To say that I was stunned was to make the mother of all understatements.

  “April? Honey?” Her fingers were white in Carl’s hand.

  “Aliens.” I tested the word. “You’re all aliens?”

  “The Chandler family, yes. And Carl’s a Chandler once removed, we’re second cousins.”

  “How?”

  “My grandmother is her grandfather’s sister,” Carl supplied with a touch of snark. “That is how second cousins work.”

  “Carl,” May scowled at him and then turned to me. “Do you remember, hun? What we talked about, the Forever Trap? That was what Great-Grandmother called it. The People have known about Earth for a long, long time, there’ve always been a few observers around though open contact is forbidden.” She sighed. “Great-Grandmother was old. Older than recorded human history. And she took the out of changing her form and coming here where evinfel wasn’t. To grow old and die.”

  “Evin. . .” It felt like I was having an out-of-body experience as I tried to cram down every response and listen.

  “Evinfel.” She said it stressing the second syllable, looking more and more worried at my non-response. “The psychic-nanite field scientists speculate about. They know something’s providing energy for physical manipulations like telekinesis and Changeling Fever itself. It’s not really ‘psychic-nanites’, it’s . . . well that’s not important, just imagine it as an invisible hyperspace energy field and supercomputer generated by siphoning a tiny percentage of Earth’s gravitational potential. Really don’t ask, those are just magic words to us, we Chandlers don’t understand it either. But she came here to escape it. She went native, her last changes making her a young woman, ninety-nine percent human with her only remaining People genes being the ones supporting her remaining gifts. The ones not dependent on evinfel. And she planned for everything, even for humanity’s reproductive drive getting the best of her. Which, boy did it ever. Honey, are you alright?”

  No. Nope. I wasn’t even close to the neighborhood of Alright Lane. Clasping my hands between my knees, I sat on my emotions. Later would be time for feeling, now I needed to know. “But the ship—”

  “The ship came later,” Carl said. “And it wasn’t an accident.” He massaged May’s hand, looking back and forth between us. “Great-Grandmother was a chronicler. She experienced other races and preserved her memories with the keepers. Disappearing and going native—that broke the People’s laws. Having children here and teaching her children even as much as she did, that broke more. But we had nothing to do with the ship. Our guess is a faction of the People finally figured humanity wasn’t going to survive its next Great Filter and decided to do something about it.”

  “Great Filter.”

  “Yeah, you know. Planet-killer asteroid strikes, planet-sterilizing solar flares, ice ball glacial periods, runaway industrial development, nuclear war, environmental collapse. Those sorts of filters. The stuff that makes life and advanced intelligence rare in the galaxy. The People are the first to pass their last Great Filter locally, a few thousand years ago. Nobody else has gotten past their last filters yet.”

  “When would we be past?”

  “When we have self-sustaining interplanetary colonies, ideally our first interstellar one. After that, misfortune or mismanagement can’t wipe us out.”

  “Us. You said us.” Somehow it felt important to nail that down.

  “Us humans, honey,” May reentered the conversation. “The People back home, well, the memories I’ve seen from our keepers are funny looking mammal-lizard hybrids. Furry elves that lay eggs. We, the People here, we’re humans with furry-elf race memories. And gifts.”

  “Gifts.” I was really rocking the one-word queries.

  “You know about the changeling stuff, honey. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Physical rejuvenation. All of them except telepathy need evinfel, and the ship did bring it but it’s what Carl said. It wasn’t an accident, a crash. Our grandmothers think it was a seed to bring evinfel to humanity. And the whole daytime-at-night lightshow of its arrival was meant to get our attention.”

  Well that made sense, anyway, as much as anything did. Knowing someone else is out there? Since the Ship’s arrival the world seemed split between paranoia that a War of The Worlds was coming and pure excitement. We weren’t alone and we must meet them! Or prepare ourselves for war against them. Both responses were supercharging our space programs and all the tech development coming from them. But none of this was what I wanted to know about now.

  “But changelings. Me. You said it was all your fault.”

  She nodded. “Evinfel needs the node, the one found in all changeling’s brains. It’s the same node that the People have, genetically we’re identical there. And it’s not just thousands of people around the world that have the node, now, it’s millions. We’re not sure how evinfel is selecting which people to give the node to, or why most of them aren’t activated, stay dormant. But there are some of us, speakers, who can consciously direct evinfel to do things outside of the narrow tasks like thermal redirection or telekinesis. And I’m a speaker. One of the things I can do is detect changeling nodes and trigger dormant nodes for different modes of development.”

