“We want you to stop hiding who you are,” said Hal.
Danny turned to him. “I’m President Obama’s love child with a Chicago waitress. I’m actually black, but I act super-white and it fools everybody.”
“We know you have powers,” said Sin.
“You’re a fairy,” said Xena. “The Tolkien kind.”
“‘Elf’ is a better word,” said Pat.
“No, it’s definitely ‘fairy,’” said Xena, “because it’s more fun to say.”
“I’m not an elf and I’m not a fairy,” said Danny. “These days I’m on the track team. I’m going to get a letter and be an athlete and then I’ll be too cool to hang out with you.”
“We know you healed us,” said Pat. “My complexion has cleared up totally, and Sin’s infected piercings got uninfected.”
“You didn’t do anything for my weight problem,” said Xena, “which wasn’t very nice.”
“Maybe he likes you the way you are,” said Wheeler.
“I’m trying to think how I did this magical stuff,” said Danny.
“It all started happening after you got here, that’s point A,” said Xena.
“Post hoc ergo propter hoc,” said Danny.
“He’s talking Logic,” said Hal. “I wish Ms. Schrader hadn’t done that unit on fallacies.”
“Point B,” said Xena, “is the tripping place.”
“So I heal people and I make them clumsy,” said Danny. “Sounds like a contradiction.”
“And there’s that flying thing with the rope climb,” said Hal. “You’re the one who set it up. You told me to move my hands as if I was climbing. That means you thought I’d somehow get up there without actually climbing.”
“Is that how you remember it?” asked Danny.
“Notice how he’s not actually denying it,” said Hal.
“I would deny it if I knew what you were accusing me of.” Danny realized once again that it’s always a mistake to equivocate. If you’re going to lie then just lie. Don’t try to make it technically true or almost true or truish.
“I didn’t think we should call it an intervention,” said Hal. “I thought we should call it an ultimatum.” He seemed really angry.
“Admit to this crazy stuff you’re accusing me of, or else,” said Danny.
“That’s what an ultimatum is, all right,” said Hal.
“What’s the ‘else’?” asked Danny.
“Or else you’re not really our friend.”
Danny knew they were right, but also they were wrong. They couldn’t possibly understand what telling them would mean. It’s one thing to think your friend has some connection with mysterious stuff. But if they found out what he was, they either wouldn’t believe him or they’d pressure him to demonstrate it, and he wasn’t going to make any more damn gates at Parry McCluer.
“If you were really my friends,” said Danny, “you wouldn’t decide what the answer is and then threaten to ostracize me if I don’t tell you that you’re right.”
“Then what’s the answer?” asked Sin. “We’re not going to tell anybody.”
“Let’s say I admit I’m some kind of fairy. You promise not to tell. But since you already think you know it, and you also promise not to tell, then how would my telling you change anything?”
“You don’t trust us,” said Wheeler.
“What if I’m some kind of magical guy. Have I done anything evil with it? Hurt anybody?”
“I think Coach Bleeder landed on his ass a couple of times because of you,” said Hal.
“Did it ever occur to you that if I had these powers, maybe I was keeping secrets from you for your own good?”
“There are some things that humankind is not meant to know,” intoned Laurette.
“‘If I tell you, I have to kill you,’” quoted Xena.
“Let’s put the shoe on the other foot, where it belongs,” said Danny. “If we’re such good friends, why would you threaten to stop being my friends if I don’t tell you something that, if it’s true, I clearly want to keep to myself?”
Sin stuck out her feet. “How does that put my shoes on the other feet? These are the only feet I have.”
Nothing he did was going to help. Because Danny knew from the family history where this led. You tell drowthers what you are, then you have to show them. And once they see it, they get scared of you, and either they avoid you or they try to become your servant because it’s human nature to want to be close to power.
Danny didn’t want to find out which way his friends would go. He’d never had friends before, and now he was going to lose them no matter what he did.
Better to lose them without their knowing for sure what he was and what he could do.
“I accept your terms,” said Danny.
They leaned forward expectantly.
“I’m not going to admit to any of this stuff, so I guess that means we’re not friends.” Danny walked back to the door.
“Wait!” said Laurette.
“We didn’t mean it!” said Xena.
“I did,” said Hal. “He sent us a mile into the sky, and if he says he didn’t it’s bullshit.”
Danny opened the door and stepped outside.
He could hear someone-several people-rushing toward the door. He didn’t want to play out this scene on the front lawn.
So he gated back to his house and pulled the gate in after him.
Had he even closed the door behind him? For all he knew, they had seen him disappear.
But he was pissed off at them. Why would friends try to force him to tell what he clearly didn’t want to tell? They weren’t his friends. He barely knew them. So why did he have this gnawing feeling in his gut?
“Where did you gate from?” asked a voice.
Hermia was sitting in his living room.
“How did you get in?” asked Danny.
“I used Veevee’s gate,” said Hermia. “I was visiting her, and I wanted to visit you, but you weren’t here so I waited.”
Danny looked at her steadily. “What are you doing here?”
“My family came to me,” said Hermia. “My actual parents. I was so honored.”
“Was it a happy reunion?” asked Danny, sitting down across from her in the only other chair in what passed for a living room.
“It was all about you,” said Hermia. “They want you to trust them. They say they won’t try to control you, they don’t want a war, but they think you need training.”
“Like I’d ever let any of the Westilians anywhere near me.”
“I’ll tell them that,” said Hermia.
“Are you in their pocket? Do they have some kind of control over you?”
“Meaning, can you trust me? Yes and no. You can trust me to keep my word. But they have some kind of tracking device imbedded in me, so wherever I go, they know where I am.”
Danny thought about that a moment. “So they’ve seen you jump.”
“Yes.”
“By jumping from Veevee’s place to here, they know where that gate is.”
“Yes.”
“Everywhere you go, you show them the gates.”
“Yes,” said Hermia. “But I told you as soon as I knew, didn’t I? What was I supposed to do, seal myself in a coffin like a vampire and never go anywhere again?”
“So they know where I am right now.”
“They know I came to these exact map coordinates,” said Hermia. “They don’t know that you happen to be in this place, but yes, they probably will, very soon.”
“Shit,” said Danny. She really didn’t have much choice, if her own family had decided to track her.
“We have to make contact with all the Families eventually,” said Hermia. “Including my Family. If you intend to make a Great Gate and share it.”
Three cars pulled up out front, one of them actually screeching on the pavement.
“How long have you been waiting here? Does your Family just hover over you in choppers or balloons or something?”
Hermia peeked out the threadbare front curtain. “No, and it isn’t your Family, either.”
Danny joined her at the window. His friends were getting out of three cars.
“Damn,” he said.
“Make a clean getaway,” said Hermia. “Or gate them somewhere.”