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The forces of good rally together at the Jameson home to celebrate the season and all it's many holiday's.  Mom's thinking is that everyone seems to cook for some holiday this time of year, and being as that's her livelihood she likes to celebrate with family and friends.

Sammy invited some people this year, and the house is a buzz with adults and teenagers.  As is the nature of these things each group has sort of found it's own part of the house to be in, with Sammy's mom drifting back and forth through the assorted groups trying very hard to make sure everyone is having a good time.

Nick was thrilled when he got Sammy's invitation and replied with 'Well, that's the night I was going to audition for a Broadway play that would have made me a household name, but I can skip that to hang out with you and yours.'

Among the invited from the Drama Club is Logan Darklighter (OOC: If Sammy would not have invited him, please let me know) and she was slightly surprised when he said he'd be there, and even more surprised when he arrived at the house early to help set up.  Mom fell in love with him on the spot.

Many of the Usual Suspects are here (OOC: I need to know who WILL NOT be coming) and Dave, Rob and Greg made sure that anyone who needed a lift got one.

Sammy just rolls her eyes and laughs.  "Mom and Dad have all kinds of friends; you never know who might be there.  Maybe you can get discovered -and- find out where the mistletoe is hidden on the same night."  She makes sure that at least one or two of the other drama club kids invited are particularly good friends of Nick's.  Its always good to have safety nets in place.  She invites the closer friends among the band kids just to freshen up the friendships, because she feels like she might be neglecting them lately.


Sammy invites Logan without really expecting that he'll say yes, so she's pleasantly surprised when he accepts the invitation.  Mom loves Elrod, she loves John, she loves Logan... she hasn't said anything about Nick.  Sammy takes a look at her dad to see if maybe she can figure out the common link, other than making themselves generally useful.

The whole house is heavily decorated for the holidays, and Sammy busts her butt helping to get the final party preparations done, so she's pretty happy with Logan's help too.  "Better watch it Logan, if you're too useful my Mom might not let you leave."

"I suppose there are worse fates", Logan says with a smile, "Just in case though, I should schedule some time to slack off later."

She looks at him and crinkles up her nose with a smile.  "You and Elrod.  Both of you are the same way.  You both claim to be slackers, but you know what?"  She looks around and in a stage whisper she says "I think you're just more efficient than other people, so you get everything done and then have lots more time to pretend you're not doing anything, while your heads are going a million miles a minute.  Don't worry though, your secret is safe with me."  In a normal voice she says, "When you take your scheduled down time, I recommend the brown La-Z-Boy recliner.  It has the best view of the tv.  You might have to move me out of it first.  Dad has a crow bar in the garage you can borrow."

Heather and her date, and the other band kids are both shocked and amazed that you managed to get Logan to come to a party.  The Drama kids have a similar reaction, he only comes to the wrap parties to be polite, they're wondering what super powers you have that made you able to make him show up.

I think he likes somebody.  I don't think its me.  He and Sylvia have been chatty lately. "It was Mom's cookies!"  Sammy exclaims.  She opens up an antique Santa Claus cookie jar sitting toward the back of a table and passes it around.  "The really good ones.  I used them to bribe him into coming.  There was also a rumor of a 7 layer chocolate cake."

Donnie, Sylvia and Colin arrive, followed by their chattering mothers. The women seem to have hit it off admirably, and the group had driven over in Mary Douglas' big gas-hog Escalade, for which she felt some embarrasment at. Her admission to Alexandra, Caroline and Mitzi that she got it just to annoy her husband broke the ice.

Donnie is being his goofiest, trying to keep Colin's cheer up.

"...so then the stupid Paladin tries to Hearth home, and keels over at the last second from the DOT! The entire team was laughing their asses off at him and dancing around his corpse. It was hilarious."

Colin looks at Donnie in strange fascination, as if there was finally a language that the Great Spirit couldn't translate for him..

Sylvia just rolls her eyes at the story, having heard it several times before. Thankfully, this time it was missing much of it's usual profanity. Donnie was trying not to shock Mitzi or Alexandra. Caroline (Sylvia secretly knew) could curse paint to peel.

