“We’ll keep it down,” Anton said. He gave Alex a look indicating that he’d best agree.

“Where were you two?” Sakhr’s tone was like a father’s who’d caught his son sneaking in after dark.

“Out,” Alex said. “A few bars. Just having fun.”

“You left to get away from Katherine.”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah?”

“She noticed. She’s worried you don’t like her.”

Anton refilled his glass. “We needed break from her uh…” he fluttered his fingers against his thumb to indicate talking, “from her jabbering.” His english continued to devolve alongside his sobriety.

“She’s coming over again tomorrow. You two are going to be here, and you’re going to welcome her. I don’t want you affecting her desire to come with us.”

Alex shrugged, palms face up. “Why? Why roll out the carpets? She’s already decided. We could have left this shit-hole town last week.”

“I will not have her rushed. I want her to leave with us only once she’s ready to leave everything behind. I want her to want to be with us.”

“For what? What’s her fucking power anyway? I’d hate to go to all this trouble just to find out she’s a dud.”

“If you had been here today, you’d know it wasn’t.” He locked eyes with Alex.

The events of today passed between their eye contact.

Alex sat up. “She did what?”

“What?” Anton asked. “What happened?”

“She evolved Sibyl’s power,” Sakhr said. “Sibyl is now able to see auras through walls.”

“How? Is that her power?”

“We don’t know. She did it by coaching Sibyl, but Christof saw her power stir when Sibyl’s power evolved. It reacted somehow to our powers.”

“What do you mean ‘coached’?”

“I mean she did it with all that jabbering. So let me make myself clear. When she comes back, you’re going to answer whatever questions she asks and you’re going to smile as you do so. If it is her gift to make us more powerful, then I will not have you jeopardize her desire to do so by alienating her. Do you understand?”

Alexander and Anton nodded.

Sakhr turned to leave. “Who knows. Maybe she’ll evolve your power too.”

20. Winniebear

2055, September 6th
Collapse + 6 years

The International School of Porto Maná didn’t have a cafeteria. It had the grove. Students gathered food from the kitchen house, which Winnie would have guessed was a repurposed summer lodge had she not known that the school was built from the ground up twelve years ago. Students carried their trays to an outside eating area scattered with wooden picnic tables. It was broken into separate sections, each divided by ivy-rich stone walls, as though nature had reclaimed an ancient castle. Except the foliage was far too domesticated.

Winnie’s orientation guide had mentioned that when it rained, a repulser field built into the stone walls would curve the water to the side. The most the students felt was a gentle misting. Winnie had asked what they do when it’s cold out. It never is, the guide had said, not anymore. They used to eat in the classrooms during the worst of the nuclear winter, but the weather was fine these days. Just like everything else around here.

This is what happens when a company famous for selling high-demand and seriously overpriced assemblers builds a city around its manufacturing: a gold rush town that never stopped prospering. Winnie wondered whether she would ever take it for granted like everyone else around here.

She meandered from section to section holding a tray of food. Each section had several dozen picnic tables. All were claimed.

It was her first day. So far the only person she’d talked to was her guide—a scrawny freshman who was more bored by his tour than she was.

If she were back home, she’d track down Bethany and the other cheerleaders. They’d have saved her a spot. Maybe they still had. She could get on a plane and fly home for lunch. Afterward, she’d fly back, or maybe she’d stay. Who knows?

If she never returned here, this school would certainly notice. They must be celebrating their sudden bump in diversity. She hadn’t expected as many asian students has California had, but so far, she was the only one. The school was mostly white, not even many South Americans. Porto Maná was bubble of old US culture. LakiraLabs had hired its specialists from the States back before the Collapse. She hadn’t realized how much of an effect that had on the population. Or maybe it was just because this was a prestigious, and expensive, school. Some things never change.

Winnie did recognize someone. Princess Helena was sitting with a group a girls, all attractive and athletic like her.

Winnie averted her eyes. She didn’t want Helena to glance and see her staring like a lost puppy. Or to see her at all. Though Helena was the only one who’d so far reached out to Winnie. That said something, right? She was the leader of the female basketball team. Putting up with her might get her in with the right crowd. And if Winnie were being honest, there were probably plenty of people at her old school who thought of Winnie the way Winnie thought of Helena.

She pretended to look around the grove. It wasn’t long before Helena held her arm high and waved. Winnie walked over.

Helena scooted to make room. “Everyone, this is Winnie. She’s that flair my mother found, and she just moved here from North America. Winnie, this is Isabella and Bridget.”

Winnie exchanged greetings with everyone.

“What’s your power?” Isabella asked.

Helena answered. “She can see anything she wants. I saw her this morning jogging around the lake blindfolded. She doesn’t need her eyes.”

The other girls marveled.

“It’s not just that,” Helena continued. “She can see anything. Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“She could be looking in some boy’s shower in China right now.”

“Have you ever done that before?”

“No,” replied Winnie. “I haven’t really had my power that long.”

“What do you look at?”

“Um… I’ve mostly been doing my lessons that the queen gave me. I guess I like to look for the other planets in the solar system. I also use it when I’m on the phone with my uh… family back home so they can show me things.”

“So could you see my house?” asked Isabella.

“Where is it?”

“It’s on Santiago Avenue down by the marina.”

“Can you show me on a map?”

Isabella fetched her tablet and pulled up a satellite image. It only took Winnie a few seconds to fly down to that location from where the satellite saw it.

“Is your house the pink one?”

“Yes. What’s going on? Don’t look inside though.”

“There are people working in the backyard. One guy is cleaning a pool.”

“What’s he look like?”

“He’s hispanic, or local. Um… He looks pretty old. He’s got a short gray beard. He’s wearing a green cap and vest. They all are actually. It’s a uniform I think.”

“That’s right!” Isabella nearly clapped.

“This is cool,” said Bridget, “What about Troy? What’s Troy doing right now?”

“Oh yeah,” replied Isabella. “Go look at Troy.”

“Whose Troy?”

“He’s on the men’s team. He and Bridget have been a thing for ages.”

“No, we aren’t. We broke up.”

Isabella made a show of correcting herself. “Oh, I’m sorry. They broke up again.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I said we’re done this time. He decided he prefers slut cows to women, so who am I to stand in the way of his happiness?”

“So you just want to see if he’s happy now?”

“I just want to see whether he was lying about being sick today. He’s totally with her right now. It’s not like I’m asking her to do anything I couldn’t do myself. I can see his window from my bedroom.”

“With a telescope, sure.”

“I don’t spy on him. I just look out the window sometimes. He’s the one who looks in my window.” Bridget turned to Winnie. “Anyway, you can probably see his house already. It’s that condo two blocks north with the spiky fence.”

Winnie saw it, although she didn’t say immediately. She was growing more uncomfortable with this by the second.

“His window is on the second floor with the ugly blue curtains. Do you see it?”

The blue curtains were drawn closed. Winnie tried not to think about what was inside that window, but her mind worked against her. Just wondering about it caused her flair to fill in the blanks.

Troy was a dark haired boy. From his complexion, probably Brazilian or Argentinian. Winnie wasn’t sure. He was sitting at a desk in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. One hand poked idly at a screen tablet. The other hand…

Winnie panicked. She yanked her mind away before she could process what she was seeing, but by then she realized he wasn’t doing what she was afraid of.

His other hand was tucked into the waistband of his boxers, but that’s it. He was scrolling through some image site. He might be sick. He certainly seemed mellow.

Winnie brought her perspective back to herself and concentrated to keep it from straying. A stray thought could send her back to that room, or any room. Just days ago, focusing on anything had taken concentration. Now her mind drifted as easily as daydreaming. This was the first time she’d ever looked at something by accident.

“What do you see?” asked Bridget.

“He’s there.”

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s just on his computer.”

“But what’s he doing on it. Is he chatting with someone?”

Winnie shrugged. “I didn’t look.”

“Why not?”

“He wasn’t really dressed. I didn’t want to stick around.”

“You you didn’t want to see Troy Garcia naked?” asked Isabella. “You’re not a lesbian, are you?”

“He wasn’t naked naked. I’m just… I’m not sure I should be using my flair to look in people’s windows.”

“Why not?” asked Helena. “Your flair was basically made for it.”

“Spying?”

“Yeah. You’re the best spy in the world now.”

“It doesn’t mean I should.”

“It’s your flair,” Helena said. “You have the power to see whatever you want, and no one will even know you’re doing it. Why shouldn’t you?”

“If I went around looking in everybody’s windows, no one would trust me. Wouldn’t you all be uncomfortable if you knew I might spy on you?” She looked at Helena. “You even warned me not to.”

“Obviously,” said Helena, “I would find out. But everyone else? Fuck ’em. If they have a problem with where you look, then that’s just that: their problem. Not yours. You’re the flair. Why should you hold yourself back just because you’re better than them?”

“I wouldn’t want to be spied on,” Winnie said. “Seems hypocritical to do it to others.”

“You should have thought of that before moving here. Didn’t you ever wonder why my mom was so excited to find you?”

“Exploration. Telecommunication. Military scouting.”

Helena burst out laughing. “Exploration? As in space exploration? Nothing in space poses a threat to the empire. And military scouting? That’s a nice word for spying.”

“It’s not like it never occurred to me,” Winnie said. “I just… don’t think about that part of it.”

“That’s stupid. Your power is going to help keep the empire more secure than ever before.”

“I guess,” said Winnie. “What about you two? Don’t you feel uncomfortable knowing I might be spying on you at any moment?”

“Are you going to?” asked Isabella.

“No.”

“Good, then we can be friends.” Isabella said it as a joke, but Winnie wasn’t sure if it was.

“Anyway,” Helena said. “I was thinking Winnie should try out for the basketball team.”

“Her?” Isabella said. “But we don’t need any other players.”

“Our bench is short,” Helena said. “And Maria is dropping out next month.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. Some family thing.”

“Does she not care at all about regionals?”

“It’s fine. Winnie can take her place.”

“Has she ever played basketball before?” asked Bridget.

“Not on a team or anything,” Winnie replied, “but I’m pretty athletic.”

“What have you done?”

“I was in cheerleading?”

“Cheerleading?”

“Yeah. Cheerleading.”

“Cheerleading doesn’t count as athletic.”

“It does,” Winnie didn’t bother saying more. No one around here would respect cheerleading no matter what she said. Porto Maná might be a bubble of old USA, but apparently not of all US culture.

“Hmm.” Isabella looked her over. “You’re pretty tiny.”

“So? It’s not all about being tall, right?”

“Exactly,” said Helena. “Besides, it’s not like I’d put her center. If I say she gets to try out, then she gets to try out.”

And Winnie knew she would. It was silly, but something about those girls’ attitude fanned her flame for a sport she’d never cared about before.

“Fine,” Isabella said. “I guess it can’t hurt. You can keep the bench warm if you’re no good, and if you are, well… good then. I hope you don’t mind waking up at five on Saturday morning for shuttle trips”

“Stop being a bitch,” Bridget said. “It’ll be fun. You’ll have fun.” She faced Winnie. “Even if you don’t play much. We all hang out wherever away games take us. Last month we were in São Luís against the Jaguars. We went bar hopping. Oh my God, it was awesome.”

“Do you drink?” Helena asked.

“I haven’t much,” said Winnie. “My town didn’t have any bars.”

“None?” asked Isabella. “Did you grow up in one of those cult factions?”

“No. We just don’t have any drinks. The assembler station didn’t like wasting Food Ready assemblers for alcohol.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Yeah. We didn’t have much free time up there. My friends and I would just hang out when we could. I also liked to design clothes and stuff if I was free.”

“Like a fashion designer or something?” Izabella asked.

“Sort of.”

The girls scrutinized Winnie’s outfit. “You didn’t design that, did you?” asked Isabella

Winnie looked at herself. “These? No. Most of what I make aren’t allowed by the dress code.”

“Why not?” Helena asked.

