Carl lost but got pity chocolate out of me, and Mom brought the goblin with her when she came upstairs for our ritual, the little lump drowsing against her shoulder.

  “Have you got three hands, now?”

  “She’s for you,” she laughed, passing her over and picking up the brush. “There’s something I need to show you.”

  Steph was warm and baby-fresh as I settled her in my lap, one arm beneath her, the other holding her against me. Reaching for her in my mind, I found her clear bright tone, so different from everyone else’s.

  “Are you listening to her?” Mom asked quietly, gathering my hair and wielding the brush.

  “How did you know?”

  “Baby minds are irresistible. They’re still purist emotion. Content, fretful, happy, angry, without the complication of complex thought. Also ‘louder’, we think it’s a survival trait. I could hear her when she was inside me. It’s beautiful, listening to a new mind becoming.”

  “I’m not hearing emotion. Just her tone.”

  “Give it time, honey,” she whispered, and when I jerked my head around she turned it back to the mirror and kept brushing.

  “That’s what I need to show you. And talk to you about. After your change, we wanted to tell you everything. Much as you’d probably hate us, it was your right to know. The seniors . . . please understand, we don’t tell anybody about us. Living next to Grace these past two years, knowing I could teach her how to handle her telepathy, to cover herself like a sensitive Chandler would, it’s been hard. I’d hoped that, if we could become her friends, build trust I could demonstrate to the seniors, they’d allow disclosure. But we didn’t get anywhere with her, not until you.”

  “How does she not hear you? Hear the difference, I mean. Like she does with me.” The question had been bothering me. “Can you hide from other . . . sensitives?” But that wouldn’t explain why Grace didn’t hear Steph like she did me.

  “No,” Mom said. “It’s not like on TV or in the movies. We can’t hide our own minds, nobody can. We think the reason she heard the difference with you but not with us is she paid extra close attention to you because of your emotional state when you first came inside her range. That triggered her identifying your ‘ping’ as you call it.”

  I’d have nodded if she weren’t holding my hair. Yeah, I’d been in a pretty bad headspace those first weeks.

  “But back to topic, we couldn’t get permission to share our secret with her. With you . . . we were wearing them down, with Aunt Sophie’s help. Bringing you into our family . . . we’d wanted to do that anyway, but doing it, making you a Seever, was also helping with that fight. Then you told us you’d pinged another changeling and Carl decided for everyone. The seniors have had to accept it.”

  “Why?”

  “Why Carl, or why the seniors?”

  “Both!” Steph squirmed in my arms, turning more towards me.

  “Not so loud,” Mom chided gently, brush strokes steady. “The seniors had to accept our decision or anathemize us, cut us off from the family, and Sophie has too many in our corner for that. They’re not letting us tell you more, yet, but they can’t stop me from telling you about this, and Carl knew they couldn’t.”

  “But why?”

  “Because, dearest girl, you’re not just a physical changeling, you’re a telepath, too. Like me and like Grace.”

  God, no. My thoughts froze, only the fact that I was holding Steph keeping me from jumping up and distancing myself from the word. As if it would accomplish anything.

  “But I don’t hear anybody,” I protested.

  “Not yet, sweetheart, but give it time. With changelings it tends to happen all at once, but with you, well, Aunt Sophie believes that your rejuvenation, bringing you back to an earlier stage of brain development, slowed it down. Carl and I were still surprised. All of us are at least a little sensitive and when you and Grace revealed what you could do, that you could feel others well enough to hear another one of us, well, we assumed you were about as sensitive as Carl. You could already feel her and just didn’t know it until you reached out.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “But then I felt—” I almost said Papa, only just remembering that I hadn’t told them who it was yet.

  “But then you felt the changeling boy at the party, yes. That’s more than Carl can do with strangers. He’s sensitive but not fully telepathic. He can feel other sensitive minds because even the weakest of us comes with a little amplification, but only with prolonged exposure. When you told us about the boy, we knew you were more sensitive than that, that you had the potential for full telepathy. And if you have the potential you will grow into it. The family secret would really become impossible to keep, whatever the seniors wanted. The only way we could have kept the secret would have been to send you to Tahiti.”