Sammy has managed to avoid talking to Donnie until now, and this is the first time she's seen him since their names were cleared.  Might as well get it over with.  She greets each of the mothers and hands them off to her own mom.  Then she says hello to poor Colin, Sylvia, and...

"Merry Christmas, Donnie."  She looks a little awkward.  "I'm glad you've, uh, been cleared by the police.  El is going to tell you himself, but he, uh, never blamed you for what happened.  He knew there was something else going on."  I'm the one who wanted to hurt you.

Donnie's smile is brittle. "Hi Sammy. Yeah. Uh, I have no other explanation. I can't see him though. I feel awful for what happened and it makes me sick to my stomach. Torrance too, may she burn in hell forever." The last was muttered low so others listening in wouldn't hear.

"Merry Christmas." Inside, his stomach is flip-flopping, and he has a death-grip on Sylvia's hand.

Sylvia is steadfast, but quiet.  She knows Donnie and Sammy have to hash this out between themselves.

Colin tries to decipher Donnie's antics about his computer (or was it console) games, but lacking his experience, he hasn't much luck with it. He smiles anyway, as is expected of him. He can't help but feel empty inside, and removed from the rest of the world, as if he was wrapped in cotton wool, but he doesn't want his friends to worry for him. They're helping, their own way, and he's grateful.

When they arrive, he is remarkably more quiet than usual, but he's still Colin. He looks around, nodding friendly at the people he knows, and looks for a way to help. He's the kind of guy that at parties goes to take new bottles or snacks when the bowls are empty, and that stays when it's over to help clean up, just because that's part of the party too, and doesn't even think of complaining that most often the others don't feel the same way.

That's how he meets Logan. They're both helping Sammy's mom when they notice each other. Immediately the cotton wool around him dissipates, and he's sharp as ever.

"Hi, Logan. Happy new year." he says. Then, more quietly, he adds "Can you come outside a moment? I'd like to talk.".

"Sure."  Logan and Colin go out the back door.  The chill air makes clouds of their breath as they stand there in their coats with the sound of the party muffled through the house.  "So, what can I help you with?"

Colin doesn't mind the cold. He feels too cold inside, with Sarah hundreds of miles away.

"Strange things happened. The PCD got a very good anonymous tip. The family of Tom Renquist got a lot of money to get their case properly investigated upon. You always seem to know what's going on. Do you know anything about this?"

"He's not here.  You don't have to see him today.  Just..." Sammy looks really uncomfortable now, and she waves a bit helplessly in the direction of the food and the crowd. She babbles, "Just, I dunno, get something to eat and drink and find a place to sit down and just talk to normal people who do normal things and..." She realizes she's babbling.  "I think I might hear someone trying to come in through the back door, but its blocked.  Excuse me."  She bolts in the direction of the kitchen.

"The police couldn't be expected to pour the kinds of resources into the Renquist case it was going to need.  The tip was just that, a tip.  I normally don't get involved in this stuff, but I needed to find out who was responsible for Rory's death so I made an exception."

Colin seems to ponder his words for a moment. He'd have many questions. What did he miss? How did Logan found out so many things in so little time, when he couldn't, even with his powers? Where did he get the money? But in the end only one question is important.

"And do you know now?"

"Yes.  I think I was able to figure it out.  The forensic specialist the Renquist family hired, and the information from the hackers should put the police on the trail."

Donnie steps outside, looking to see if Colin is alright. His eyes harden at the sight of Logan Darklighter and he walks over to Colin and offers a cup of punch. He simply nods to Logan. "Darklighter."

Turning to leave, Donnie says "We'll be inside if you need anything, Colin."

Colin mechanically takes the cup and just nods to Donnie.

"Are you sure it's gonna be enough? He's smart and resourceful."

He clenches his teeth for a moment, then spits out the question.

"Who is he? How did you find out?"

"It's not important how smart and resourceful he is.  All that matters is that the records show who was responsible and that the system has a chance to prosecute.  In the system we live in that's what should happen.  It's what will happen if the system gets the chance to perform it's function."


Logan nods to Donnie and watches him go back inside.  "I wonder if he's ever going to realize I'm not trying to take Sylvia away from him?"