“It’s just… you know… some of it’s a little racy, the kind of stuff you’d wear to a club maybe. A lot of it’s just silly stuff I make for some extra money.”

“You’re making money?”

“I sell stuff on the assembler library.”

“So you have a site? Where?” Helena pulled a tablet from her backpack.

Winnie froze. She had not expected them to actually be interested. She imagined the three girls crowded around the tablet, looking at her silly socks. She could imagine their derision.

“Oh, it’s just a small site. It’s kind of bad.”

“It’s on the public library, right? What’s the domain?”

“It’s… Winniebear.”

“Winniebear?” The other girls said. Helena typed it in. Winnie recognized her splash page displaying her best pieces, including some colorful knee socks. Helena paged through as the other girls craned to look.

The corners of Helena’s mouth turned up. She giggled. The others laughed too, even Isabella, who couldn’t see the screen.

Winnie’s cheeks burned. “I know. They’re kind of dumb. I haven’t worked on it in a few years though. I don’t really wear those clothes anymore. I only keep the site up cause it does make some money.”

“People actually buy these things?” Bridget asked.

“Yeah. I mean, fashion is really different in California. I just made these things for fun mostly.”

Winnie should have just told them it was a private account, or made up anything. People in Porto Maná lived in the hub of fashion, whereas Winnie had designed those clothes when she was thirteen. It seemed childish in comparison. If she took the site down tonight, she could probably stop it from spreading around the school at least.

The girls continued giggling at various items while Helena paged through the site at her own pace, as though by herself.

Helena snorted. “Oh my God,” She pointed out a dress. Winnie couldn’t see which. The other girls tittered.

“Could you imagine my mother’s reaction of she saw me wearing that?”

Isabella and Bridget’s giggle trailed off.

“Is that supposed to be a bathing suit?” asked Isabella.

“Of course not,” replied Helena. “Bathing suits don’t have skirts.”

“It’s a little… skimpy. Isn’t it?”

“That’s obviously the point.” Helena moved to another page. Her head tilted. “Are you modeling these yourself?”

“Most of them,” Winnie said. “The larger sizes are a friend.”

“Why aren’t you showing your face?”

“My mom didn’t want me to.”

“You should. What’s she going to do about it now?”

“What’s your thing with leggings?” asked Bridget. “Nobody wears leggings anymore.”

“They do in Washington,” said Winnie. “Those are all ClusterFabricene. It’s way colder up there.”

“Have you ever designed formal gowns before?” Helena asked.

“I’ve made dresses, but nothing formal.”

“Wait,” said Isabella. “You’re not thinking of having her make the outfits, are you?”

Helena ignored her. “Could you make something like this…” she pointed to one of Winnie’s dresses, “but, like, I don’t know, a simpler design? And longer?”

“Yeah. I could. What for?”

“My mom is making me run a charity auction next month. It’s for an ecological restoration project in Asia, except nobody knows what I fucking want for an auction theme.”

Winnie vaguely recalled yesterday how Helena had been complaining about something clothes related. “Is this dress for you?”

“Yes, but also for the staff and the girls who present the auction pieces. I’m trying to make an actually memorable affair instead of just another boring-ass cocktail party where everyone stands around doing nothing. This is going to be my first political appearance. I want it to be special.”

“But I don’t think you want kneesocks, do you?” asked Isabella.

Helena ignored her. “Are those the only colors your dresses come in?”

“No,” said Winnie. “Those are just the modeling samples. If you click on them, you can open the palette menu.”

“Show me.” Helena scooted toward Winnie, and Winnie did so. For the rest of lunch, Winnie and Helena talked about clothes. Isabella and Bridget had little to add to the conversation.

19. Testing

2022, March 22th
Collapse – 27 years

“How about now?” asked Katherine.

“Yes,” said Sibyl.

Katherine was hiding behind a wall from Sibyl, Josephine, and Alexander. Only her gloved hand stuck out from around the corner, and she slid it out of view until only her four fingers were visible.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

Her fingers shrunk away until they disappeared. “Now,” said Sibyl.

“You can’t see my aura now?”

“Right.”

The tips of her gloved fingers reappeared.

“And now?”

“I can see it again.”

Katherine groaned. She emerged and sat at the table. “It doesn’t make any sense.” She tugged off her glove. “You can see my aura if I’m completely covered in clothes, but for some reason, a wall stops you. I’d think it was a thickness thing, but you can’t see through my hoodie when I drape it in front of me.” She tossed her glove aside. “It’s like your power just decides to ignore a barrier so long as I’m wearing it. That’s so stupid.”

Sibyl shrugged. She’d already returned to reading her magazine. Six days had passed since the coven had introduced themselves to Katherine. Each day, she’d come straight to the hotel from school, once even skipping classes. She’d inundate whoever was free with waves of fresh questions and tests. It didn’t matter who; she had fresh questions for everyone scrawled in that notebook of hers.

This weekend was particularly heavy. She’d convinced her father that she was going to a sleep over. From what Josephine understood, he had been too glad to hear she had friends at all to hamper her with parental restrictions. Josephine had indulged Katherine on Saturday. They’d wandered the mall performing every conceivable permutation of talking with people and making them forget specifics of the encounter. Today, Sunday, she hassled other coven members, those who were around anyway.

Alexander and Anton’s amusement had waned last week. They’d escaped to go do whatever they do together: probably alcohol, women, and a few drugs. Christof was here, though he was managing coven finances. That left Katherine alone with Josephine, Sibyl, and Sakhr for these marathon testing session.

“Okay,” She scribbled a note. “Sakhr, can I ask you more questions?”

“Sure.”

“You said you need physical contact to switch bodies.”

“Yes.”

“Could you do it with gloves on?”

“No.”

“So, not through their clothes either?”

“No. Skin to skin contact.”

“What about skin to hair? Or skin to nail? Or enamel?”

Sakhr chuckled. “You come up with the strangest ideas.”

“I’m not saying you should. I’m just wondering if you can.”

“Hair is no good. I’d assume the same for teeth and nail, but in all of my centuries, I’ve never tried.”

“Do you want to?” Katherine bared her teeth and leaned forward.

After a pause, Sakhr relented and lightly touched her front tooth. “No. See. I need to touch them, living flesh to flesh.”

She made notes. “Next question. Animals. Can you swap bodies with animals?”

He made a face. “Once. Never again.”

“Was it unpleasant?”

“Thoroughly. And no, we will not be conducting any tests with them. To that, I draw a line.”

“Okay.” She shifted targets. “Sibyl, what about you? Can you sense animals?”

Sibyl gave an exaggerated sigh and lowered her magazine.

“No, never mind,” Katherine said. “I’ve been bugging you all day. I’ll leave you alone.” She turned to Josephine. “What about you?”

“Oh, Honey. Can’t we take a break? We’ve been doing this all weekend. Aren’t you getting tired?”

Katherine set down her notebook. “Okay. I guess we can stop. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“But how does it not bother you?” she said. “Your powers don’t make any sense.”

“Whose?”

“All of yours. Josephine, you can drive a car into somebody’s living room and make them forget everything, but if you knock over somebody’s drink with a tennis ball, they’ll remember the ball. You can make somebody forget about a car, but not a ball? And Anton. He can order someone to do something over a telephone, but not if he leaves a message. Why? A telephone already converts his voice into electrical signals. Why should it matter if it’s put on disk first? And Alexander can’t read minds unless you make eye contact, sure. And he can do it through a fish tank, but he can’t through a mirror for some reason.”

“That makes sense,” said Sibyl. “A mirror isn’t eye contact.”

“But what does that mean? A fish tank refracts light a lot. Let’s say he makes eye contact with you through one, and then someone lifts it out of the way. He’d suddenly be looking past you. That means it’s okay for light to bend a little, so then why should a mirror stop it? Every time a photon hits a particle, it gets absorbed and reemitted. The only difference between reflection and refraction is the direction of reemission after an electron absorbs a photon. On an atomic level, they’re basically the same thing, so why does it make a difference!”

Everyone responded with blank stares. Josephine brushed up on science every decade or so, so what Katherine said wasn’t completely lost on her. Even so, Katherine clearly had a passion for physics. She cited many atomic laws during her questions, so why were her science grades only B’s?

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out in time,” Sakhr said. “You have all the time in the world.”

“Okay,” She took some notes. “Can I ask you something? I promise it’s not about powers.”

Sakhr smiled. “Of course.”

“Back in ancient Egypt, did you ever switch places with a pharaoh?”

“No. I switched places with rulers before, but never someone as grandiose as a king or a pharaoh.”

“Why not the pharaoh? It would have worked, wouldn’t it?”

“Certainly it would, but why would I?”

“Why wouldn’t you? You could have ruled Egypt.”

Sakhr smiled knowingly. “Why bother? Beyond a point, more power does not improve luxury. Well… not in any way that’s worth the trouble. I’d be burdening myself with the affairs of politics, and unless I revealed myself for who I am, any legacy I built would die with body I was in. I’d rather live as I am: with a close pack of compatriots, free to go wherever I want. Besides,” He leaned in conspiratorially, “I know I can take the place of any ruler. In that way, I already am the most powerful person alive.”

“I suppose so,” said Katherine. For a while, she remained silent. “Can I ask another question?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever met any other witches? One’s that didn’t join the coven?”

“A few, centuries ago.”

“What could they do?”

“Back when the coven was only Christof and myself, we met Celine de Launois. Her power was desire. Every man wanted her, without question. When we met her, she was married to a Belgium viscount. It was a bad relationship; abusive, both ways. She cheated on him constantly, and he hated her, but he’d always come back to her bed.

“I knew the risk of getting involved with her, even if she was one of us, but of course, her powers already played their magic. Christof and I both became smitten with her and told her everything of her powers and ours. We were obsessed.” Sakhr shook his head, “and she was the most manipulative bitch I have ever met. It was her little game to turn us against each other.”

“What happened?”

“Like with Anton’s Authority, we grew resistant. We saw what she was doing and left her behind.”

“You didn’t have any leftover feelings for her?”

“No. Once we got away, the effect popped like a bubble.”

“Oh,” Katherine turned to an early page in her notebook and added “Desire (proximity?)” under a list of powers.

Sakhr had told the same story to Josephine when she joined, just as he’d told Sibyl, except Sibyl sensed a lie. She and Josephine had learned the truth years later from a drunk Alexander.

“You know that moment right after a guy shoots his wad?” he’d said. “There’s a moment of clarity there. Guys think straightest then, because there’s no lust. That’s when Sakhr slit her throat.”

Sakhr must have known Alexander would find out. Maybe Sakhr told him the truth up front. Which would mean Anton would know too, since those two share everything. That left only the coven women in the dark. It’s not like Josephine and Sibyl would be horrified that Sakhr had killed someone. They all killed each time they stole a body. So why lie? It always bugged her.

Katherine finished her notes. “Were there any others?”

“No,” Sakhr said. “Every other witch I’ve met is in this coven.”

“That’s it? Wow. Eight witches in all the world. Why are we so rare?”

“I don’t know. There may have been more, but until I met Christof, I wouldn’t even have known another when I saw them. Christof was the one who recognized me. Even now, this coven can only be in one place at one time. Many may be passing us by.”

“But there are all those stories about witches and wizards…”

“They’re always charlatans. Those with real powers keep it to themselves. As late as fifty years ago, people like us would be killed for witchcraft. Most, I suspect, never find out they have powers at all. No one in this group knew until Christof and I showed them.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t Alexander have figured out on his own that he could read minds? How did you figure out you could switch bodies?”

“My first switch was entirely by accident. As for Alexander, from how he describes it, he didn’t realize the thoughts in his head were not his own. We had to point it out to him.”

“Oh, I see.” Katherine pondered a while, then turned to Sibyl. “Can we do just one more test? Please. Just one?”

Sibyl sighed and set down her magazine. “Fine.”

