When we were kids, Verity was never around, because she was always going to another dance lesson. And Annie spent half her time on the balance beam or the trapeze rig. I’m a freak of nature. They’re amazing.”
“Telepathy is fairly amazing, too,” said James.
“Not when the rest of the world isn’t telepathic.” I looked at my computer screen. It wasn’t connected to the house Wi-Fi, which was sort of a relief. If Artie had allowed them to stick with the same password for five years, I would have been forced to yell at him. A lot. “No one thinks about what they’re thinking. The number of people who’ve spent hours being friendly and helpful and kind to my face, all while wondering what I’d look like naked, is sort of genuinely horrifying. Do you have the new Wi-Fi password?”
“It’s on the fridge,” said James.
He seemed to take my request as a cue that the conversation was over; by the time I’d walked to the fridge, found the paper he was talking about, returned to my computer, and figured out the necessary transcription key to find the actual password, he was once again deep in his book. Honestly, it was a bit of a relief. He seemed nice enough, and Annie usually had good taste in people, but I needed some peace before I went up to bed and cut myself off from the world again.
With no one more specific to focus on, my mind relaxed and reached out, locating and identifying my family members one by one. Annie was upstairs, her thoughts preoccupied with a fiercely immediate physicality that told me where Sam was. Evie, Kevin, Ted, and Jane were all out in the barn, focused on their work. The mice were like glitter in the walls, bright and constant and ever-moving, too small and quick for me to really focus on them.
I could. They had minds like anything else, and if it has a mind, I can read it. But minds that small take work, and I wasn’t in the mood for work. I was in the mood for letting myself go, sinking deeper and deeper into the comforting lull of answering email and looking at pictures of kittens and basking in the quiet glow of the thoughts around me, letting them wrap around me like a blanket.
At some point, James got up and left the room. It didn’t change the noise around me. Anti-telepathy charms are dangerous that way. When you evolve to depend on a sense, whether it’s as basic as touch or as esoteric as telepathy, removing it from the equation can unbalance and upset things.
I pulled up a math game, one where I had to merge squares to form larger and larger numbers, chasing a distant, golden goal. The tension slipped out of my shoulders as I focused on the screen. I’d done it. I’d made it to Oregon without getting hurt; I’d defeated the cuckoo who wanted to chase me out of her territory; I’d saved Artie. It was sad that the cuckoo had died, but not sad enough for me to grieve for her. She’d made her choices. She didn’t deserve and probably wouldn’t want my pity.
The numbers on my screen shifted and increased, one flowing into the next. It was a dance of simple addition, and it was so soothing. I relaxed further, watching the numbers dance. It was going to be okay. The cuckoo in the woods had been a threat and she wasn’t anymore. I had my family around me. I was safe.
My computer beeped, telling me I had an email. I switched tabs. Maybe it was Artie. Maybe he’d realized that he didn’t want to kiss me again; now that he was far enough away, any influence I’d been exerting over him would be fading into nothingness, leaving him free to make his own decisions. If he decided he didn’t really want to be with me, it would sting. But if it was the truth, that would also be a good thing. I didn’t want to make him love me with a lie. I wanted him to love me because I was worth loving.
The email wasn’t from Artie. I didn’t recognize the sender’s name, and the subject header—“Can you give me a second? I just want to talk”—didn’t exactly look like spam. There were no attachments. As long as I didn’t click any links, I’d be safe. I still frowned as I opened the message.
If you want your family