  And the bottom dropped out of my world. “Trigger— You did this. You gave me Changeling Fever.”

  “Yes, we— I decided to do it, Carl didn’t know until after.”

  “Why?” Wrapping my arms around myself, I finally identified my emotion, the only possible response to unthinkable betrayal; I was breath-stealingly furious.

  Her cheeks were wet; when had she started crying? “You were dying, honey. All your medications, your diet and exercise, and still you were— I could feel it, when I uncovered my mind I could feel it, your awareness of what was happening, how you could—you could—” She sniffed. “Something good would happen to you, or, or we’d have a nice movie night or you’d play chess with Carl or hold Steph and you’d think ‘How much more of this do I get? How much is left?’ So I thought I could trigger the change, steer it towards rejuvenation mode. Fix your heart. I thought— I thought you’d come out of it looking thirty years younger, that’s all, but—” She stopped, unable to finish.

  “But Steph sneezed on me,” I supplied.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “And you almost drowned in your tub,” Carl added. “All things considered, not the safest or most successful change. May also violated you by not telling you what she could do and asking you first.” He still had her hand, giving her solid support, but I could see they’d not seen eye to eye on this one. May looked . . . defeated.

  And my thoughts stuck on one thing. “You moved in here because of Grace, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “When the realtor showed us the place and we were talking about pros and cons I uncovered so I could feel her thoughts, her honesty. I felt Grace next door, and she felt like one of us. And she was sad and all alone.”

  And I was, too, I imagined. Just differently, not their priority until later. “You too, Carl?” I asked.

  “No.” He shook his head. “My gifts are more physical, thank God. I can feel her like May says you do now, but I have no strong gift for thoughts.”

  “Oh.” Well, that was something, anyway. “And you’ve always been reading my thoughts, May? Hearing what I think about everything?”

  “No. No, honey, I mostly go around with my mind covered. Knowing Grace’s story, you know why. If I can convince the seniors to allow us to let her know about us, I can teach Grace how to do it. But I’ve—” She took a deep breath. “Since your change I’ve been so at sea, so . . . lost about how to help you, I’ve uncovered at times when I really needed to understand what you were feeling. But that’s all, I promise.”

  “. . . Okay.”

  “Okay?” Carl echoed.

  “Okay. I understand? Why you couldn’t tell me, May, why you did what you did. And I’ll keep your family secrets. I—” I took a breath. “I’m going upstairs.” I stood, arms still folded, holding myself together. They didn’t move or say anything, and I turned back at the living room entryway. “I’m not— I’m not going anywhere. I don’t know what to think so that’s what I need to go do, think. I— You meant well.” I had to hold on to that or I’d lose everything. “It wasn’t right, what you did, but you meant well.”

  May nodded, fast and jerky, folding in on herself as Carl’s arms went around her and she began to cry in earnest.

  I went upstairs to my room. To April’s room.

  *********************************************

  Two hours later I’d barely moved from where I’d flopped on my bed, and I still didn’t know what to think. No, I did. I was sure of at least one thing; in all May’s confession, she hadn’t said one word about maybe changing me back. Which, I didn’t need to be a telepath to know, meant it couldn’t be done. Her guilt and regret had been naked on her face as she’d confessed; if she could have fixed it, she would have on that first day.

  So I was still stuck being April, and I was an . . . alien? What did that even mean now, with the distinction between human and changeling and alien nothing more than a novel little structure of brain cells and a person’s family history?

  Then I realized something else it meant and sat bolt upright still hugging Hads. It meant I could . . .

  Closing my eyes, I found Grace. It was easy now, taking only the slightest attention. Then I tried to feel everyone else. Why hadn’t I, before? After some thought I could only conclude that the first touch, connection, needed active intent. Grace had invited me to try and locate her, so I’d listened for her. And with Papa in the garden, I’d been freaked out and reaching for reassurance that it was him.

  After a minute, I found someone else, another presence in the house. Then another, and then another, all downstairs right now. One of them felt different than the others; except for Grace next door, I couldn’t sort out the rest but it felt brighter somehow. Was it May, because she was a speaker? But it didn’t feel stronger so much as clearer and, somehow, I knew it was Steph. My cheeks felt tight and I realized I was grinning. It would be easy to find the little goblin when she started seriously crawling.