Katherine scampered into the other room. After much banging around, she returned wearing her black hoodie, unzipped and with the hood up.

“Just to make sure,” she said, “you can still see my aura when I do this.” She tucked her hands into her sleeves, turned around, and held her arms out like wings. None skin was visible.

“I can.”

“And it’s centered on me, right?”

“That’s right.”

Katherine disappeared around the door. Everyone could hear her moving. Then her hooded head popped into view. Beneath it, she stuck out her arm with the sleeve still tucked over her hand, giving the impression she was handless.

“Before we start…” She popped her head out of view, “you can still see my aura when I hold my arm out like this.” Her arm waved.

Sibyl sighed with exasperation. “Yes, I can still see your aura.”

A long pause. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?” She waved her handless sleeve about.

“Yes. Get on with it.”

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure…”

Slowly, the sleeve of the hoodie pulled back. Instead of her arm, what appeared was the end of a wooden coat hanger.

“…Because I’m not actually in view at all.”

Sibyl stiffened. Her breath caught. Christof snapped his head up from his work to look at her. She turned to look around. Her petrified gaze skated up and down, as though the walls and ceiling were covered in bugs.

Katherine, unaware of Sibyl’s reaction, continued. “You’re still able to see my aura, right?”

With no response, her head popped back into view. Her huge smile faded when she saw Sibyl.

“Sibyl?” asked Christof. “Your power… what are you experiencing?”

“Everybody.”

“What?”

She stood and backed against the wall. “I can see everybody in the hotel.”

Katherine’s smile returned. “You did it. You can see through walls. You just had to know you could. All I did was—”

“Shut up!” snapped Sibyl. “Make it go away. There are too many of them.”‘

Katherine’s face blanched. “I thought… I didn’t…”

Sakhr spoke. “Christof, what are you seeing?”

“It’s like her power just sprouted. It looks different now. Bigger. And Katherine’s power… it’s like it’s simmering. I think their powers interacted somehow.”

“Change it back,” Sibyl snapped. “I don’t want this.”

Sakhr turned to her. “Calm down, Sibyl.”

“No. I won’t. Her silly questions caused this. How am I supposed to sleep? How am I supposed to block them out?”

“Relax. You’re just startled.”

“No. Stop talking. I…” Lost for words, Sibyl raced from the room. The slam of an adjoining door marked her exit.

Katherine was on the verge of tears.

Josephine rushed to hug her. “It’s okay,”

“I’m sorry. I thought she would be happy.”

“She will be, honey. She will be. Sibyl has a tiny comfort zone. It’s very small, and very comfortable. She just needs time.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. The tears began to flow.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Sakhr said. “That was amazing. I think we’re a step closer to figuring out what you can do.”

18. Blindfold

2055, September 7th
Collapse + 6 years

Winnie’s alarm chimed. It wasn’t her phone as she had used previous mornings, but a specialized alarm clock that slowly illuminated the ceiling of her room with a floodlight before chiming gently using real chimes instead of a speaker. It was one of many things a Series Five assembler could make from the assembler public library.

Back home, creating such a thing at the assembler station would have cost a hefty fee, especially given all the metal of the chimes. Here though, there was a whole closet full of matter packs which the staff restocked weekly, no charge. The assembler didn’t even needed them for most jobs. It was a Series 5 breather model. They got the bulk of their material from the air.

She wondered if she were allowed to mail items back home. People here would probably think it was silly, but metal supplies would go a long way for her mom.

As she sat up, she visualized her kitchen back home. Dark outside. Lights off.

Oh right. Time zones.

Today would be her first day at the International School of Porto Maná, but classes wouldn’t start for another hour. She was going to start her new life off properly.

A tank top, shorts, and a pair of running shoes later, she was outside in the breaking dawn. Birds had only begun chirping. A short jog brought her to the lake. A paved walking path circled it, passing manicured gardens and sectioned-off forest. This was certainly an improvement from the near-freezing roadsides she used to jog on. She checked her old path in her mind. No new snow, but the wind was vicious there. Here, the air was chilly and damp with dew, but just warm enough for short sleeves.

Winnie took out a strap of cloth and tied it around her eyes. This was the first of several exercises Victoria had given her: practice relying entirely on her flair to get around. Perhaps it was foolish to try this when jogging, but Victoria wanted Winnie to practice four hours every day, and she would know if Winnie was shirking practice. So unless Winnie wanted to walk around her first day of school with a blindfold, or read computer screens with her power, which felt like reading traffic signs without glasses, she’d have to squeeze in her four hours wherever else she could.

Besides, Winnie had practiced this yesterday. She’d stumbled constantly at first as she watched herself from a third person perspective, but then she learned the trick. She visualized exactly what her eyes would see, only she convinced her mind to ignore the blindfold that was in the way. It made sense. Just because she was visualizing from behind it didn’t mean she shouldn’t know what was beyond.

She was actually looking forward to her next session with the queen to show how she’d evolved. It was a big step toward breaking down that “floating camera” limitation the queen kept going on about.

Winnie began jogging. She encountered a few others, landscapers mostly. They stared openly after she passed, as though the blindfolded girl would be less likely to catch them gaping from behind her back. It made her smile. This was actually kind of cool. She was like a superhero, or a blind seer, more aware of her surroundings than those who could see. Maybe she could stylize her blindfold too, at least make it not press on her eyes so much.

Two men in a hover cart came by. They slowed as they passed. A burly man in the passenger seat looked her over. She might have taken offense, except they were clearly bodyguards. Both wore ear pieces.

Projecting behind her, she saw a trio of joggers approaching: two women with holstered weapons, and Princess Helena between them.

Winnie considered getting off the path. But then what? Hide in the bushes? The bodyguards would love that.

The point was moot, the princess had caught up enough to see Winnie. As they passed, Helena glanced at her, did a double take, then slowed to match pace.

Of course she would.

“You’re the new flair, right?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Why are you blindfolded?”

“The queen wants me to practice using my projection to see, ma’am.”

“Can you see me right now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Even though you’re not even looking at me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Helena studied her. It was the same judgmental pat down she’d given Winnie at the security checkpoint.

“Huh,” said Helena. “Is that as fast as you can run?”

How pleasant.

“No, ma’am. I can run faster.”

“Good. Run with me.” Helena resumed her pace, and Winnie sped up to match. Was Winnie allowed to say no and let the princess run off? She doubted it.

“Are you going to the International School right?”

“I’m starting today, ma’am.”

“You can stop saying that, by the way.”

“What? Ma’am?”

“Yah. I got it already. It gets old.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not used to being around royalty, are you?”

“No. I’m from California.”

“Oh. The outer states? I thought those places were practically lawless.”

“No. We have law.”

“Did you even have schools there?”

“Yes. We have schools.”

“Weird. It must be trippy suddenly moving to the civilized world.”

“Yep.”

They ran on. Winnie grew winded, but she tried not to show it. It would give the princess another reason to look down on her. Hopefully Helena would grow bored soon and move on, but she didn’t. They kept running. And soon Winnie was panting.

“Do you need to slow down?” Helena asked. There was no mockery in her tone, but nor was there concern.

“No.” Winnie kept running. She checked ahead. There was a lot left to run.

“Yes,” she finally admitted.

Helena slowed. “Don’t feel bad. I’m pretty much in top shape for the basketball team. You’re not that bad. Did you do any sports back home?”

“I was on the cheerleading team.”

“Cheerleading? I guess you are from North America. So you wave fluffy balls and cheer while other people play sports?”

“Our team doesn’t use pom-poms,” said Winnie, “and it’s harder than it looks.”

“I’m sure. Well, I’m afraid we don’t have a cheerleading team at our school. We don’t need one, but you’re definitely in better shape than some basketball players I can think of. You should try out. I’m the team captain, so I’ll make sure you get in.”

“Oh, thank you. I’ll check it out, but I’ve never done sports before. It’s not really my thing.”

“You should totally do it. Our team really needs more people who actually try.”

So far, the toughest part of dealing with nobility was distinguishing between recommendations and veiled orders. Diplomacy was a skill Winnie would have to develop quickly. She was already taking orders from a very demanding queen. Putting herself on a basketball team where she would take orders from an equally demanding (and clearly bitchy) daughter would be too much.

“Yeah. I’ll totally check it out. Anyway, I think I need to take a break. I don’t want to hold you back.”

Winnie slowed to a walk.

Helena and her bodyguards slowed right along with her.

“You should find me at school. I’ll introduce you to my friends.” Helena pointed at Winnie’s face. “You’re not going to wear that blindfold to school, are you?”

“No.”

“Good.” A pause. “Although maybe you should. Your flair is cool. You should show it off. It gives you a mysterious, blind martial artist look.”

“Thanks.” If Winnie needed any more reason not to wear it to school, that cinched it.

“Well, I need to keep my pace up, so I’m going to run. What was your name again?”

“Winnie.”

“Okay. I’ll see you at school, Winnie.”

Helena ran ahead. Her guards followed.

Somehow, Winnie had the impression she’d just passed a test. She mentally tracked Helena and her guards until they were far ahead. Then she resumed running.

17. Candies

2055, November 7th
Collapse + 6 years

By the time Josephine returned Naema home, the sun had nearly set.

“Thanks for trusting me today.” Josephine handed over a bag of food she’d procured from a CivMan building on the way back.

“Yea, it’s fine. I had fun.”

Josephine smiled.

“But where’s it go from here?” asked Naema. “You want me to join you, right? You travel around the world. I’ve got my family here.”

“I understand. The choice is yours.”

“But you think I should?”

“I do. I’m sorry. I know I’m biased.”

“You don’t think you can make it without me?”

“It’d be harder without you, but we’d survive. I’m worried about what the Lakirans would do to you. Maybe they won’t find you anytime soon, but eventually. Tan and I moved here because this city is one of the last places left where the exemplars are stretched thin, but it won’t be for long. Sooner or later they’ll notice you.”

“Maybe my power will protect me.”

“Maybe it will. Or maybe it’ll do nothing against exemplars. Or maybe it’ll cause them to find you sooner. I don’t know. All I know is that there are more exemplars every day. At first they were just military, but now they work with the police. I’ve even seen them at border checks. And now they’re bearing down on Nigeria. That citadel is proof of that. Do you want to bet whether you’ll make it through?”

Naema shrugged.

Josephine continued. “You might be a Godsend, Naema. If your power does what I hope, we wouldn’t have to hide. Not even their high exemplars could catch us. Better yet, there’s nothing stopping us from marching right up to the queen and making her forget we exist at all. We’d be safe.”

“What about my family?”

“The safest thing to do would be to leave them here without knowing anything about your powers. The Lakirans wouldn’t care about them. But maybe they could come with us. Tan and I talked it over and we agreed that as long as the three of us are together, we could keep a few extra people safe too. It would be your call.”

“So we would all be on the run together.”

“It’s not great, I know, but food wouldn’t be a problem for you anymore. Tan and I live pretty well.”

“Stealing?”

“And doing odd jobs. What does your mother do?”

“Uh… she’s a whore.

“Oh. What’d she do before the bombing?”

“She was one then too, and my brother is in a street gang.”

“Oh wow.”

“Yea.”

There was silence. Naema wondered if Josephine would ask how such a family survived six years of nuclear winter. She’d have to explain how if Josephine had found her five years ago, they’d be talking about saving a family of five, not three. Her father might still be out there somewhere, but her baby sister would still be under the same unmarked patch of earth by a fence near Remoudara Forest. Mama couldn’t bring herself to give her baby to the funeral services, who’d just bury the child in a mass grave. Naema was glad Josephine didn’t ask.

“Listen,” Josephine said, “We’ll figure something out. We wouldn’t leave your family in a bad situation.”

“That’s if I come with you.”

“Right. If you agree.”

