I shrugged. "If that's what SHE wants," I said. "Then yes. Your opinion is important, but not as important as hers. No doubt she will be guided by you though."
"The thing is," he said, "I don't think that is what she wants. She's excited to get to know you, and has talked about nothing other than moving in here to start school. She even made an appointment with the dean at PSU for Monday to talk to him about starting there. Will knowing you help or hinder her application?"
"Help," I said. "I hope. The dean knows who I am. As does the Student Counsellor. I've helped her out with a couple of patients, with my 'Hypnosis'. Perhaps that's something Sarah could continue to do - to earn herself some spending money, if she wants. Not that she needs to, but it would be a good way to train both her Compulsion and her Telepathy, which is why I started doing it in the first place.
"I'll likely get Melanie involved too."
"What about E?" he asked.
"He could," I said. "But you need something more than Compulsion to be really effective. We're going to have to find other ways for him to train his Compulsion, if it turns out to be his only power."
"Why is all this falling on your shoulders?" he asked. "Surely it's up to the..." he paused trying to remember "...the council?"
"For E," I said. "You are right. He was due to have his amulet removed in no more than a month in any case. They would have had to take him on. Melanie and Sarah, though, are different. Melanie wouldn't have had hers removed until next year, and Sarah another three years. I kicked up such a fuss about the amulets and being lied to all my life - that the council decided to stop using them, and Maggie told me I could take Sarah's amulet off, but that I would then be responsible for her."
"And didn't you think that we should have been consulted about it?" he asked.
"Sorry," I said, "but no. As Norms you have no idea what it's like to have powers, to have to live with them, to have to come to terms with the fact that everything you've been brought up to believe, all your morals and ethics, do not really apply to you. You get hit with this at exactly the same time as you get your powers.
"This was an archaic system put in place by a family who started out with good intentions, wishing to protect Norm society from being abused by those with power, but as they say; 'the road to hell...'
"In the end it was just about control. For them to keep control of us. That control is no more. And now ALL power users in the bloodline are having their amulets removed, and are being taught about their powers, and what they mean to them. No other bloodline in the US, or in the world even, used such devices. They were, and are, an abuse.
"How upset was Sarah that she didn't get into PSU?" I asked.
"Devastated," he said. "She worked so hard."
"And how much responsibility does the amulet bear for her not making it?" I said. "Up until mine was removed my GPA was a solid 3.4 and I worked my ass off. Now I'm cruising and my GPA is 4.0. I'll grant that I have figured out how to use my powers to help, but that only just assists with memory. My comprehension, logic, and problem solving are improved incredibly by not having that mental anchor weighing me down.
"You wait, I'll guarantee that if she puts half the work in that she did in school, her scores will rocket."
He sighed. "I suppose you are right," he said. "Although, from this angle you seem to have taken a decision about Sarah that perhaps was not yours to make, you were fighting a larger battle that needed to be fought."
"Let me ask you," I said. "I guess they told you about the amulet, about how it was necessary to keep both you and Sarah safe until she was able to control her powers. Did they tell you that it would affect her otherwise, make it difficult for her at school, cause her to have to work much harder to achieve less?"
He shook his head.
"I'd have been dead against it," he said. "She was already wearing it when I met her. It seemed a reasonable precaution."
"And I'll bet they didn't tell you about the oath either?" I asked.
"They did say," he said, "that there was a traditional oath to swear to the council when she reached twenty-one. "
"Not exactly an oath," I said. "Or at least it wasn't." I went on to explain the nature of the old oath and the binding. He looked sick.
"They were going to do that to her?" he asked.
"They've been doing it to us for generations," I said. "I managed to end it."
"Why you?" he asked. "What makes you so special?"
I shrugged. "I can't answer that," I said. "They tell me that I am the most powerful user that they've ever seen, although I don't have a full set of powers, I'm still more powerful, even than those who do. My amulet failed before they were ready, and I came into my powers early. Because of this I had time to figure stuff out. If it hadn't, I'd likely have been bullied into taking the oath as they took off my amulet and I'd be as much a slave as all the others.
"Fortunately for me, the amulet failed, and I had time to discover my powers, and consider what was going on and what I was going to do about it. By the time I was twenty-one, I'd found out what the oath was, and there was no way in hell I was going to accept that."
"I don't blame you," he said.
"So," I asked. "Is Sarah moving in?"
He sighed. "Every instinct is screaming at me to keep her as far away from you, and this place, as possible," he said. "Yet if half of what Dean says about you is true, then I can't think of anywhere, other than at home, that she'd be safer than with you. I could issue all the usual - 'if you hurt my daughter' - warnings, but there wouldn't be any point. Again, if half of what Dean says about your powers is true, I doubt I'd be able to carry any of them through."
"That didn't stop Dean issuing the same threats," I chuckled.
"He's a jarhead," he said. "They don't care whether something is possible or not, if they decide to do it - they'll go for it anyway."
I laughed. "You might be right at that," I said.
The back door opened, and Sarah came in. "Are you coming back out?" she asked us both. "We're all waiting for you."
Brian looked at me. "Did you get your drink?" he asked. I shook my head, and pulled a beer from the fridge.
"Want one?" I asked and he nodded.
I passed him a beer and grabbed an extra few just in case anyone else wanted more, then we went back out onto the deck. Dean and E both accepted fresh ones, everyone else declined. I left them on the table in case anyone changed their minds.
"Okay then," I said to the three new power users. "The first thing you need to learn, is how to shield yourself..."
I'd decided that simply dropping knowledge into their heads was a bad idea. It would work for certain things, but there was a good reason why my trainer had chosen not to do that with me for everything, and had spent time training me the old fashioned way. I did suggest to all of them that they should learn a martial art, to help them with their mental discipline, and to Melanie and Sarah that they needed to work on their physical fitness. Neither was overweight or particularly unfit, but I knew just how hard using powers was on the body, and the fitter they were the easier it would go for them.
We worked until Ness asked me for assistance making dinner, and for a couple of hours after we had eaten and cleared up. By the time E, Connie, Sarah, and the rest of her family were ready to leave, they were all capable of building a reasonable shield. I hadn't told them all of my secrets yet, but they would all be able to keep wilds out with no problems whatsoever. All they needed to do now was to practice, and ensure that they could keep them up, even when they were asleep. I also told them about playing a video game, and why. Sarah's parents gave me a sceptical look but I ignored it.
"I'm going to speak to Maggie," I said to E as he and Connie were preparing to leave. "I'm going to ask her about a trainer for you. I could do it but finding time when we are both available, especially since you live a little way away might be problematic. Since you were due to 'emerge' anyway around about now, there must have been some arrangements in the works for you.
