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was normal. How dare you!" His body shook with anger.
    Delores wiped up the tea. "George, please.”
    "Be quiet,” he shouted at his wife. Then he turned on us, raising his arm and pointing to the front door. "Get out of my house, now!"
    Delores stood, wiping her hands on a napkin. "No, you don't have to go.”
    Curtis smiled at the old woman. "It's fine. We need to get going anyways."
    I followed him out of the house and to the car. As I pulled out the keys and started the engine, Curtis hung his head and cried.
    "I should have helped him get away from these people," he said, his voice thick with tears. "They’ve always hated what he was. Well, George did, and Delores was always too weak to stand up to him, even for her own grandson."
    I thought of my family, of my father—or the man who I’d thought was my father—who bent to the will of my mother, to the point that she almost killed me for more power. I understood his anger. "It's okay. You did your best."
    "Did I?" Curtis asked. "He made me promise not to tell. But I could have done more, talked to him about it more. All these other kids I've helped, and I couldn't do anything to make my own cousin's life easier."
    I'd never thought about it much, that underage students would need permission to join our school, and many parents weren't ready or willing to acknowledge their child's para-powers. "This is what you've been fighting, isn't it? Not just connecting with the kids and helping them transition, but working with families who refuse to see the truth." My respect for Curtis increased ten-fold in that moment.
    He nodded. "It's the hardest part of my job, especially when a kid is so eager to be with others like him or her. Most families aren't bad. They're just scared. Scared that if people or governments start targeting paranormals, their child will get caught in the middle. It's a valid fear, too. By coming to our school, they're outing themselves, and I know what it feels like to come out of the closet, in all ways."
    He chuckled at his own joke, but I knew it hadn't been easy for him. In some ways, being a young gay man was still more sensational than being a paranormal, and I shuddered to think what that said about our society.
    "Did you ever regret coming out, either as a paranormal or as gay?" I asked.
    His blue eyes stared into mine. "Sure. I'd be lying if I didn't say it was hard sometimes. I went from being the bully to being bullied when some kids found out I was gay. And I didn't grow up at Rent-A-Kid like many of my friends, always knowing who I was, always having a place where I was 'normal.' Not that they didn't have their own pain and terror, but I had to hide who I was for most of my life, living a lie about my sexuality and my powers. When I heard about this school, it was like a haven for someone like me. Still, it took time to admit to people, to admit to even myself, that I was also gay. It was like being a freak in every possible way there was, and I hated myself for a while."
    I put a hand on his, sharing my power with him, showing him a reflection of what I saw in his soul. "You know, it doesn't matter whether you're gay or not, whether you have powers or not, I can see into your heart, and it is beautiful. And the work you do to help these kids, that is something no one else could do. You've lived it. You know what it's like, what they're going through. It's what makes you the perfect person to help them."
    He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I hope so. But, Rose, what if I'm the reason these kids were targeted? What if I'm the reason my cousin is now dead?"

S IX
     
Speak The Speech
     
D RAKE
     

     
     
    Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you,

    trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our

    players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.
    — William Shakespeare, Hamlet
     
     
    THE SCHOOL ERUPTED in a flurry of excitement when a dark sedan drove up to the mansion and a Bishop stepped out