They reached Naema’s home and stopped before the flap. “Think about it,” Josephine said. “Tan and I will be here… until we’re found. If we have to leave, we’ll make sure to see you before we go. In the meantime, let’s play it by ear. I’d love to spend more time with you.”

“Okay.”

“Great. I’ll be by tomorrow at ten. I’ve got some place special to take you.”

They said their goodbyes, and Josephine left. Naema had spent all day with that woman, and she came back home safe and sound. She had more food and a better understanding what Josephine wanted from her. It was comforting, yet Naema couldn’t shake that Something for Nothing sense she had. Maybe six years of hard survival had stopped her from accepting a good thing when it finally came. Life could get better, but it could also get a hell of a lot worse if Josephine wasn’t exactly what she seemed. Countless teenagers like herself had disappeared over the years for trusting the wrong person.

“Naema?”

She looked up. A neighbor had emerged from a nearby shack.

“Hello, Sonna,” Naema said. She became aware that she still held a bag of food.

“Your Mama done tell me about de men who attack you. Bad bad thing that dey do that to a kind girl like you.”

“Thank you, Sonna. I’m okay though.” She held up her splinted hand as evidence, then turned to duck into her home.

“Wetin you have there, girl?”

“It’s nothing, Sonna.”

Sonna scurried over and peered into the bag. Her speed was not subtle. “Where you get this food?”

Naema should not have dawdled outside her home. “It’s just… I got a courier job for CivMan. They let me take things from their pantry.”

“Oh! You dey lucky. How you get a job like that?”

“Right place at the right time I guess.”

“You no say a good word for my boy, Henri? He dey hard worker—honest boy.”

“I’m sorry, Sonna. It was a one time job. I’m not going back tomorrow.”

“A one time job? You no have job yesterday?”

Naema swore internally. Sonna saw something, maybe wrappers in the trash, or maybe Oni stuffing his face with those cakes.

“Here.” Naema took out a package of sliced sausage. “Take this.”

“Oh, you sweet girl, you.” Sonna snagged the package and clutched it to her bosom. “Thank you. Thank you. You have a kind heart.”

“It’s okay, Sonna. Maybe if I ever get the job again. I’ll get something extra for you.”

“Thank you. God dey smile on you.” Sonna hugged Naema. When she pulled back, she was beaming, but her eyes kept drifting back to the bag. “Maybe you have something sweet?” She caught the look in Naema’s eye. “I dey sorry,” she pleaded, “you dey kind already, but it no for me. Henry dey go a long time wit nothing but cassava paste.”

Her request sounded urgent enough, but it wasn’t really a request at all. Naema tried to smile as she fetched a small bag of red candies. She’d gotten a pack of them yesterday too, but Oni didn’t like those as well.

“Okay, here you go.”

Sonna hugged her all over again. “Thank you. I dey pray for you, Naema, and your family.”

“Okay,” Naema said, “but we keep this to ourselves, yea?”

“Oh, yes.” Sonna nodded soberly. “I na say anything. You show me kindness.”

“Good,” said Naema. “See you later, Sonna.”

“God bless you, girl.” Sonna kissed Naema’s cheek and hurried back to her hovel with her newfound luxuries.

This time, Naema didn’t hesitate to get into her home. It had been stupid to linger while holding a bag of illegally obtained food. Now Naema would have to regularly bribe her for her silence. Perhaps Josephine could make her forget.

Either way, if Naema was going to keep seeing Josephine, she needed to be more careful.

16. Scribbling

2022, March 16th
Collapse – 27 years

“And how far away can you sense them?” Katherine asked.

Sibyl shrugged. “A hundred meters, maybe more. They don’t disappear. I just don’t notice them anymore, if that makes sense.”

“I think so.” Katherine scribbled in her notebook. “What about if they’re mad or something? Can you sense stronger emotions from farther away?”

“Now that you mention it.” Sibyl leaned back. “Once, we were at a local harvest festival in France. This was just before we met Josephine. I sensed fear far away in an alley. When we passed by, a few brutes were robbing someone, but I’d only sensed the fear at first. It wasn’t until we were closer that I sensed the others. So I guess I can. I never put much thought into it.”

“Really?” asked Katherine. “You’ve never tested that? You never tested the range limit of your own power?”

Sibyl shrugged. “My power has always been good enough for me.”

Katherine’s face lit. “Would you let me test it for you?”

“I… suppose so.”

Josephine smiled at this exchange. Ever since they’d picked Katherine up from near the school, her reclusive attitude had turned inside out. During the car ride, she barraged Alexander and Josephine with questions. What’s it like to take memories? Can you make people forget anything? Can you make them remember? What’s it like to read minds? Why do you need eye contact? Can you read minds through glasses? Foggy glasses? Stained glasses? Mirrors? One way mirrors?

She and Alexander answered as best they could, but many answers ended up being, “I don’t know.”

The coven had rented a row of connected suites at a nearby Hilton. Sibyl was waiting in the presidential suite when they arrived. Katherine bombarded her with a fresh round of questions, only this time she had her notebook. She was like a pressure cooker of excitement; Josephine wondered if she might explode.

“What about walls?” she asked Sibyl. “Can you see through walls?”

Sibyl found the idea amusing. “No. No, I can’t see through walls.”

Katherine furrowed her brow. “Why not? Didn’t you tell me earlier that you once sensed someone sneaking up on you when they thought you were asleep?”

“Yes?”

“Weren’t your eyes closed? Didn’t you see their aura through your eyelids? And wait! You said you could see auras from behind.”

“Well…” Sibyl’s fumbled for words. “I don’t really see them. I sense them.”

“Then how come you can’t sense through walls?”

“I’m… I just can’t”

“Can you see my aura right now?”

“Yes.”

“My whole aura?”

“Yes.”

“But you can only see my top half. The rest of me is under the table. What if I lowered? When would you stop sensing my aura?”

“When you’re out of view.”

“But what’s that mean? When I’m completely out of view? So if you could see a few hairs on my head, you could see my aura?”

Sibyl didn’t have an answer.

Alexander laughed. “She’s got you there, Sibyl.” He helped himself to a tiny bottle from the suite’s mini fridge. “I think I might have an idea what her witch power is.”

“What?” asked Katherine.

“A never-ending well of questions.”

He said it with a smile, but Katherine’s energy receded. “I’m not annoying any of you, am I?”

“No.” Alexander sat on the bed next to Josephine. “On the contrary. I find this endlessly amusing.”

“Oh, okay.” Her smile bounced back. She resumed scribbling notes.

Josephine marveled at how different this girl was. When they’d first seen her at the airport, she was pitiful—a frumpy child no one would look twice at. Now with her face alight, she was actually kind of cute, if only she took care of herself more, and wore something other than that hoody. Now that she’d taken it off, her figure wasn’t too bad. Sure, she had a bit of weight in her thighs, but with only a few pounds less, she might be curvaceous, maybe even attractive.

That school was poisonous for her. The bullying and the poor home life had been slowly transforming her into something ugly and forgotten. It warmed Josephine’s heart knowing that they were going to be her heroes. Now Katherine would become the person she deserved to be.

Katherine looked up from her notes. “What about clothes? Clothes don’t stop you from seeing auras, right?”

“Right.”

“But what if I put my hoodie on and turned away from you? You wouldn’t see any of my skin, but you’d still be able to see my aura, right?”

“I…”

“Can we try it? Then can we try the table thing?”

“I suppose—”

A knock interrupted them.

“I guess it will have to wait.” Sibyl stood quickly. She couldn’t reach the door soon enough.

Sakhr, Anton, and Christof entered. Each carried supplies and groceries.

“Ah,” said Sakhr. “I see our guest has already arrived.”

Katherine gave a tiny wave and tried to smile. She was back in her shell. Josephine couldn’t blame her. Sakhr had a severe, paternal aura about him. It had accumulated over centuries of living among mortals. It gave others the impression of being near royalty.

After dropping his bags, he bowed majestically. “It is my pleasure to meet you. Katherine; yes?”

Katherine nodded.

“My name is Sakhr, and I am the father of this coven. I am pleased to welcome you to our group.” He held out his hand.

Eyes wide and body tense, Katherine took his hand. “Hello,” she said, then nearly yelped when he planted a kiss on her knuckle.

Once he let it go, she cradled her hand as though it had become foreign to her. Sakhr continued. “Allow me to introduce you to Christof Schuster. He is the man who spotted you.”

Christof greeted her with a casual smile. Katherine responded with less reserve. Unlike Sakhr, he kept a younger and more approachable body. It made him less intimidating.

“And here is Anton Formenko,” Sakhr continued.

Anton nodded.

“Hey,” said Katherine. “You’re that guy from the airport. The guard without a uniform.”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was finding out where you and your father lived.”

“You were using powers on him, weren’t you?”

Anton nodded.

“What’s your power?”

“It is Authority. When I give orders, others feel they must obey.”

Katherine stared at him in awe. Josephine could sense questions forming inside her head.

“Wow,” she said. “Is there any limit to it?”

“Limit?”

“Could you, and I’m not saying you should, but could you order someone to shoot themselves?”

Anton chuckled. “No. It is not absolute. They have their will. They only see me as someone they should obey. Not even a peasant would listen to a king if he tells him to kill himself.”

“Could you order someone to count all the blades of grass in a field?”

“They might start. I don’t think they’d finish. Reason would find them. Think of it this way. A law officer can order you to do a lot, because you fear them. You respect them. You act without thinking, but still within reason. That is my power, only stronger. It works better if they see me as an authority. That is why I told your father I worked for the airport.”

Katherine scribbled furiously in her notebook. She looked up when she finished. “May I see it?”

Anton looked around, like a magician looking for a suitable volunteer. He settled on Katherine. “Stand on your chair.” Beneath his words was a tone Josephine had heard many times. Even after more than a century, the small fight-or-flight part of her brain hiccuped. Something automatic tried to kick in.

Katherine, however, didn’t hesitate. She was on her chair instantly.

“Did you try to disobey?” asked Anton.

“I… wow. No. I didn’t. I feel like I could have. Just…” She laughed. “Try it again.”

“Try to resist this.” Once again, in that strange voice, Anton said, “Take off your clothes.”

Katherine’s eyes widened. Her body went rigid. Her hand drifted to the sleeve of her T-shirt and hesitated.

“Do it,” Anton said.

Trembling, she pulled the sleeve over her arm.

Josephine looked around. Everyone watched. Alexander was smirking.

“Stop it,” Josephine said.

Anton did nothing.

“Anton. I said stop it.”

Sakhr spoke. “Anton, enough.”

Anton relented. “Stop undressing and sit.”

Relieved, Katherine dropped into her seat.

“I hope I did not scare you. You see though that you would have done so. Not easy to resist.”

Katherine nodded. Her body still quaked a little. “I see. Couldn’t you… I don’t know… have shown me on one of them?” She looked at the coven.

Anton shook his head. “I wish I could. If my power still worked on them, I’d be running this coven.”

Sakhr gave a dry laugh at that.

“No. People hear my power… they build tolerance. Their minds learn it’s a trick.”

Katherine nodded in understanding. “So you won’t be able to do that again?”

“Don’t worry. I won’t. Just for demonstration.”

Katherine nodded. Her eyes drifted to Sakhr. “May I know what your power is?”

“You may. Although my power is better demonstrated than explained. Shall I?” He sat and extended his hands across the table toward her.

She took them.

Josephine circled and got ready to grab Sakhr if necessary.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes?”

Then it did happen. Sakhr jolted upright. He would have fallen out of his chair if Josephine hadn’t caught him. Alarmed, he looked about. His frantic gaze fell on Katherine, who observed him calmly. He stared in disbelief, then slapped his hands to his chest and felt himself over. It’s when his hands fell to his crotch that his panic took over. A wordless noise escaped his lips. It turned to a yell, and then a scream.

Alexander burst out laughing. The others chuckled. Josephine rested a calming hand on Sakhr’s shoulder. To an outside observer, one might suspect that something terrible happened that Sakhr hadn’t expected. To Josephine and the others, they’d seen this panic many times over.

