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Unable to reply, to give reason for her greatest secret Vanessa slipped through a gap in the crowed behind her and ran.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think that she might have kept that from you. You ought to know though, her other powers; they can’t have come from that vampire attack. Her gift for manipulating and reading the mind isn’t possible, she can block out even the Elders. Hear their thoughts when no one else can. She can move things without touching them, create things from thin air. Such control is unheard of after so little time of having magic, as is the age she received her gifts. But most strangely of all, the reason why you must prize her beyond anything else she can do, Vanessa can speak the magical language.”
There was anti- climatic pause and then her dad asked “So?”
“No one can speak it anymore, it is a dead language. Not even the oldest of the Elders can speak it anymore. We use it for spells and nothing else. But she, she can speak it in conversation. There hasn’t been a record of it being spoken like that since the Seven.”
“The Seven?”
“I’ll leave that story to Vanessa. I don’t want you to feel like I’m interfering, I just wanted to make you aware that she is attracting a lot of attention.”
“Is my daughter safe?” Mr. Kenly looked into the mothers eyes and saw blazing passion in them, which reminded him forcibly of Vanessa. She was the sort of women who was a force of nature in herself; with more love than most have the capacity to feel, let alone to give.
“Your name?”
“Jane. Now answer the question.”
“I cannot say. Power attracts all kinds of evil and the magic poison with it.”
“Will you help her, if it came to it?” This time it was her father who questioned him. His eyes were filmed with concern; a soft and gentle man. Accepting and understanding; even to the world which seemed to scare him half to death.
Mr. Kenly held out his hand and clasped his and they shook with sincerity “Yes sir, I will do my best. I believe she is very important to our future; we all need something to hope for.”
“Thank you.” He answered with feeling.
Then they turned and left, hand in hand; clutched tightly to communicate their worry for their child. There are many forms of mind reading and some; Mr. Kenly observed involved no magical gift at all.

They found Vanessa at the foot of a great, opulent staircase starring into the distance, frowning.
“You know,” Her mum said sitting beside her on the step “I can’t read your mind sweetheart.”
Her dad sat the other side of Vanessa “neither can I.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I didn’t know what to say. It’s all so confusing.” Her mum gave her a look and Vanessa laughed; well aware she was guilty of choosing not to use the gift which allowed her to give her memories to others, so they could be played like a film in thier own heads. “I know I should have showed you but…” she shrugged
“Come on. Talk to me.”
“I’m scared.” Her voice suddenly sounded so small and childish it frightened her mother who had become accustomed to her daughter’s strength and maturity.
“Why? Surely it’s a good thing that you are so powerful? Finally your talent is turning a few heads for a good reason.”
“No. It’s not dad. Because the heads that are turning don’t want to give me merits or put me on some achievement board in a school hall. They are afraid of me.” Jayne stared into Vanessa’s wide eyes and saw wild panic.
“�³��?”
“Because I’m all wrong! I’m not supposed to have magic at all; no mortal has for centuries. I have powers beyond what has been seen since the time of the seven and there no conceivable way I could have gotten them, other than… which is by far the worse prospect.”
“what’s that?”
“That I was chosen. Predicted. My coming was preordained by a force which you can’t understand no matter how many glimpses you get into my mind!”
“Chosen? Chosen by who?” her dad was panicking but Vanessa listened to her mother think; her mind had gentle calm beat that never faltered. Her brain was never scattered and too full like Vanessa’s own mind.
“Start at the beginning. Tell me everything.” she said calmly.
“There is a poison, created by accident through an extremely powerful Magic’s experiments with the dark part of a person. This poison overtook the Earth, caused it to die from the inside. It’s pure evil. It transforms a person’s soul; turns it black. His sister, Fate, was just as powerful if not more so. She was good, purer than anyone could ever be. People called upon her to tame this poison, to kill her brother, Fate gave seven others gifts which represented a part of hers and used them to create a spell which stopped the spread of evil. They put this spell into a book; this book gives magic to souls which can resist the poison and stay good; who wouldn’t use this power for bad.”
“But you said that’s stopped happening?”
“Yes, the wrong people are getting magic. And the mortal borns who should be getting magic aren't. I’m the first in a while and there’s a reason for that. My powers are a fixed point, set way before whatever stopped the book from doing its job came along. My soul has been selected for thousands of years. Which means I’m important, really important and I just don’t know in what way yet.”
“And the vampire?”
“Oh, remember that day when I was six and I went missing for longer than usual? Ever since that day I’ve been able to do all this. Vampires attack by subduing your mind, sending you to sleep; making it an easy meal. Sometimes when people survive because the vampire was interrupted or something they find that that part of their permanently awoken, but I was different I survived because I fought him and won. I’m different in that way too, that attack shouldn’t have made me this powerful; it awoke something much, much deeper within me. Much more than a sleeping ability to manipulate the subconscious.” Vanessa turned to her mum, breathed deep and resolved that she had to know. “Do you remember a man called Laurence?” The colour drained from her face.
“Laurence? That man, the one that beat your mother senseless for no reason at all.”
All she’d wanted was confirmation; Vanessa wasn’t going to tell her parents who her father really was. Laurence. The vampire who seduced her mother and then wiped the memory of him from her mind.
“So your extremely powerful, unheard of and very important to the future of the world in general?”
“�۱��.”
Her dad breathed “trust you Vanessa, only you could have all that happen to them.”
Vanessa looked into his eyes. “Exactly. Only me.” Her eyes filled but no tears fell.
“In the future you have to tell us when something’s wrong. I know we can’t understand this world properly but everyone needs a sympathetic ear every now and then sweet heart.”
“Yes, especially if it could mean you’re in danger.” He gave Vanessa a meaningful look and she caught a glimpse of what her teacher had been saying to them
“Mr. Kenly is a worrier. There’s no chance that they’ll try to do anything to me.” Too used to his daughter’s gift he went along with the part of the conversation they had skipped to.
“Yes well, I’m a worrier too.” He considered his daughter for a second and sighed “you don’t have be so brave with us. Even if you can do magic that no one has seen for a few thousand years, even if you can read my mind, even if your going to play a big part in the future of the magical and mortal world. You’re still only ten and I, at least, can remember that. You’re still our daughter Vanessa, no matter how powerful you are.”
Vanessa gathered both her parents into a hug, smiling sadly to herself; they had no idea what was in store for her. Truth be told neither did Vanessa really.