"I used the information you had, and coupled that with things I knew and was able to find out from other sources.  Torrance made the final answer easier to find when she came along and rocked the boat.  So in a way I owe her a small debt of gratitude."  Logan looks over at Colin.  "Are you sure you want me to tell you?"

Sammy moves some empty cardboard boxes that were "blocking" the back door (actually just sitting there waiting to be moved onto the back porch), takes a deep breath of cold December air, and moves back into the house.  Messed that up, she thinks.  At least part of the wall got broken down.  She dives into the comfort of a circle of friends and lets their blessedly normal conversations wash over her.

Sylvia's sitting at the periphery of the drama geek circle, listening to Greg riff on which of Stanley Kubrick's films were his finest.  "Definitely not Eyes Wide Shut," he says.  Meanwhile, Ginny's sitting on Greg's knee, declaring that Nicole Kidman can't act.  Sylvia, left with some punch in her hand while her boyfriend goes off to check on Colin, seems a little spacey.  She's distracted by the vibes in the room:  the exhilaration of the evening, the pomposity of the drama geeks, the flickering sparks of lust that infest any teenage social occasion.

As Sammy passes through, Sylvia finds her attention swiveling toward Nick.  "You two look good together."  Then she blanches and tries to cover her faux pas.  "Looked.  Looked good together.  On stage."  Sylvia wasn't even at the concert, but she's hoping Sammy won't realize.

Sammy knows Nick heard it right the first time, if only by the slight straightening of his posture and the tiniest widening of his already present grin.  She stops right next to him and smiles.  "Yeah, I know.  We're both already being bugged about the spring musical, but Nick seems to think he'll be on Broadway before then, so I don't know what I'm going to do.  Unless I can figure out how to do both, I probably have to choose between the chance that he'll stay here and make me look good or go with the sure bet concert band, and band gets to go to Disneyworld and play at Cinderella's Castle."  She gestures gracefully at Nick.  "Its Prince Fiyaro or Prince Charming; how can I choose?"  She ends the gesture with a smooth slide of her hand into his.

Sylvia bites back the observation that it looks like Sammy's already chosen.  Parties, crowds, make her loopy these days, and she has to watch her tongue.  "Disney World will always be there, and honestly who's going to stop you from going there if you want to?"  Sammy can fly after all.  "Take a chance on Nick."

And in Sylvia's imagination she's smacking her forehead like a tambourine player.

"Broadway will always be there, too," she mumbles lamely.

Sammy shrugs her shoulders.  "I still have some time to think it through."

"Mm-hmm."  Sylvia nods brightly, lips pressed together.  Then she stands and makes a run for it.  "Oh, look!  Cookies."  She skitters off to hide behind chocolate chips.

Sammy bumps Nick with her shoulder as Sylvia dashes away.  "Sorry.  I just got the feeling she wasn't going to be happy until she completely chewed and swallowed that foot she put into her mouth."  She smiles. "Want some spiced cider?"

"There's quite a difference between what should happen and what actually happens, usually. I hope you'll be right."


"I think he realizes that. He just can't help it. It's his nature."


Colin meets his look evenly. "I'm sure. I want to know, and I want to know what proof you have. I can't take chances with him."

Nick is just grinning as he shakes his head.  "No thanks, I'm good.  You really shouldn't mess with your friends like that."  Then he squints as though thinking, "No, wait.  That's how I mess with mine, so more power to you."  And he smiles that great big Cat Just Ate the Canary Smile.

Logan looks at Colin for a second, then shrugs and looks back out into the yard.  "Renquist had a gift for taking things apart and seeing how they worked.  Something he took apart was so interesting to someone that they killed him to get it.  His list of cohorts that he might have shared that secret with is pretty short."  He looks at Colin, "I was one of them."  He looks back out into the night.  "One of the hackers in that group the police arrested has talked at length about how easy it would be to create a totally fictitious person.  His list of cohorts that aren't themselves hackers or script kiddies is fairly short, and it just so happens that he was on the swim team.  Renquist was on the swim team also.  Now, Tom's old box camera would need to be translated into something a bit more modern, so the help of someone good at technical things would be needed.  Taking the cohorts lists and then matching it against the list of people that could do that narrows the possibilities down even more.  Then things get complicated.  That kid who you blew up, he had some other friends who shared his interest in magic.  I talked to his mom and went over his computer and email accounts as well as his mom's credit card statements.  He didn't buy the book with the spell that cursed the card.  Someone put it in his house, and it had to be put there after he died.  I talked to the other members of his little coven, and the lists of names got very small."  Logan looks at Colin.  "Stop me if I'm loosing you."