  She sighed, brush slowing. “But Carl doesn’t care about the secret, he cares about you—what you’d start feeling as your potential develops. It can be very scary, overwhelming like it is for Grace if you’re not prepared.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it then? When you told me everything else?”

  “And dump that on you, too? Knowing how you feel about Grace’s gift? There was time, there is time. Since it didn’t arrive full-blown with your change it will come slowly, give us enough time for you to learn and not go through what Grace has.” She stopped brushing and her arms went around me. “Sweetheart, I am so, so sorry.”

  She didn’t need to tell me what about; this was just one more thing I’d been given no choice in. Her decision to change me—and despite everything I understood why she couldn’t reveal their secret in advance and ask permission then—had saved my life, but . . . Fucking telepathy.

  Her whole body shook with a single sharp laugh and despite myself I grinned. I’d pushed the thought. “Gotcha.”

  “Language! Yes, I’m uncovered,” she admitted with a chuckle, letting go. “For this kind of conversation? Always. And just think, soon you’ll be able to see my emotional temperature in our heart-to-hearts. And Carl’s. Everyone’s really. Truth?” She sighed. “There is almost no mental privacy among the People. If you’re sensitive enough it’s like being surrounded by racecar engines. The fanciest muffler won’t make them silent, the best you can do is noise-canceling headphones.”

  All finished, Mom put the brush down and took the goblin back. When I climbed into bed she sat on the edge. “I realize this is a lot to take in,” she said quietly. “Carl and I discussed it and want you to have as much time as you can to deal with, well, everything else, before you have to deal with this, too. We don’t need to start you practicing right away, but I wanted to show you something tonight. May I?”

  When I hesitantly nodded, she sighed with a smile. “I’ve shown you already how I can project my emotional state, which is really just amplification until someone not a full telepath can hear me. I learned this neat trick, with Steph, when she was inside me and I wanted to show her father what she was feeling. I can relay and amplify her mind’s voice for you.”

  I knew my eyes were wide as I stared at the goblin. “Breach of privacy, much?” I finally managed with a nervous laugh. “It’s not like she can consent!”

  Mom surprised me by taking my less than half-serious objection seriously. “Consent to telepathy is . . . not really a thing with The People,” she said quietly. “With most of us able to pick up at least a little emotional resonance and close to one in four of us able to hear full mental vocalizations unless we put on the metaphorical noise-canceling headphones, there’s no expectation of mental privacy. There’s a strong cultural prohibition against using what you hear against someone or sharing it with others, and there are absolutely times that call for privacy though we have no way of knowing if we’re truly private. Well, except distance. We’ve ‘banished’ family members before for abuse of the gift. But a happy baby’s mind? That’s just considered a treat. May I?”

  When I nodded, she closed her eyes to concentrate and for a moment I didn’t feel anything but then . . . Comfort. Warmth. Drowsy contentment, soft happiness smooth and untroubled by the least memory or thought. The feeling faded after a few breaths and Mom opened her eyes and smiled when I sighed, for a moment burningly jealous of my baby sister.

  “That’s a baby’s world,” she said quietly. “When they’re fed and clean and warm and held by theirs. No words for mommy or daddy or family yet, just theirs. And just happiness.”

  “And I’ll be able to hear that myself?”

  She nodded. “Though not like that. Open yourself to Steph and you’ll be open to all the rumbling racecar engines in your range. You only heard her now because—”

  “Because of your amplification.”

  “Yes. And that’s how you’re going to learn to cover your ears, metaphorically. I’ll sit here and amplify to varying degrees so you can feel what it would feel like to dial your sensitivity up and down in your range and practice mirroring that feeling yourself. A kind of biofeedback method that puts you in touch with your inner receiver’s sensitivity regulator. Eventually you’ll be able to do it as easily as breathing.”

  Cerebral biofeedback—well that made as much sense as anything. And one more thing to learn, this time to preserve my basic sanity. I really don’t want to be a telepath.

  She smiled sadly. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”