Pg. 3

Nor liked to come to my house. No one was ever home, and when they were, they ignored us. At her home her mother paid too much attention. Nor was a miracle child, born 10 years after her mother thought no more childern would grace her. Nor's mother drank. Nor's life, Nor's thoughts, Nor's desires were all part of public discourse at her house.

At my house we hid.

My family were strange, although they call it gifted. My mother was a healer, my father was a viewer. Nor was obsessed with this life, and would ask me about their powers.

"Areyou one of them?" She always started with this. I didn't like hte look in her eye or the tone of her voice when she said "them," lumping me in with people I barely knew, rarely saw, couldn't relate to.

"No."

"So you can't do any of their tricks?" And of course, loyalty would cause me to bridle at the use of the word tricks, but you couldn't tell Nor that. You had to be careful, always, to never give her any more to hurt you with than she could get on her own. Even while I was falling in love with her I knew it. There was a brief time when I forgot, and that's where the trouble started. But this was a year before any of that happened.

"No." Of course I could. I could look at someone and tell what would happen to them, sometimes in minutes, sometimes in years. Sometimes there was nothing to be seen, and this was almost more scary than the things I could see.

She knew I was lying. Just as she could tell what Aaron and I had done, just as she could figure out how to take him, she could tell when I was lying. It was a power, but not strong, and not of the type that she was interested in.

"Tell me something, tell me my future. Tell me whether Aaron and I will get married." She loved to hurt people, loved the look in their eye when she said the one thing she shouldn't.

"I don't know anything. You'll get married. You'll have children. Your life will be boring and commonplace. No Aaron." Aaron was neither boring nor commonplace.

Nor did he belong to her, despite the attention she tried to get him to pay her.

Pg. 2

Have you ever wanted to disappear so badly you could envision what the world would be like without you? Have you ever been more than convinced that you were invisible and it didn't matter?

Have you ever thought how nice it would be to be needed?

Elenore. She's the beginning of hte story. And she needed me. At first, she really needed me. And no one else did.

My best friend, Mary, she didn't need me. She'd developed her own life, she'd been sent to a special school, one that she didn't like to talk about. One that I eventually stopped asking about. She was jealous of Elenore and Elenore was jealous of her, but they were never really rivals. First Mary was clearly more important, then suddenly it was Elenore.

Elenore noticed me only because she noticed Aaron. He was able to do that to people, make them notice him. I think that's why he was so easy to follow and why no one noticed I was doing it. Everyone followed Aaron. And I wasn't too noticeable.

Elenore would grill me, questions about Aaron. What he liked, what he did, what he thought. She was trying to prise information from me about him, and I would give the barest possible, just to get her to leave me alone. I thought if she felt she knew something she'd go away.

She didn't. Not then, anyhow.

Aaron couldn't stand Elenore. "How can you look her in the eye and not laugh?" he'd ask me. And he was right. She was too tall, too thin, too blonde, too ridiculous. She was like a long stalk of corn, looking for the most interesting breeze to bend to. She was gullible and dull, and everything we mocked when we were alone.

Aaron liked to sit in the dark with me and ask me things about Elenore. "What does she talk about?"

"You." I could feel him smile. Aaron liked to be talked about.

"What about me?"

"She'd like me to explain to her how to make you kidnap her and haev your way with her." He'd laugh, then reach over and make me do things that didn't involve kissing.

"Does he talk about me?" She'd ask.

"Yes." More than I liked, but not in the way that she wanted.

"Can I have him?" She knew. Somehow, she knew what we did. She'd look at me and I could tell that she knew what we were doing in the dark, when no one else, not even me, knew what we were doing.

"If he'll have you, you're welcome to him."

This always made him laugh.

"You promised me to her...?"

And of course, one day she got him. And he kissed her. But that was all she'd let him do. Once she caught you, she learned to run. Once he'd kissed her, he forgot about not kissing me. And so I was stuck with Elenore.

After a while, her name degenerated. She went from Elenore to Lenore to Nor with such grace it soon seemed that she'd never had a full name, only the abbreviations I made up for her. I made them up and other people believed and used them. That was one of my powers. People didn't look at me, but they listened and I could make them believe. In a bag of powers such as I've got, it's a good one to keep to hand.

And so, although this story starts with Aaron, it's only a way to lead us to Nor, to show you what happened when I knew her. And to show you what I let happen when I thought I was safe.

Pg. 1

Do you ever look back at what's happened throughout your life and realized that you can pinpoint exactly when you took the wrong turn that ended you up in your current situation, be it good or bad? Have you ever looked at yourself, your past self, and realized that you should have turned left instead of right, or said yes instead of no?

I can show you exactly where I went wrong.

This is a story about my ending, but of course everyone knows that htere are no endings without beginnings. So now it's up to me to look back and trace the veins, the markings, the roads I followed to bring myself to where I am now.

When I was fourteen, I started school. I followed my neighbours son, the boy I'd been in love with since I was twelve. There were two schools in our town, and I went to the one he chose.

I chose it for him, he chose it for his family. They had all gone to this school, ever since this school had existed. And since my family were new to the region, or newer than most, I didn't have any family ties. So I chose his ties to lead me.

He was pleased with my choice. We would play together, dirty little games with dirty little secrets.

We would play like this for a while, until one of us was unwilling to go further. I was always the one who wasn't willing to keep going. And I paid for it. Just like I paid for everything else. Of course, this story is about paying, just as much as it's about the roads you choose. It's a story to show that everything is worth the price, as long as you know what it will cost you. And at the time, I thought I did.

His name was Aaron. Such a simple name for the boy I followed to my doom. Just a normal name. And just a normal boy, really.

There were so many in his family. He slept in the closet at the top of the stairs. Some of the children had rooms, some of them shared. Aaron preferred to sleep in the closet on his own, all by himself.

And sometimes me.

We weren't lovers. He never kissed me. We touched, we petted, we talked. But he never kissed me. If he had, then this story, the one I'm telling, the one that was meant to happen, wouldn't have. And so clearly, that would have been a better choice than the ones I made.

If he had kissed me, we'd have become lovers. If we'd become lovers, I'd have become a mother. I am not a mother.

It was never meant to be.

Now this school, known around the village as The Palace, it was as formidable as it sounds. It didn't look like it had been built, although they were constantly telling us which sections had been built, and when.

It looked like it woke up under a hill one day and stretched it's way through. It looked as though, when it found itself on top of the sleeping hill, it liked what it saw. It looked as though, liking what it saw, it decided to stay. And stay it did.

It was perched at the top of the village, and the other school, the one I did not choose, lay at the bottom.

My parents didn't much care which school I chose, as my parents didn't much care about anything I did. The school seemed well enough, had a good reputation, produced fine, upstanding and often imposing adults. Aaron seemed well enough, had a good many brothers and sisters, a feat my parents never aspired to but found admirable in others. All the brothers and sisters had fine, upstanding and often imposing Book names. My parents had never aspired to follow the Book, but found this an admirable trait in others.