  The follow-on thought hit me like a train, wiping away my smile.

  I still didn’t know what I felt, but I was going to stay to watch the goblin crawl. I really wasn’t going anywhere. Which— Was that even sane? Downstairs May had looked so stricken, even too angry to think straight I’d had to reassure her, it had been automatic. But really? She had stolen my life. Admittedly I hadn’t had much of one left, but I’d known how to live it. And I’d been happy.

  Happier. You were happier. Happier isn’t happy.

  I couldn’t banish that truth from my head—the truth May had heard, the thought that had been behind every good moment. How much more of this do I get? How much time?

  Because I’d been lying to myself. Retiring and putting myself through the most extreme of lifestyle makeovers to seize and prolong what years I had left . . . while I’d been smiling, stiff-upper-lipping, that was what she’d been hearing. I couldn’t imagine that; her knowing I felt my own clock ticking down, knowing she could save me.

  She still should have asked.

  But she really couldn’t, could she? Not without revealing the Chandler Family Secret. I couldn’t imagine how strong a taboo that was to break, either; secrecy had to be their only protection. And if it had gone right? If I’d passed out in bed, woken up as a thirty-year-younger David with a healed heart?

  Then there’d have been nothing to forgive—nobody rational and in my situation wouldn’t forgive not being asked for permission before giving them their health and decades of life back.

  Which left me . . . here. I could understand her, but did I forgive her?

  An hour later I’d brushed my teeth and showered and brushed out my own hair, changed for bed and crawled in to sit against the headboard “watching” everyone move around the house. Or in Steph’s case, lie around the house. The other person now on my floor of the house had to be Aunt Sophie, and I “watched” the person I’d felt closest to the goblin all evening come up the stairs, stopping in front of my door for a long minute before knocking softly.

  “Come in.”

  May did, tear-reddened eyes showing no surprise at finding me already in bed. No hairbrush ritual tonight. “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “Can I—” She waved at the bed and when I nodded, climbed up to scoot over beside me, back against the headboard and hands in her lap. We sat in silence for a long minute until she opened her mouth. “So . . . Long day?”

  I choked back a laugh. My first day of school, so dreaded, had become the least traumatic experience of the day. “Yeah, long day. Why does the little goblin feel so bright?”

  May straightened and I smiled a little to think I’d managed to shock her, then relaxed with a sigh. “You feel her. You feel all of us?”

  I nodded, resting my chin on Hads. “I realized I had to be able to, right? And then it wasn’t hard. May?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “Am I— Did you—” At a loss, I waved at the room around me. The furniture, the house, the place they’d made for me. “All this, is it because it’s your fault? Is that why you and Carl have done all this since I— Since I became April?”

  And then her arm was around my shoulders and she was pulling me close. “Oh honey, no. Never think that. I wish I could— Actually, I can. If you can feel the difference with Steph you’re at least as sensitive as Carl is. Would you . . . Part of being a speaker is being a ‘projective telepath,’ I can make other sensitives hear me like Grace hears the world. I can show you what I feel. If you want.”

  My breath caught and it took me a moment to breathe again. How could I feel so terrified and hopeful at the same time? When I finally nodded, May tightened her hold, drawing my head down to her shoulder with her free hand.

  “Shhh,” she said, as if she were settling Steph, hand still soft on my cheek, and then . . . It wasn’t me, what I was feeling, a gnawing guilt and sadness and fear, and below it, feeding and even overwhelming it, a warm possessiveness, concern, connection so intense I couldn’t breathe again as my eyes flew to her bright gaze. And I was crying. Not bawling again, like that day in the nursery, not even a gasp or a hitch but tear tracks of uncontrolled waterworks cooling my cheeks.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh,” she echoed with her own watery smile, and the feelings faded and were gone. “And that’s enough of that, I think. It can be too much.” She lay her head against mine, letting me just be until I could think enough to wipe my eyes.

  “So,” she finally said. “I have a question of my own. You don’t need to answer right away, or— Well, take your time.”

  “What? What’s your question?” I didn’t think I’d be able to answer anything tonight, but I could certainly file it for due consideration.

  “Will you ever forgive me?”

  Oh. I remembered the fear and without thought I was twisted about, arms wrapped around her and face buried in her neck as I nodded and nodded and nodded.