Sakhr and Katherine had switched bodies, and now Katherine was discovering what it felt like to have male genitalia.

From within Katherine’s body, Sakhr held out a hand. “Here,” he said in a calm female voice.

Katherine was too busy panicking, so Sakhr reached and touched her arm. Instantly, the switch was undone.

Sakhr, back in his own body, calmly retook his seat. He stated the obvious. “I can switch bodies with others.”

Katherine was still recovering from her hyperventilation. Involuntarily, her hand strayed between her legs, just to make sure. Even Josephine grinned at that.

“Is it permanent?” Katherine asked.

“It is.”

“What happens if your body dies while you’re in somebody else?”

“Then it dies, and the other person dies with it.”

Katherine pondered this. All panic was gone. Curiosity was back.

Finally, “How old are you? Chronologically?”

Josephine was impressed. Katherine had skipped past the question of whether he was in his original body, and jumped straight to the logical conclusion: immortality.

Sakhr grinned like a smug cat. “For my first switch, I left my slaver to build the pyramids in my stead.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but Sakhr told it that way for effect. He was born as a slave in Egypt. However, he later admitted that he’d actually been a servant to an overweight politician, and that he was born about five centuries after the pyramids were constructed, but everyone agreed that Sakhr’s pyramid version was punchier.

“Wow,” said Katherine. “What if… How do you…” She giggled. “I have so many questions I don’t know what to ask first.”

“You have all the time in the world to ask them.”

Katherine chewed her lip a moment. “When do I get to know what my power is?”

The others didn’t respond.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” said Sakhr. “We’re just not sure yet.”

“How did the rest of you learn your powers? Is it through experimentation?”

“Normally I tell them,” Christof said. “When I look at people, I see these things in my head, like living blocks of clay, or physical metaphors. Somehow, I always know what they mean, like how you know things in a dream.”

“But not with me?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can tell you are a witch, I’m just not sure what your power does.”

“Can you tell anything?”

“I think… I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like it can do anything.”

Katherine’s smile faded. “You mean I can’t do anything special?”

“Maybe not now, but it’s not nothing. I can see it… wriggling. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Was it doing that at the airport?” Sakhr asked.

“No. At least I don’t think so.”

“But it’s going to change?” Katherine asked.

“Don’t worry, Katherine,” said Sakhr. “We will figure out what you can do. If it can be unlocked, we will.”

“And if it can’t?” Katherine’s expression was pleading, like a child asking if their parents were going to be okay. Josephine wanted to hug her.

“It will,” Sakhr said. “Whether it takes days or centuries, we won’t give up.”

“Centuries? How could we take centuries to…” Her eyes widened. Her apprehension was forgotten. “I get it. Body switching. Right? You’ve been keeping the others alive. You switch with one of them, then you switch to a stranger’s body, and then back to your own. That puts you back in your own body, and leaves one of you switched with the stranger. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Very good, Katherine,” Sakhr said.

“Are you all really old?”

“Some of us are older than others, but yes, everyone here is at least a century old.”

“Are you going to do that for me one day?”

“If you choose to join our coven, yes.”

“I’ll join!”

“Just like that?”

Katherine nodded violently.

“We travel, Katherine. To avoid detection. You would be leaving your old life behind. Your education. Your father…”

Katherine paused. This might be the first time since Josephine had introduced herself that Katherine had thought of home. For Josephine, joining had been a simple choice. Her family had been dead. The Russians had executed them when they invaded in 1870. They had let her live, as though they’d forgotten she was there. She only understood why years later after Christof explained her power.

Katherine nodded slowly. “I still want to do it. I hate my life here. I want to leave. I can finish learning on my own. I just… I should call my dad. He’s probably worried about me right now. Can I see him one last time?”

Sakhr almost laughed. “We just arrived yesterday. I don’t plan on leaving for at least a week. Take time, Katherine. Make sure this is what you want to do.”

The, “take your time” speech was comforting. He had told it to Josephine too. She always had appreciated it, even if she’d already made up her mind in the first minute.

Though sometimes she wondered what he’d do if a new witch said no. She knew Sakhr too well now. He wasn’t someone who would take no for an answer. Perhaps this choice—this time—was just a gentle illusion. It never came up for Josephine. And it clearly won’t come up here either.

Katherine would become the seventh witch in the coven.

15. Sketching

2022, March 16th
Collapse – 27 years

“Excuse me, ma’am?” A man approached Josephine. She glanced at him and smiled as though she hadn’t just watched him walk the last hundred feet toward her. “Can I help you?”

“No. Just waiting for my niece.”

“Your niece?” The man glanced toward the school. High schoolers had been pouring out for the last twenty minutes, though the flow had turned to a trickle. Most kids remaining lingered on the school steps in small gaggles waiting for whoever was picking them up. “What’s her name?”

“Katherine. Katherine Faulk.”

“And your name?”

“Josephine Gurney.” It wasn’t her last name, but she didn’t favor listening to someone butcher ‘Molyneux’ again.

“I’m one of the teachers,” he replied. “Neal Mitchell.”

“Nice to meet you.” The man was the swim coach. He wore a polo shirt and shorts, and he had that athletic build-melted-into-paunch that she imagined when she thought of P.E. coaches. Hanging from a lanyard around his neck was a whistle as though he’d just come here from shouting at speedo-dressed boys swimming furious laps in the school pool.

“You look cold,” he added.

“Yeah. I am.” She’d packed for California, not Wisconsin.

“How long have you been waiting out here?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“Should have brought a car. Most parents wait for their kids in the parking lot over on Plymouth.”

We did, she thought. She, Alex, and Christof had been waiting in their heated Hertz rental until a Spanish teacher came to the window and interrogated them, and they didn’t have answers for her. If Anton had been there, he could have convinced her to leave, but Anton was with Sakhr, finding a place for the coven to stay for the foreseeable future. So Alex and Christof parked down the street while Josephine stood in the cold clutching her now chilly coffee. She could evade trouble, but only if she were alone.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that,” Josephine said. “I just thought I’d surprise her when she comes out.”

“She’s not expecting you?”

Ooh. Wrong answer. Josephine yanked that last bit of conversation from his head.

“She’s supposed to meet me here. I’m not sure what’s keeping her.”

“How about if I go check on her for you?”

“Thanks. Would you?”

The man nodded and headed back for the school. Just before he disappeared into the building, Josephine yanked the entire conversation from him. Though he’d be back. Twice now they’d had this conversation. Every time he came outside, he studied her, then beelined. Did she really look like a predator?

Finally, the girl emerged. Heading down the steps, she avoided the other clusters of students. At the bottom, she sat down and dug through her backpack. Out came the same pair of bulky plastic headphones she had at the airport. She futzed with the tangled cord, then took out an iPhone. It was an older one, but from what Christof had found out about her father’s finances, it still must have been quite the birthday gift.

A group of nearby girls noticed Katherine. They glanced, shared remarks, and then the smirks appeared. One motioned for the others to be quiet as she stalked toward Katherine.

Josephine watched. She understood the dynamic there. Those girls were attractive, and from the way they dressed, they were damn well aware of that. They were a different social circle from Katherine, and if they noticed her, it wasn’t because they were friends. Josephine glanced to the hybrid Prius down the road. Alex and Christof were staying put. They understood Josephine would approach first. She, unlike the others, could call a mulligan on conversations if they didn’t go her way.

Katherine was too busy looking at her phone to notice the girl sneaking up on her, not until her backpack was snatched away. She groped for it, causing her butt to slide down the steps. The others burst out laughing. Katherine clambered up the stairs toward her backpack. Her iPhone clattered. She tripped over her headphone cable. More peals of laughter.

The girls rifled through her backpack, dumping items out. Pens and pencils clattered. A folder landed upside down on the steps, and papers slid out the top. The wind fluttered them about. The girls giggled at a plastic makeup kit, then tossed it. A cloud of skin-tone dust puffed up where the kit struck the steps.

Katherine lunged for her backpack. She latched one hand and struggled. It kept the others from pawing through it, but the girl who’d first stolen it was busy leafing through a college-rule notebook she’d already removed.

“Aww,” she said. “Everybody look at this.” She held up a page for everyone to see. They all fawned as though watching a baby kitten. Katherine snatched for it, but the girl dodged.

“Does Mikey know you drew this?”

Katherine lunged again.

“It’s sweet, Katy. Is this what you did over spring break? Did you draw pictures of him?”

“I bet she has more,” someone else said. “She probably got them all over her bedroom.” Everyone laughed.

The main girl tore out the page.

“Stop,” Katherine pleaded. “Just go away.” She stopped her useless groping. “I wasn’t bothering you.”

While she wasn’t looking, another girl in short denim shorts had crept around and fetched Katherine’s fallen iPhone. She paged through it while the others looked through her notebook.

This was painful to watch. Josephine considered going over and doing something, but she wasn’t sure what. On the other hand, the coven would probably have an easy time convincing this girl to give up her old life.

The denim shorts girl going through her phone sniggered. “Death by Walrus?” She chortled. “Is that some kind of kid’s band? No. Listen. Everybody. She has the power rangers song on here.” She played the song and turned up the volume. Even from across the street, Josephine could hear the tinny noise coming from the headphones laying on the steps.

Katherine grabbed for the iPhone, but the girl danced around her. Katherine ended up snatching the girl’s blouse.

“Hey,” the girl yelled. They lost balance together and fell down three steps to the concrete. The girl tried to rise, but Katherine held her down, trying to wrest away the iPhone.

“Let go, you freak,” the girl yelled, but she didn’t release her own grip on the iPhone. Katherine had tossed all shame to the wind and wrestled like a schoolhouse boy.

Everyone else found this hilarious. They didn’t notice Neal Mitchell come out of the building.

“What is going on here?” His voice caught everyone’s attention as though he’d cracked a whip. The two wrestlers got to their feet. Katherine had recovered her iPhone and corrected her glasses. The denim girl examined scrapes on her legs and glared at Katherine with utter disgust.

“I said what is going on?”

“This freak just attacked me,” the denim girl yelled.

The one who stole the backpack originally spoke calmly. “Katherine came out and spilled her stuff on the stairs. We tried to help, but I guess she thought we were trying to take her things. We weren’t. Here.” She held Katherine’s backpack out to her. “We were just trying to help.” Her smile was venomously sweet, but Neal couldn’t see that from where he stood.

Katherine snatched her bag back. “They stole my stuff,” she exclaimed. “They dumped it all out.” As though saying this, she finally noticed all the papers which were now scattering across the school yard. She cried out in dismay and hurried after them. When she bent down to fumble for a paper, her great moon rear end wrapped in tight denim showed to the girls. Despite a teacher being right there, some sniggered.

“Come back here, Ms. Faulk. I’m not done.”

“But my science papers…”

“Come back here.”

She did.

“Why were you two fighting?”

Shorts girl answered first. “I picked up her iPhone to give it back to her and she freaked out and pushed me down the steps.”

“She wasn’t giving it back,” Katherine said.

“Did you attack her?”

“I… fell and knocked her over.”

The girls all laughed at the paltry excuse, even if it was true.

“It didn’t look like that from where I was standing. I don’t care what happened, fighting is unacceptable.”

“I was just trying to get my phone back. They were dumping my stuff all over the place.”

“No, we weren’t,” said the main girl. “We were just trying to help you.” She smiled again, a sweet, patient smile.

Neil made up his mind. “You two. Detention this Friday.”

“What?” yelled shorts girl, “but I didn’t do anything.”

“I don’t care. The rest of you, help Katherine get her papers before they all blow away.”

“Of course,” said the leader. All the girls worked to gather Katherine’s papers under Neil’s watchful eye. They returned them to Katherine with smiles. Katherine stuffed everything into her backpack.

