It had to be the Changeling Node in our brains.

  That was Mrs. Thompson’s theory. “Call me Grace,” she’d said when we sat back down.

  All changelings, no matter what our “gift” was, had a new bundle of neurons at the base of our brains with connections to every other part but mostly to the cerebrum, the part of our brain responsible for higher thought and action. Even the ones like me, who displayed physical changes but no mental gifts like Grace’s, had it. Why?

  Grace had had years to think about it and study the research literature, and she had no idea. She’d pretty much forgotten about it. But then I’d shown up in her field of awareness, a pyrotechnic display of fear and confusion and anxiety. I’d been unignorable whenever I was in range.

  And there was one thing she hadn’t mentioned. She had no sense of direction when it came to the source of thoughts and feelings; it wasn’t like hearing with your ears, where you could generally tell the direction a sound came from, but she realized after a couple of days that she could feel where I was broadcasting from. When she focused on me, she could tell when I moved around the Seevers’ house. She could also feel my direction even when I was out of her “hearing” range.

  And, she said, though she admitted this was a subjective assessment, my thoughts and feelings seemed to have a deeper resonance, a clearer tone, than anyone else’s.

  So what was going on? She’d read a lot of speculation and thought the node was the source of her telepathy, acting as both a receiver and an amplifier. She thought if changelings were born with it, fully integrating it into our developing brains, we’d all have learned to use it like she did—at least like she used the receiver part. She thought I could use my own receiver, just a little bit, that all changelings probably could, and I wasn’t sensitive enough to pick up the unamplified signal of human thoughts and feelings but I was getting a hit from her own amplified signal just as she was hearing more signal from me than she normally would.

  So we were essentially pinging each other; I wasn’t sensitive enough to really hear her tune but I could definitely pick up the direction of her louder tone. I had an extra-sensory node in my brain that I couldn’t fully use.

  I had no idea what to do with that.

  Mrs. Thompson—Grace—exchanged cell numbers with me, with the plan that I’d text her my guess as to her direction and distance whenever she texted me. Before shooing me back out she also informed me that I could let Carl and May in on the secret at my discretion.

  It all left my head spinning, but by the time I returned to the house the movers had taken all the new furniture up and departed leaving a stressed-out May who needed to shop. For matching linens, for pillows, for blankets, for a full stock of items for the third-floor hall bathroom, etcetera. I offered to watch Steph again while I studied (the cute little lump was a great stress reliever anyway), an offer gratefully accepted, and with a quick check and a diaper change, May was out the door with a passing cheek-kiss and I contemplated my tiny responsibility.

  “It’s just you and me, kid.” At least this I could deal with.

  She gurgled at me, pulling herself up on the mesh of the crib to sit on her knees and push-pull her barrier. I wondered what baby-thoughts felt like. “That’s a bit advanced for you, isn’t it? You can help me with quadratic equations.”

  She laughed

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

  I finished a practice math test and responded to two texts from Grace before May returned, barely squeaking by the minimum improved score on the practice test and correctly zeroing in on our neighbor both times (the first time in her basement, the second time on her third floor though I couldn’t really say anything about distance). I changed the little poop-machine’s diaper once.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I also spent time over my lunch wondering what to tell Carl and May about Grace. She invited me over and told me she was a telepath who could hear you guys lusting after each other and doing the funky monkey at all hours. Yeah, that would go over well.

  But it was ridiculous! It was a big thing but I knew that telling them about what Grace could “hear” would make them hugely uncomfortable. I had already cut off a couple of my own private musings, wondering if she was in range. And if she even cared.

  I’d finally decided to let them get to know Grace and let Grace decide if and when and how much to tell them and gotten back to my math, and when May came through the door with arms full of bags I pushed her into the living room and took them away to put Steph in her arms. “I passed the practice test. I’ll take these upstairs, you stress-hug your offspring for a few minutes.”

  She laughed, one-arm hugging me first. “There’s more bags in the car sweetie. I’ll take it around back in a minute.” Fair enough.

  I made three trips out to the car and up the stairs, dropping everything on the guest room bed. The guest room furniture looked a lot like what I’d chosen for myself but in varnished light wood instead of painted. Since the space was a bit smaller than mine it had a double instead of a queen-sized bed and it lacked a study table and bookshelf. “You don’t have to help,” May said when she came up, still holding Steph, and found me sorting everything from the bags.

  “It’s my fault Aunt Sophie is here. Besides, I want to let the test settle before I review the incorrect answers and do some more problems. I only passed by one question.”

  She studied me dubiously. “Okay . . . Grab some scissors so we can tear through the packaging and we’ll get it done.”

  A half hour later, new sheets in the wash and everything else put away, I was at my new study desk when May came into the room. “Baby’s napping,” she said. “Can we talk?” In her hand she held some pages.

  “. . . Sure?” It couldn’t be about my documents; electronic copies had arrived in my mailbox this morning. The paper copies (printed on official government paper, even) were in the mail but what we had now was enough to take to Hadley on Wednesday. I was officially April Seever.

  She sat on my still-coverless bed and I spun in my new chair to face her, tucking my feet up. “I stopped and got the lab results from Dr. James’ office while I was out,” she said with a burst of words. “Everything looks great, you’re all good on the blood tests.”

  “Okay?”

  “When we were at your appointment, I had her order another test I didn’t tell you about. To test my theory about why your change turned out the way it did.”

  I nodded. I did remember her telling Dr. James that she had a theory—it had just completely slipped my mind in the stress of the examination and, well, everything after.

  “Well.” She took another breath, passing me the papers. “I was right although I can’t say how.” She’d stapled them together, and flipping through them I could see it was a DNA test, the kind that could be used to establish maternity and paternity. “April Chandler” was the name of Subject A. It had been submitted with two other unnamed DNA samples, listed as Subject B and Subject C.

  “It was the red hair that bothered me,” she explained while I looked it all over. “From your family photos neither of your parents had red hair and none of your grandparents did either. So where did it come from? It’s a recessive gene-set so even if you have it, it needs reinforcement which it didn’t have or you’d have been born a ginger. And then there’s how much you look like I did at your developmental age.” She was almost babbling.

  “I’m not sure I understand.” Looking at the results, I shared fifty percent of my chromosomes with Subject B, and twenty-five percent of my chromosomes with Subject C.

  “Subject B is you before the change,” she said softly. “I retrieved a few of your old hair follicles from your bathroom. Subject C is me.”

  I stared at the numbers, willing them to make sense. “. . . I’m my own genetic parent. I have just half my original DNA.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re . . . one of my genetic grandparents? I got my second X chromosome from you?”

  She nodded quickly. “So my redhead genes reinforced your redhead gene, your family carried it unexpressed. But it seemed so outlandish, that’s why I didn’t say anything.”

  So she’d been sitting on this for a week while waiting for the results. “How? How is this even possible?” I couldn’t see how it was no matter how I looked at it.

  “Well.” She took a breath. “The only thing that makes sense is that you’re Steph’s genetic daughter.”

  My brain just locked up, my mouth working with no words coming out. “I—what?”