“I wouldn’t know where to look,” Sophie stammered.
“Perhaps you can tell me anything you know of your parents or your... abilities?”
“I’m pale, I’m fast, I have annoyingly good hearing. I’ve always been more afraid and nervous than angry, at least since I can remember. The bullies...”
Chants from the bus filled her head, unsettling the excellent chicken pot pie she’d been consuming.
Pale girl, white girl, ghost girl, mummy.
White-out, zombie, vampire, dummy!
A gentle hand, cooler than her own, lightly brushed her arm. “We live on, in spite of all the cruelty, all the horrors. We are survivors, yes?”
“Yes.” Sophie nodded firmly, trying to replace the unkind words by dwelling on Jesse’s loving ones. To her “Snow King” she was beautiful, gorgeous, loved no matter who or what, just right in his eyes.
Eyes.
“Sometimes it looks like my eyes are red?” Sophie turned her head slightly towards Jesse.
“Not exactly red. It almost looks like— like a little flame, flickering. It’s not like what happens with Minegold and me.”
“Fire? Flame?” Mr. Minegold suddenly became very alert.
“Not like actual flames! I’m not some mutant in the comic books,” Sophie answered, hackles slightly raised.
“No, dear girl, but all the ‘mutants’ in comics are based on people like us. Those a bit more than human, human lineage mixed with other sentient, humanoid beings’. If it’s done through love and without violence, I’ve no objection. Have you?”
“I... guess not?” Sophie threw Jesse a worried glance. “But I’m still human. Like, fully human. I don’t need to drink blood or avoid the sun, or anything like that. I have a shadow and a pulse.”
Mr. Minegold looked at her, nodding gravely. “Would you mind if I looked up a few things?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” she rose when her host did.
“Jesse, we’ll have that excellent cake of your mother’s in a bit. Would you two like to accompany me to the library?”
Sophie’s eyes widened. Every room, even the dining room, had at least one shelf of books. Another entire room just for books made her feel lightheaded. How many books would be inthatroom?
They followed their host to a room in the back of the house, full of oak paneling and more maps on the walls. Sophie observed that one wall was full of a map unlike anything she’d ever seen, with only vague outlines of continents on it, butshot full with red, white, black, and blue lines. Places where the lines intersected were marked with pushpins, mostly small, clear ones. There were several places where beautiful, decorative pins were stuck into the board. There was a pin with a giant, sapphire-like jewel stuck into the northeastern United States.
“That’s us. Pine Ridge. Home of three dark Ley Lines,” Jesse murmured, taking her hand.
“Oh. Wow.” Sophie swallowed, nodding in the absence of the right words. “You told me a little bit about what that means. Dark forces like to visit.”
“It’s a good source of energy. Not everything eats the way you and I do,” Mr. Minegold said vaguely, looking at a shelf of thick books with cracking leather spines. “I think you have vampire parentage, my dear, but you are clearly human and therefore have a human soul. I doubt you are a dhampir, not with your, shall we say, ‘inner glow’?”
“But what could make someone... Who does that? No one we’ve ever seen.” Jesse went over and took the books Mr. Minegold passed down to him, his voice low, even though he knew Sophie could hear him perfectly well.
“First, how. Then, who. But you’re right. No one around here exhibits that particular ability, except for Tess.”
“Tess?” Sophie in turn took a stack of books.
“Powerful witch, innate, not simply learned. But, the light you’ll see in her hands comes from an act of magic, not simply her own being.” Mr. Minegold tapped his chin. “Hot, did you say? Heat?”
“Yes, like my chest is suddenly on fire.”
“We could call Tess. She’s a good friend, helps keep the town safe as we can make it. She reads auras, maybe she could read yours.”
Sophie didn’t expect the rush of anger she felt, but it flooded her suddenly. “Myaura? Isn’t that what kind of person I am,good, bad, positive, negative? I’m not a science experiment for you to research.” She put the book down on a glossy round table, the heavy thud satisfying under her palm.