Once everything was returned, Neil nodded. “Okay then. And you two will report to the study lounge Friday after class.”

The girl in denim protested. “But I didn’t—”

Neil cut her off. “Ah ah. No more. All of you head home. Stop lingering.”

“Yes, Mr. Mitchell,” the leader said.

Neil disappeared inside.

The girl in denim turned a black look on Katherine. “I cannot believe you just got me detention. You and your weird, freakish behavior.”

Katherine was studying her iPhone. “You broke it,” she muttered. She jammed it into her backpack.

“Good. You deserve it. You got me detention. I’m going to tell everyone how you— hey! Don’t walk away from me.”

Katherine pulled up the hood of her hoodie and trudged away.

“Hey, Kaaaatheriiine.” It was the leader.

Katherine turned. The girl was holding up the sheet from Katherine’s notebook that she’d torn out. She made a show of putting it away in her own backpack.

Katherine knew there was no way she would get that back. She turned and kept trudging away. The girls giggled.

It was time for Josephine. She approached. Katherine didn’t notice until Josephine was nearly in front of her.

“Katherine?”

The girl looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot. A tear had dripped onto her plastic lenses. She wiped at it with a finger, only to smear it.

“What?” she said flatly.

“I saw what those girls did. It was pretty awful.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m sorry. My name is Josephine. I’ve been waiting out here to talk with you. Would that be all right?”

Katherine studied her. Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen you before. You were at the airport.”

Josephine was taken aback. “Yes. That’s right. You have a good memory.”

“Are you following me?”

“Sort of. Yes, but please don’t take it the wrong way. My friends and I saw you in the terminal, and we recognized something in you. So yes, we did come to Wisconsin to meet with you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re a group of people with unique abilities. We travel together and look out after one another. When we see another like ourselves, we reach out to them.”

“Like yourselves… what? What are you?”

“Other people usually call us witches.”

Katherine stared at her, then looked around. She crossed to the other side of the street, away and around Josephine.

Josephine chased her. “Wait. Hold on. I’m being serious.”

“Go away, or I’ll scream!”

“Just hold on a moment.”

“Leave me alone!” Katherine’s pace picked up.

Time to try again. Josephine flipped a mental switch. Katherine slowed down.

“Katherine,” called Josephine.

Katherine turned. Her eyes showed no recognition. “What?”

“Those girls kept a paper of yours.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I’m going to get it back for you.”

“What?”

“Just watch.” Josephine jogged to where the girls lingered on the steps. When they turned to look at her, Josephine yanked away the backpack from the pack leader.

“Hey!” She yelled. The rest startled. Josephine took the memory of the theft from all their minds. It caused them to stand around dumbly, until Josephine dumped the backpack’s contents out. The pack leader once again yelled, “Hey!”

Josephine wiped her mind again while she rummaged through her belongings. She found the sheet of paper. It was a high school quality drawing of a boy’s profile. Effort had gone into it, although Katherine could use more practice. As Josephine turned to leave, one last idea came to her. She popped the lid off her cold coffee and tossed the remainder at the pack leader. She shrieked. The others yelped and backed away.

Josephine dropped the cup and jogged back toward Katherine, who watched with wide eyes. The girls had already forgotten what just happened.

“Here you go.” Josephine handed the paper back to Katherine. Katherine stared at it like a feral dog measuring whether the treat in the human’s hand could be trusted. The girls behind Josephine were still bemused. Neil had come out after hearing the shriek. He was speaking with the girls, while others collected the fallen belongings. None looked Josephine’s way.

“Why did you do that?” Katherine asked.

“Because they’re a pack of bitches who had it coming.”

Despite Katherine’s mistrust, she softened a little. “But you just assaulted a student. You could get in trouble for that.”

“They don’t remember.”

“What?”

“They don’t remember. I plucked the memory of it from their heads.”

Katherine nearly smiled as though it were a joke she just wasn’t getting. “What do you mean?”

“Want to see more?”

Pause. “Okay?”

Josephine turned back to Neil and the girls. “Excuse me,” she yelled. “Neil… whatever your name was, can you come over here?”

Neil peered at her. Excusing himself from the girls he came over. “Can I help you?”

“I was the one that threw the coffee on the girl.”

“What?”

“I dumped all her things on the stairs too.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I’m a psychopath.” She cast a smile over her shoulder at the wide-eyed Katherine to make sure she knew it was all game. If that line scared her too much, Josephine could always pluck the memory later.

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

“No. It’s my idea of fun. Picking on children. You should probably call the police, because I’m not going to stop.”

Neil sputtered. His face grew red. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you need to—”

“Stop,” Josephine said, “aaand forget.”

And Neil trailed off. He frowned as though he’d lost his train of thought.

“Are you going to help them?” Josephine asked.

“Who?”

“Those girls,” Josephine pointed to the pack. “They just called to you.”

“They did?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, sure. I’ll… have a good one.” He returned to the girls.

Josephine turned back to Katherine. “Neat. Isn’t it?”

“What do you want with me?”

“I wanted to meet you.”

“But who are you?”

“My name is Josephine, and I travel with other people like me. We each have unique gifts.”

“Like what?”

“I can erase memories. Another of us can read minds, another can sense auras, another can sense other people who are like us.”

Katherine’s eyes ceased being wide. Her shoulders slumped. “Oh.”

“Oh? That’s your reaction.”

“And you think I might have powers too?”

“Actually, yes.”

Katherine spun and started marching away.

“Wait, hold on, where are you going?”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Katherine yelled over her shoulder. “I don’t know how you got Mr. Mitchell to do that, but I’m not dumb.”

Good lord this girl is hard to convince. Josephine considered wiping her memory again. Not yet. “I can offer more proof.”

Despite her skepticism, Katherine paused and turned a narrowed gaze on her. “Like what?”

“Telepathy? If my friend can read your mind, would you at least give us a chance?”

Katherine eyed her narrowly, but she didn’t march off. Josephine waved at the Prius down the road and yelled for Alex.

The driver side door opened. Alex got out. Normally, he and Josephine would never cooperate on anything, but nothing brought the coven together like a new witch.

Alex approached. “Hello, Katherine.”

“You can read my mind?”

“Yes.”

“Then am I thinking?”

“Polkadot elephants.”

Katherine startled, but only for a moment. “And now?”

“Oklahoma.”

She said nothing this time, but Alex continued. “Galvanization. The super retarded Green Bay Packers. A room with a fishbowl in the middle of the floor. Three Blind Mice. Seven ice skating rhinos.”

Katherine was petrified.

“Yes, I can,” answered Alexander to an unspoken question. “I can see your family, your friends… or the ones you used to have. I can see those girls, and how they torment you every day of your life. They’re the ones who put nasty messages about you on Facebook—who photoshop pictures of you and post them online. They call you Princess Leia because of your headphones, the ones you had to fix yourself after they stomped them into a toilet, because your father can’t afford new ones.

“I see all of that, Katherine. But that’s about to be your old life. Today is the start of something new. We knew the moment we saw you that there is something special about you. You can do something no one else in the world can.”

“What can I do?” she asked in a small voice.

Alexander put on his award winning smile. “I’m dying to find out just as much as you are.”

He had her. Josephine had to hand it to Alex. He could be a real bastard sometimes, but like all bastards, he could draw you in with his words and his smile.

14. An exception

2055, September 5th
Collapse + 6 years

The elevator descended the side of the tower. The sun flickered against Winnie’s closed eyes as steel beams along the elevator shaft shot by. It wasn’t helping her headache.

“Six hours, hmm?” said Madeline.

Winnie tolerated opening her eyes to glance at her. “What?”

“When I escorted you to Her Majesty’s quarters at noon, I didn’t expect I’d have to tell the chefs to postpone dinner.”

Winnie shrugged. She wasn’t in any mood to talk, or do anything except maybe lie on her bed and surf the internet. Victoria had given her exercises to be done every night to practice, but Winnie had already decided that she’d skip them tonight.

She never would thought she’d get tired of using her flair. Now, the thought of projecting her mind caused her headache to swell. It was a mixed blessing. If Winnie’s brain hadn’t started hurting, she’d probably still be with Victoria, projecting her mind into the core of the sun or wherever.

Victoria was insatiable. Every question led to five more. Every experiment was repeated in every possible permutation. And Victoria wasn’t doing it just to be thorough. She wanted to. Every single answer or result absorbed into her like drops onto an endless sponge.

It’s not that Winnie didn’t want to expand her power. Left to her own devices, she would, but at her own pace. And she’d never think to ask even half the questions Victoria had.

Could she see in other spectrums of light? Like X-Rays? Victoria wanted to know. She explained that observing only on the visible light spectrum was a limitation of our eyes. Winnie needed to shake her belief that her flair was limited the same way. Victoria didn’t stop there either. She believed Winnie should be able to hear at any frequency, or at any volume.

The worst was the range-of-vision experiments. Victoria took her first crack at breaking Winnie of her “floating camera” point of view. It was another limitation just because Winnie was used to looking in one direction. That led to an hour of trying what Victoria referred to as omnidirectional viewing: looking in all directions from a single point. These tests marked the start of the headache.

As they finished up, Victoria talked about all manner of alien experiments: viewing a single object from all directions at once, seeing objects in a pocket as though the pocket were transparent, seeing multiple places at the same time, and visualizing people even if Winnie didn’t know where they were. This last one in particular excited Victoria.

Growing her power would become a chore.

The elevator stopped on the eighth floor—the security wing. This was as low as that elevator went. Madeline led Winnie to the checkpoint. Like her lessons, security would probably grow tiresome. When she arrived this morning, just as with her first visit, Winnie was subjected to a full scan, both physical and mental.

“Am I going to have to pass through security every time I come to the tower?” asked Winnie.

“I’m afraid so,” said Madeline. “You’ll get used to it. It’s faster than airport security.”

“But you don’t have to get your mind scanned at the airport.”

“Don’t worry. The exemplars are perfectly discreet.”

Something was happening at security. The guards had formed a boundary around the checkpoint, preventing anyone from coming or going.

Madeline sighed as a guard approached.

“I’m sorry. You need to stay back,” the guard said.

“Her?” asked Madeline.

“Yes,” said the guard. “She’s inbound now. Shouldn’t be much longer.”

Madeline led Winnie aside.

“What’s going on?” asked Winnie.

“Princess Helena is returning. They need to lock down security for her to pass through. Shouldn’t take long.”

Princess Helena. She must be Victoria’s daughter that Madeline had mentioned earlier. From the way Madeline said the name, she clearly thought Winnie already knew about her. Though Winnie had never even knew Victoria had a daughter before visiting here, nor did she know who the father was.

Security finished their preparations. Beyond the kiosks, guards ran about the garage bay checking everything over and escorting people away. Once clear, one guard signaled another, who popped his head into the screening rooms. Two exemplars came out, one whom Winnie recognized from her own scan this morning. They waited at attention along the side, their heads bowed.

It seemed this princess didn’t have to get scanned like everyone else.

If not for Victoria’s rules, Winnie would have projected into the garage bay to see what the holdup was. She was about to ask Madeline when a guard came from the garage bay and announced, “She’s landed.” Ah. So lockdown begins before this girl even returns. That explains it.

Soon, two casually-dressed men emerging from the garage bay hallway carrying enough shopping bags to hide their faces. They dropped them on a security counter, and a team of guards descended on them with detector wands and rubber gloves.

Another two men appeared. From their builds, they were body guards. Behind them came a young girl dressed in fur and leather. Her wild blonde curls were so flawlessly arranged that she must have had her hair styled today.

She looked down at a tablet as she walked, oblivious to those around her. At the security gate, guards opened a walkway around the detectors, but the girl stopped by the guards searching her bags.

“Make sure these bags are delivered to my sitting room.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” replied a guard, but she was already walking on.