Colin nods. "I'm following. So you ended up with very few names that would check up in all your lists."

A part of him feels strange though. He wanted Vandross to be someone... alien. Someone so corrupted his blackened soul would set him apart from the rest of the world. Yet, Logan's methods seems so human, so reasonable. He looks up at him, eager to know more.

"From there I back tracked all the things that seem to be linked to Vandross, and cross referenced the names from my list against the people involved.  Vandross had some way to make people remember details the way he wanted, and so it made sense it was whoever killed Tom for his old camera.  I kept getting the same name in association with various people.  When Torrance came along she somehow stumbled onto the identity of Vandross as well, because she sort of stepped into his position with some of the people he indirectly associated with.  She wasn't very careful, and that was the last clue to clinch it.  She somehow made the whole family move away, leaving her with the keys to the kingdom, and him free and safe half a world away."

"At least I am learning at the feet of a Master," Sammy replies, composing her face into the very image of innocence.  "So, if you don't want to discover me accidentally standing under the mistletoe that's hanging close to the spiced cider, would you like to maybe go to a movie sometime this week instead?"

This hits Colin like a log to the head. It takes him a few moments to get to grips with it.

"D-Donnie Howell?"

He tries to remember everything he knows about him. He only saw him a couple times. He was in the swim team. He worked at the comic shop for a while. He was so close. But...

"God and Great Spirit, he taught the witches how to kill his own sister..."

"I would love to see a movie with you.  I'll buy the tickets if you buy lunch either before or after."


"I assume the ties of family have no place in the heart of a truly evil person."

"Sounds like we have a deal."  She squeezes his hand once, then goes away to respond to a request from another part of the room for a deck of playing cards.  She slides open some closet doors to reveal the family's games stash, which consists mostly of cards, card games, jigsaw puzzles, and a wide variety of board games, but there's some other stuff too.  If Donnie's anywhere in range, he'll recognize the gamer dice filling a large glass fishbowl, a shelf filled with well used rpg books, and some rolled up laminated paper that can't be anything but hex maps.

Donnie wanders by.  "I sense.. gaming books. What the heck are gaming books and hex maps doing in your closet?"

He looks perplexedly at Sammy.

Sammy turns with the deck of cards in her hands, then looks at the books.  "One second."  She passes the deck across the room, then turns back to Donnie.  Having something neutral to talk about helps to ease her strain, and she acts almost normal again.  "Those?  That's my dad's stuff.  He plays with some other old guys once every couple of weeks.  Want to look at it?"  She pulls out a clear plastic case filled with painted minis.  "He did these too.  I helped with some of them."  She points at some not too badly colored dragons.  "He'd die a happy man if he knew about Pip and the rest of them, but I've never told."

Colin is speechless. Megan is a hero. She got powers, and the very first thing she did was using them out to help others. How could her very brother be Vandross? Her brother... He is already rich, good looking, he's the son of the mayor, he could have anything he wanted. Why? Why? There is no answer. Colin looks down at his hands. It's like he can feel Rory's heart breaking apart again through them. Working at the comic shop, he must have found out that Rory was looking for that card. It was just an experiment to him. Tom Renquist trusted him. And yet he decided to kill him, in cold blood, with but a minute's forethought. Colin can't understand. He tries, but he finds only emptiness.

"So you think that the system will work? That he'll be stopped before he can hurt anyone else? Megan isn't safe. No one is safe from him."

"The system has to be given the chance to work.  It's what civilization is.  He'll have his chance to admit his guilt, to face the consequences according to the law.  It has to happen that way.  What happens afterwards is another matter."

