Quiet. Subdued. Not the enthusiastic chatter I was used to.
He followed me to the rose bushes but his usual enthusiasm was completely gone. He picked a few flowers mechanically, notreally looking at them, still holding my hand with his free one like I might disappear if he let go.
We sat on a bench in the sunshine and I pulled him onto my lap, wrapping my arms around him. He immediately buried his face in my neck. I rocked him gently, breathing in the honey scent that somehow still clung to his hair.
“Want to make a flower crown?” I suggested. “We can make you look like a prince. Well, more like a prince. A flowery prince.”
Killian lifted his head slightly. “Will it make the bad feelings go away?”
“It might help a little. Pretty things sometimes do.”
We worked on the crown together, my fingers guiding his as we wove stems and petals. When it was done, I placed it carefully on his head.
“There. Now you’re officially the Prince of Flowers. Very prestigious title. Comes with its own hat and everything.”
He touched the crown gently, a ghost of a smile flickering across his face.
“Mama,” he said quietly. “Am I bad?”
My throat tightened. “What? No. You’re not. Last night…People were surprised.”
“What’s surprised mean exactly?”
“It means something unexpected happened and they didn’t know what to think. You know how you get scared when you see a spider because you don’t know if it’ll hurt you?”
He nodded.
“It’s like that. They just didn’t know what to think. But you’re not bad. You’re wonderful and perfect and I love you more than anything in the whole world.”
“I got really scared last night,” he admitted. “Everything was looking at me and asking questions and I felt weird inside.”
“Weird how?”
“Like everyone’s feelings were in my tummy. All loud and pokey.”
Right. The empath abilities. He’d been feeling everyone’s emotions on top of everything else. Because apparently my kid needed more complications.
“And then everything got really scary and then...” He paused, his brow furrowing. “Then things started flying. And the holes opened up. And I couldn’t make them stop.”
“The holes are called portals. And it’s okay that you couldn’t stop them. You didn’t know you could do that before, did you?”
He shook his head vigorously. “No. I can only do my ears. See?”
He concentrated, his face scrunching up with effort, and his ears shifted into fuzzy wolf ears that stood up from his head, twitching slightly. Then he held up his hands and claws extended from his fingertips, just the tips, not full paws like last night.
“They get fuzzy,” he explained, touching one ear. “And my fingers pointy. But that it all I knew, Mama.”
“That’s very good control.” I clapped, genuinely impressed. “You’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you.”
He made the ears and claws disappear again, the shift smooth. Then his face fell. “But the scary stuff…”
“We’ll figure it out together, okay?”
“Can you make it go away? So I can’t do it anymore?”
The hope in his voice made my eyes sting. “I don’t know, sweetheart. But we’ll learn how to control it. So it only happens when you want it to.”
“Everyone thinks I’m scary now. Those people...” He looked down at his hands. “They said I was bad things. I heard them.”