The princess approached the elevators, where Winnie and Madeline waited. Winnie raced through her etiquette knowledge. The guard called her “Your Highness”. Got it. But what else? She’d forgotten to ask Madeline about it since Victoria corrected her earlier, and something about this girl told Winnie she wouldn’t be as forgiving.

Madeline curtsied. “Good evening, Your Highness. I hope your shopping trip went well.”

“It sucked.” Helena nodded toward the elevator, and Madeline pressed the call button. “Every designer in this city is bullshit. Seven people just showed me seven versions of the same dress.”

“Perhaps we could contact designers from out of state. I’m sure there are some in North America who could help.”

Helena heaved a sigh. “Why bother? As if they’d do any better. We should just put the attendants in flat dresses and stop caring. I don’t see why I should if nobody else does.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“No. Call them anyway. Might as well.”

“Of course.”

“And make sure they keep my shuttle ready. I’m going back out after dinner.”

“Certainly. Your dinner has been prepared in the owl room.”

The elevator door opened. Helena didn’t get in. “Why isn’t it in the main hall?”

“The queen is meeting with the the Chinese ambassador right now.”

“What the fuck? She told me to be back by six.”

“I’m afraid your mother’s schedule got pushed back today.”

“And nobody decided to tell me this? I wouldn’t have bothered coming back.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Your mother only just informed me.”

“What the hell has she been doing all day?”

“She was… in other meetings.”

“She was meeting the new flair today, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Helena’s narrowed gaze turned to Winnie. “Is this her?”

Madeline hesitated. “Yes, ma’am. This is Cho Eun-Yeong.”

“Hello, Your Highness.” Winnie curtsied just as Madeline had.

Helena scrutinized her. When the elevator began closing, she held down the call button to keep it open. Her gaze scoured over Winnie’s clothes and body.

“What’s your power?”

Was that that how everyone was going to greet her from now on? “I can project my senses to wherever I want, ma’am.”

“Oh right.” Helena tilted her head. “Are you staying in the dorm with the other kids?”

Other kids? From the look of it, Helena was the same age as Winnie. Who was she calling kid?

“Yes, ma’am.”

The elevator beeped frantically.

“Oh fine.” Helena entered the elevator and released the button. “Keep my shuttle ready,” she yelled.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you,” Helena looked at Winnie. “Don’t dare spy on me.”

The door closed.

“Well,” said Madeline. “Now you’ve met Princess Helena.”

“Is she always like that?”

Madeline smiled thinly. “We can get moving now.”

13. Harris’s Hawk

2055, September 5th
Collapse + 6 years

Winnie had met the queen before, but she couldn’t help feeling apprehensive as she rode the elevator to the top of the Capital Tower. The city outside its glass walls became smaller the farther up she went. It was a backdrop now—a distant place to look down upon.

Madeline, the queen’s personal coordinator, had herded her in, pressed the button for the top floor, and stepped out, leaving Winnie alone to face the queen with nothing more than a Good Luck and a thumbs up. She was going into the forbidden zone.

The elevator stopped. The door opened. Beyond seemed not to be another floor of the tower, but another place altogether. She stepped from a modern age steel-frame elevator onto the hard wood floors of a mansion that had no business being so far from the earth.

The elevator door closed behind her with a whisper. It didn’t sound like anyone was here, so Winnie crept down the hall. Off to the side was a large family room with massive, wall-to-wall windows for lighting. Farther down was a kitchen which belonged in a family home, except for the row of stainless steel refrigerators. A dining room had a long glass table which could seat dozens. Another dining room was smaller, with a friendly little table and curtained windows. Another room was a floor-to-ceiling library. The rooms went on seemingly forever.

“Wrong side of the building, Winnie.”

The voice came from far away. The queen must have sensed her aura. Winnie hurried past dining rooms and down halls. She got lost again.

“In here.” Victoria’s voice was closer. A jingling noise followed.

Winnie came to a room where one wall was nothing but window, showing a full view of the world outside. At the far end was an impressive oak desk with a computer situated so its user would face the windows. Victoria was reclined on its edge staring out at the world. She had an oversized leather glove on her left hand which came up to her elbow. Its thick, scruffy leather didn’t fit with her elegant dress.

“Good morning, Winnie.”

“Morning.” Winnie waited by the door. There were seats in front of the desk, but while Winnie was unfamiliar with proper behavior around the queen, it felt impertinent to just plop down in a seat without permission.

A bird swooped in from outside the giant window and landed on Victoria’s leather-covered arm. Winnie clutched the door frame. Those windows had no glass. It was just… open, without a rail or a guard. If someone were to misstep, that would be it. Her mind showed her hundreds of feet of nothing a single step away from hardwood. As though to underline all this, wind gusted in the office.

Victoria watched her. The hawk stared at her with its severe face.

“Don’t worry,” Victoria said. “There’s a repulse field. Anything heavier than Willow will fall back.”

“Is it just like that? All the time?”

“Oh, some days.” Victoria pulled a scrap of stringy meat from a pouch on her hip. The bird launched from her arm and back into the open sky. Small bells on its talons jingled with each flap of its wings. Victoria chucked the meat out the window. The bird dived out of view. Winnie watched with her mind as the hawk zeroed in on the falling scrap. The intercept course was flawless. Its claws snagged the meat stories above the tree tops. After circling about, it perched in a tree and feasted.

“Are you watching, Winnie?”

Winnie understood what Victoria meant. The bird was far out of view from her natural eyes. “Yeah.”

“Convenient, isn’t it? I used to have to get much closer to the edge to keep an eye on Willow. The repulse field is there, but that’s never good enough for the mind, is it? This window give my security team nightmares.”

Victoria whistled sharply. Far below, the hawk perked up. It took off into the sky. Beating its wings, it climbed higher and higher as it circled about outside the tower. The jingle of its bells grew. One more pass, and it swooped in upon Victoria’s arm. After the queen placed a hard leather leather cap upon the hawk’s head, which blocked its eyes, she tapped a device on the desk. A hum reverberated. Tinted windows slid along the open window frame. The room shaded as the world closed off. Having that barrier there, just anything solid, was enough for Winnie’s hand to finally ease its grip from the door frame.

“Come.” Victoria circled the desk. Her order had the same disciplinary tone as the sharp whistle. Winnie approached as Victoria transferred the hawk into a cage against the far wall. Inside, it perched as majestically as a bird can when it can’t see anything. Next to the cage was a terrarium. Hot lights shined down on a miniature field of mulch and pebble. Set piece fallen logs and dark green plastic leaves acted as props. In the middle of this false jungle, by a small pond of mildewed water, was a tortoise.

Winnie could smell the nitrate smell of reptile as she approached.

“Nice bird,” Winnie said.

Victoria nodded. “She’s a Harris’s hawk. Every now and then an animal in the conservatory has to come out for some reason or another. Willow broke her wing when she was young. Better now, but she’s too acclimated to humans to be a part of the reintroduction. Did Madeline show you the conservatory?”

Winnie shook her head.

“Ask her to do so some time. It’s quite impressive.” Victoria glanced at the tortoise. “Marzipan here is just a chronic little sicko. He’s a survivor given how many infections he’s had, but he’s been separated from the others so much he forgot how to get along. So he’s become a fixture in my office. ” She rapped the glass with a finger. The tortoise didn’t stir. “I take all of nature’s little rejects.”

“How many animals do you have?”

“Just these two right now. Most other animals who won’t make it can’t come up here for some reason or another. Willow was a borderline case. We had a jaguar in our conservancy up north that got rejected by its mother, but I have never seen my staff closer to insurrection than when I suggested taking it in as a pet. All dangerous animal this, and musk doesn’t wash out that. I nearly took it in just to remind everyone who’s in charge. Probably for the best. Marzipan and Willow are quite enough smell for me.” Victoria straightened. “Come, let’s begin our lesson.”

After fetching items from her desk and sitting at the table, she motioned for Winnie to join her.

“So, you’ve spent your first night on the campus. Are you finding it enjoyable?”

Winnie took her seat. “I am. Thank you.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” Victoria regarded Winnie. “Before the lesson, I should cover a few rules. Firstly, you have thus far neglected to address me properly.”

“Oh, my God,” Winnie stammered. She realized she hadn’t. Not once had she used a single title. It never occurred to her. “I am so sorry. Your Majesty. I’ve never—”

Victoria held up her hand. “It’s fine. For today, don’t worry about it. I’d like these lessons to be casual, but talk to Madeline. She’ll make sure you know all the etiquette. Second rule,” she grew stern again, “you are never to project your mind into this tower without my explicit guidance. There are places in this tower you do not have clearance to see. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Do not look on my personal floors, nor the company floors lower down, and to be safe, not even the public floors near the ground level. Empire and military secrets are discussed here. This goes for all military or government buildings as well. I will be checking your mind from time to time to see whether you’ve violate this rule. Is this clear?”

“It’s clear,” though even as she said it, Winnie instinctively envisioned the entire tower. It took conscious effort to dismiss it. “But what if I mess up?”

“Mess up?”

“Like, if I do it by accident.” Winnie said. “If I told you not to think about a purple elephant right now, you’re totally thinking about a purple elephant. Right? When you said not to think about the tower, I tried not to, but it just popped into my head right now. I’ll try not to, but what if somebody mentions the tower to me and it pops into my head and I just happen to overhear something?”

“You will endeavor not to. And self control will be one of your first lessons.”

“Okay.” It didn’t answer her question. She wondered what that answer might have been, whether she might disappear one day if she ever learned something she shouldn’t. Victoria must have done it to others, but Winnie was important to her. What exactly went on in this tower that Winnie could never see? She tried not to dwell on it.

“Thirdly,” Victoria continued. “Never lie to me, no matter how harmless you think the lie is.”

Her fingers rested on a necklace around her neck. It had always been there, but Winnie hadn’t looked closely at it before. It looked like a necklace of half a dozen ivory scrabble pieces. Instead of letter, they had symbols drawn in calligraphy.

“I have all the powers my exemplars have, and more,” Victoria said. “I will always know when you’re lying, so always give me the truth, even if you think I don’t want to hear it. Now. I’ll ask again. Have you been enjoying yourself since you arrived?”

Winnie was still looking at the necklace. Each stone was its own power, but there were only six. Of the near billion people in the world, one could count the number of existing flairs with their fingers. Mr. Matthews hadn’t mentioned that. Even if Winnie would have agreed to come anyway, she felt… cheated.

“I guess, uh… I guess this isn’t really what I expected when I moved here,” Winnie said.

“How so?”

“I don’t know. I thought there’d be more people, like a whole school of flairs like me, but there’s just Sara.”

“Mr. Matthews did tell you that flairs like you and me are exceedingly rare.”

“Yeah. I know.” Winnie pointed to Victoria’s necklace. “But he could have said six.”

“I see.”

“It’s not that I’m not grateful. I really am. This whole place is lovely. My room is great. Ms. Montes is nice… mostly.”

“But…” Victoria prompted.

“There’s nobody here my age. Sara and Bryan are, like, half as old as me. All I’ve done since I got here is wander around the campus and phone my mom.”

“Are you regretting coming here?”

Winnie hesitated. “I don’t know. I guess I haven’t given it a chance yet.”

“Certainly not,” Victoria said. “You start school tomorrow. Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah.”

“There will be others your age there. You’ll make friends. Give it time. You and I will see each other twice a week from now on. Let me know how you’re doing. If things don’t improve, I’ll step in. I want you to be happy here. Surely, with all my power, we can work something out.” She met Winnie’s eye and smiled. “And above all else, don’t feel afraid around me. I may set rules, but I would like to be your friend.”

“Okay. Thank you.” The talk did make her feel better.

“Very good. First and foremost, however, I will be your instructor. Let us begin your first lesson. Today we’ll determine the limits of your ability, and which of those limits are real, and which you’re imposing on yourself because of your own belief. Any questions?”

“Yeah. What does that mean?”

