Turquoiselle, Tanith Lee [100 best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

“Thereare estimates of between four hundred and six hundred other people of this,our, type, so far identified, or largely analysed as probable, across theaccessible and investigable world. Some of these are still children, of thosemany are less than ten years of age. Rather randomly then, twenty adultcandidates are scattered about the northern United States. Approximately thesame number in South America. Thirty-six or thirty-eight have been verified, orare rumoured to have been, through Russia and her satellite countries. In theMiddle East one hundred and ten, (the bulk in Iran). In the Scandinaviancountries ten to seventeen. In China, the Koreas, and Japan, jointly, seventy-five.Australia, at the last count, eighty-one. There are, or seem to be, uncountable others in India, where indigenousreligious beliefs and mysticism may both camouflage, and conversely, falselypromote, their activities. Most of Africa is in a complementary state. By andlarge no data, however carefully collated, can provide an exact, numericallyaccurate list. Even so, from information now available, and fully validated,the fact that such persons exist is proven. What do they matter though, thisstrange random and polyglot tribe, of which you and I, Mr Carver, are part? They matter, and we, I and you matter, because of thegenetically bestowed powers I have mentioned. Powers, MrCarver, Natural abilities of various sorts, all of them quite extraordinary,and of differentiated and – shall I use the word? – there is no other – miraculousscope. There have always been, so legend and history both inform us, suchpeople. Miracle workers in the literal meaning of the words. They can readminds, or move objects without physically touching them, take on animal forms,levitate upward into the air, heal – or harm. Cure. Or kill. You’ve seen, Mr Carver,something of what I can do. Shape–shifter,that would have been the name for me, back in ignorant years. I will show, in alittle while, when there is more time to spare, something of the full gamut ofmy abilities. It started when I was eleven years old. I saw a movie – who wasit? Some pretty girl – I wanted to be blonde like her. My hair was black ascoal. When my mother saw me, she beat me. Extra spitefully. She thought I hadused bleach from the kitchen. She thought I had wastefully and time-wastinglyendangered myself, and wasted the bleach, and that blondes were scum from theDevil’s fundament. In the morning, of course, I had healed my cuts and bruises– not from any non-existent bleach but from her hands and the implement she hadwielded, a fish-slice. But my mother forgot what she had done. If she’drecalled I think she would have accused me of ‘harming myself’. (Thishad happened, this false accusation after one of her attacks, before.) But bythe morning also I was brunette again. When they began to investigate me, Idid not know – I was twelve. An agent of Mantik’s – Mr Preece he was called –visited me when I was just fourteen. I had been discovered later than the firstof the two men, I was the second discovery. The thirdand last  of whom is you. And so we arrive at you, Mr Carver. You.”

Carver thought, afterwards, he said to her then, “You healed yourbruises and turned back into a brunette. And your eyes are dark now. They usedto be blue. Not shape-changing. It’s called personal delusion. And wearingcontact lenses.”

But presumably he did not say it. He had alreadystopped seeing her; she was only a voice, and words, and images that formedfrom them.

Besides, by then also he knew, or something in him knew, that tofight any longer was useless. And outside the night was black and red and madeno sound, as it crept towards them up the hill.

“Preece,like certain others who would finally contact such people as myself, and you,tend themselves to minor but fascinatingly odd talents. Preece could undolocked doors without keys. Sunderland was like this too. Do you recallSunderland? I don’t know what he was good at. Something. But what you’ll wantto know, or you will feel that you must have the knowledge of, adecision that is valid, is what is your personal – power – skill,shall I say? Yourspecial and major talent. Mr Croft mentioned something?”

“Energies,” Carver (afterward) thought he had scathingly, wearily,said. But he had not said anything.

“Croft – his name, too, was altered in childhood – he derivedfrom an area off the Mediterranean, unaffiliated with either the Arab nationsor the Jews, let alone the Russian political landmass. Mr Croft was born inBritain. But that was in the past. Now, in the recent days here, when he began firstlyto feel the effects of the induced madness, as we must term it, hebecame somewhat fulsome, unwise... enough to alert you, maybe, or not. I suspect you are so accustomed by now to the extremebehaviours of others. Their unreliable and occasionally dangerous sillinesses.Hysterical women. Eccentric men. Even the terrible and brutal rages of yourfather. But Mr Croft no doubt told you, you could summon and release energies,the nature and direction of which none of them, here in this stronghold of Croft’sorganisation, had quite been able to solve, let alone take precautions against. Apity for them, that. Mantik, on the other hand, solved the puzzle some whileback. Then, you may think unkindly, wickedly, they allowed certain aspects toproceed, exposing to your particular skill persons of assembled types,to see precisely the results. Do you recall the man nicknamed Bugger Back-Scratcher atthe place on Trench Street? The man who always, too intimately, felt the maleworkers up, when performing their security checks? He was one of the peopleMantik left open to your skill. No, no, of course you had no notion. Believeme, take it in and don’t let go of it, you were, during all these events,innocent. MrBack-Scratcher finally sexually assaulted a man on the tube, in front ofwitnesses. Mantik hushed up the business. They rescued Mr Back–Scratcherfrom the force of the Law, recompensed the assaultee. Mr Back–Scratcher iselsewhere now. Treatable, apparently. His exposure was limited and intermittent.And, obviously, some persons, as with any