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.