“Flairs behave differently than physical things in our world. Everything in this world is construction-oriented. What it’s capable of is defined strictly by how it is made. Flairs are purpose-oriented. How they’re made is defined by what they’re meant to be capable of. For example.” Victoria held up her pen. “Someone designed this pen to write. That’s the reason they built it, but it’s not the pen’s purpose. It is not a platonic ideal for writing. Sure, that’s what we use it for, but there isn’t a fundamental law of physics saying that pens write. It’s just a piece of plastic with a tube of ink and a ball point. It’s destined for writing no more than a flat stone is destined for water-skipping. It just happens that you can use it for writing, just as you could skip the rock over water.”

“But it was made for writing.”

“But the belief that it’s meant for writing exists solely in our heads. It’s still just a stick that leaves a trail of ink when we rub it against paper. Flairs, however, are defined by their purpose. Let’s say the purpose of your flair is awareness of everything in the present, which I don’t think is far from the truth. Your abilities will define themselves around this purpose. So take a few days ago, when you could not visualize the inside of a solid substance, or observe a star lightyears away, it’s not because you can’t, it’s because you’ve yet to develop your flair to better conform to its ideal. The pen, on the other hand, cannot change to write on rock or steel just so it can better conform to the platonic ideal of a writing instrument. Clear?”

“So why can’t I visualize stars far away? Why does my flair only kind of fit its purpose?”

“You’ve never used your flair before. It’s like a plant that’s only started to grow. Everything it can be is written in its DNA. All you need to do is help it grow by using it the right way. The other part is a mental block. You don’t believe you can or should be able to do something, so you can’t. Determining what you can’t do because of a mental block and what you can’t because it’s not your flair’s purpose is where I come in.”

“How did you learn all this?”

“Experience. Experimentation. Study. I’ve devoted much of my life to flairs, and my company has been researching them since before the Collapse. That, and some flairs make understanding them easier.”

Victoria began drawing a design on a piece of paper while studying Winnie. “Unless you have any other questions, we should get started. I have several hours worth of questions and experiments, and I’d like to get through as many as possible.”

“Hours? I thought this meeting was only an hour and a half.”

Victoria finished her doodle. It was Winnie’s glyph from the other day, but this time Victoria had drawn it effortlessly. “No. We’ll be here much longer than that, especially today. If you have any other plans, you can reschedule them during a break. These lessons are the entire reason you came to live at the capital.”

“How long do you think this will take?”

“That more depends on how long you can stand it,” said Victoria. “As you’re about to see, I can do this all day.”

12. The Girl

2022, March 14th
Collapse – 27 years

“How about them?” asked Alexander.

Anton craned to look down the airport terminal in the direction Alexander indicated. Two women were seated together, chatting and giggling as they simultaneously listened to a song by sharing a pair of earbuds.

Anton’s face scrunched. “Why you always point out child women.”

“You’d rather have someone your own age?”

Anton shrugged. “I’d rather have real woman, older is wiser. She’s a woman who knows her way around the bed.”

“A prostitute knows her way around the bed. If you want, I know just the girl for you in California. Real old. Plenty of experience.” He grinned at Anton, which didn’t stop until Anton finally acknowledged him with a grunt.

Josephine overheard their conversation. She’d grown adept at tuning them out over the past hundred years, but never quite adept enough that her skin didn’t crawl. Wherever they all went, whether to seedy back alley bars, or a consulate dinner at parliament, those two would sit together and play “Who’d you rather” while leering down woman, and they frequently took their game too far.

The coven had passed through Saudi Arabia about seventy years ago. At the time. Anton had a body nearly identical to the one he had now, a Ukrainian man to match his Ukrainian accent, with a body straight out of an action movie. Alexander had been middle eastern to fit their surroundings.

The coven were guests in the house of Raheem Al-Nader, an oil baron. Josephine and Sibyl were kept separate from the men most of the trip, but afterward, Sibyl discovered something Alex and Anton had done. They’d gotten close with some burka-covered servants who were distant nieces of the host, and had slept with them later that night. Anton had to use his Authority to break through the usual barrier of Middle eastern modesty.

“It was a like a bet,” Sibyl had heard them boast. “What would you see once you lifted the veil?”

“Not really a gamble for you,” Anton had said. “You see their minds.”

“There is a world of difference between what a woman thinks they look like, and what they actually do.”

The coven moved on days later. Josephine checked back to see what became of those women. They were publicly flogged. Alexander must have known. He showed no reaction when Josephine accused him later.

“Now there are women you should be looking for.” Anton pointed Alexander toward a group of four thirty-somethings gathered at a restaurant table inside the airport.

“Cougars. I can see their wrinkled asses from here.”

Anton sighed. “So? Who cares? The fruit has spoiled a little. It is when the sugar is sweetest. And they work harder for you. They know they must earn your attention.”

Josephine had heard enough of their drivel. She collected her suitcase and headed off in search of Sibyl.

“Are we offending your sensibilities?” asked Alexander.

“Oh by all means,” she muttered. “don’t let me intrude.” She didn’t look at Alex when she spoke. Even accidental eye contact was enough for him.

“I would welcome the intrusion,” he said. “In fact, why don’t you share your thoughts on the matter.” His gaze was steady, daring her to look.

Responding further would just be rising to his goading. “Ignore them,” Sibyl would say, “He wants you to react. I see it in his glow.”

Anton ignored them both as his gaze prowled the terminal. Unlike Alexander, he at least had the decency not to include fellow witches in their juvenile games. Josephine glanced toward Sakhr and Christof. As the two oldest witches of the coven, and the ones who’d brought them all together, they sometimes acted as parents, but both were absorbed in books without a thought to spare for squabbling children.

Josephine strolled away without another word. Alexander chuckled in her wake.

Sibyl was in line at a magazine shop. She had an armload of gossip magazines and a horseshoe-shaped pillow to help her get through the coming flight. Hidden between the magazines and her bosom were several boxes of chocolate and candy she’d pilfered from the stand beside the cash register. She’d long ago internalized that the bodies she occupied were disposable. Every ten years or so, she’d take the body of a thin, attractive woman, and she’d indulge. Thighs would thicken. Breasts would grow. She’d turn a sculpted work of art into cellulite and loose jowls. Then Sakhr would get her a new body. Of all the members in the coven, her bodies had the quickest turnover rate. Josephine kept her opinions about that to herself. Sibyl was the closest thing she had to a friend in the coven.

As Josephine approached, Sibyl glanced at her and smiled sympathetically. Josephine’s aura would be spelling out her argument with Alexander.

“Tell me we have separate seats on the plane,” Josephine said. She meant separate from Alex and Anton.

“I think so.” Sibyl juggled all her items to one arm and fetched the plane tickets from her purse. “We’re in the other aisle, by the windows.”

Josephine’s mood did not lift. The entire coven was in first class. They never flew anything else, but that would put Josephine close enough to hear the idiots harassing the flight attendants. It was a five hour flight across the country. Neither Alexander nor Anton could behave themselves that long. Would they actually convince a stewardess into a Bathroom Trip using their wit and guile? Or would they cheat? Alex might read minds for hints on how to seduce the women. Anton might convince them to stay and talk, or even tell the girls that they found Anton attractive. The flight attendants weren’t witches. That made them fair game.

It was how most of the coven saw other people. Even Josephine was guilty of that. When you’re immortal, it’s hard to see others as equals. Their transient lives are only there to supplement your own.

Sibyl might actually be the best of them, probably because of her empathy. Even though she wrecked other people’s carefully toned bodies, she always targeted selfish sorority types. It least it was some kind of morality.

“You know what would be crazy, Sib? What if we changed our flight?”

“What do you mean?” Sibyl asked. “You want to stay in Boston?”

“No no, I mean go somewhere else. Look.” She pointed to a nearby gate. “Detroit. …okay, that’s a bad example, but there. Look. Dallas. What if we went to Dallas? It’s warmer there.”

“But Sakhr doesn’t want to go to Dallas.”

“I know.”

“So why would he go there?”

Josephine waited for Sibyl to figure it out.

And she did. “No, Jose. Please, don’t.” Sibyl looked at her with dismay. “We can’t leave them. Don’t talk about that. Alex will find out.”

“Alex already knows. I think he’d prefer we left.”

“But we can’t. You know we can’t.”

“But let’s do it anyway. You know how long it would take them to find us? When he does, you know he’d let us right back in.”

“He doesn’t want us to leave.”

“We don’t need his permission.”

“Please stop, Jose. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“It’s fine if you don’t want to go…”

This caused Sibyl to nearly drop her items as she grabbed Josephine’s arm. “You promised me you wouldn’t leave me with them.”

“I’m only joking.”

“You’re half joking. I can see it. If Sakhr finds out you’ve been talking about this…”

“Why would he?”

“Alex might tell him.”

“Alex thinks about leaving all the time himself.”

“But he doesn’t tell Sakhr that, but he would tell him if you were.”

“Honestly, what’s Sakhr going to do about it? Hold us at gunpoint?”

“You know what he’d do.”

“It’s an empty threat. We’re too important to him.”

Sibyl started to respond, then caught herself. “Stop talking,” she said.

Josephine glanced over Sibyl’s shoulder.

Alex was approaching. “Ladies.”

“What do you want?” Josephine kept her eyes down.

Alexander grinned. “Relax. Sakhr wants us.”

“We’ll be there in a minute.”

“He wants us now.”

“Then he can—”

“Christof found one.”

Her brain stumbled. Even Sibyl dropped her guard and turned.

“What? Who?”

“Come and find out.”

When they got back, Sakhr and Christof were standing together by an airport pillar. Their reading books were away, and they stared across the terminal at a pair sitting by a full length window wall—a small man and a girl. The man looked worn and tired. Beneath a denim jacket, his potbelly pushed his undershirt over his belt, but the rest of him was scrawny, as though his fat had drained from his limbs and pooled in his abdomen. He was talking with Anton.

The girl was slouched in a chair beside the man. Probably his daughter. She paid no attention, just listened to whatever noise her massive headphones were pumping into her ears. They must close out the world for her

“Which one is it?” Josephine asked.

Sakhr nodded toward them. “The girl.”

“She walked right past me,” Christof added. “I almost missed her.”

Alexander grunted in disinterest. It annoyed Josephine, but she understood why he had. The girl was plain. She had thick plastic lenses and black hair pulled back in an unkempt pony tail. She wore a hoodie that hid her body well, but she’d obviously inherited her father’s dumpiness.

Josephine didn’t care. Looks lasted only as long as your current body, and the idea of having another girl in the coven was too enticing.

“Not much to look at,” said Alexander. “What’s her power?”

“I’m not sure,” said Christof.

Startled, everyone turned to him.

He sensed it. “I can read her just fine. I just don’t know what I’m seeing. She’s…” He winced as though staring into a sunset. “…Nothing? No. That’s not right. There’s something there, it just doesn’t look like it does anything.” He shook his head.

“Maybe she’s a dud,” Alex said. “A useless power. You two have seen them before, right?”

“Not for a long time,” said Sakhr.

“She’s got something,” Christof added. “If she’s got a dud, it’s a strange dud.”

Sibyl turned to the others. “What is Anton saying to them?”

Sakhr answered. “I told him to find out where they live.”

“He’s making them nervous.”

“He’s pretending to be security,” Alex replied. “Security makes everyone nervous.”

Anton finished and returned to the others. The girl glanced at him as he left.

“They’re from a town near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.” He handed over a sheet of paper with an address written on it. “Father had dental conference in Florida.”

Alex grinned. “He took his kid to a dentistry conference?”

“Orthodontics, yes. No mother. He couldn’t leave daughter home alone. Man is Allen Faulk. Daughter is Katherine Faulk. I know nothing else on her. She did not want to talk. I did not push.”

“Wise.” Sakhr nodded. “Anton. Alex. Get our flights changed.” He faced everyone else. “It looks like we’re not done with cold weather yet.”