Colin for a moment looks at Logan as if it was the first time he's seen him.

"So, we wait and watch? Megan should know."

"She's safer not knowing.  Impulsive, over developed sense of right and wrong.  Add super powers to that and you get trouble.  She'll also be more convincing to the authorities if she's not warned.  If she seems to know what her brother has been up to, they may try to peg her as an accomplice or accessory after the fact.  If she's as surprised as everyone else, well, everyone else I expect to be surprised, then she wont be looked at too closely."  Logan looks down at Colin for a second.  "Besides, she's not at the same school as he is.  But, if it will help you sleep at night I'll make some arrangements for some people to keep an eye on her."

"Yes, please. It'd make me feel a little better."

Just a little bit. Thinking of how Megan will feel when she finds out doesn't make him feel good at all. Colin had hoped to face him, but Vandross managed to put a whole ocean within them. He has to trust the 'system' now, as Logan says. As if the system had a good record pursuing the rich and powerful. But there's nothing else he can do. The chilly air finally seems to reach him, and he notices he's shivering.

"Will you keep me updated on this?"

"If it were anyone else I'd say read the papers.  But for you I'll make an exception."  Logan nods back towards the house, "Go enjoy the party.  Warm up some.  'Tis the season of miracles."

"Yeah" Colin says, but he doesn't sound convinced at all.

He goes back in, and tries to find some way to blend in with the tapestry. He doesn't feel much in party mood. He smiles and nods at the people he knows, but that's about it.

In the middle of pulling out her dad's minis, Sammy notices Colin slouching in a corner.  It looks like he had been outside.  Well at least now I know what caused that noise from the kitchen door.  Poor guy.

"Donnie?  Do you see Colin over there?  He's not doing well with Sarah leaving.  i feel so bad for him.  Do you think you could go over there and talk to him?  I'm afraid if I go over, it'll look like I'm hitting on him.  I have enough going on right now that I don't need that too."

Donnie's eyes glaze over as the gamer-geek takes control. "Oh wow, cool. Some of these are old Ral-Partha minis. You can't find them anywhere anymore since they closed down. Cool Reaper minis too. Fiend Folio? That's awesome! I love the old black and white illustrations and.."

He starts yammeriong on about old editions and rules differences, despite the fact that no one seems to be listening to him. He seems happy and looks for Sylvia to share the discoveriies, knowing she'd listen even if she understood only a word in three.

Sammy understands about one word in four of what Donnie is saying, but she stands there patiently for a few minutes until he finds his Sylvia.  Then she puts her dad's minis back in the closet, shuts the door, and finds her way to the conveniently vacant big brown LaZboy recliner chair with the good view of the room and the television set.  Oh, look.  Dad put on The Bishop's Wife (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039190).  Yay for Cary Grant the ghost.  From her comfy spot she looks over at Colin, waits for eye contact and gives him what she hopes is a comforting smile, then starts watching the movie again.

Sylvia's there, suddenly.  Like, one moment she wasn't there, and then--fwip!--she slinks in from the zone of nonexistence near the cookie tray.  She listens to Donnie yammer.  She tries to ask journalistic questions now and again.  She doesn't take notes because, if she understood it all the first time, it'd deprive him of the pleasure of telling her again someday.

Colin tries to smile back at her. Sammy's a friend, and he'd have fun at her party too, if he didn't feel so empty inside. His love and his direst enemy have both moved far beyond his reach, and he finds himself with no purpose.

Blackbird, are you there? I don't know what to do with myself. Could you give me a nudge in the right direction?

There are more days ahead.  Live your life.  Your pain now will make a future possible for millions of peoples you will never meet.

After a couple of minutes of pretending to not watch Colin feel bad, Sammy sighs, and gets out of the recliner.

She walks over to Colin's side.

"Come on," she says.  "My mom probably needs some help in the kitchen."  She takes him by the elbow and drags him to the kitchen.

"No, Sammy, really, I don't want to take you away from the movie. I'll be all right. I just had... strange news, and I've got to think about it a bit. Thank you anyway. I'll go help your mom." Then he seems to remember something. "Do you think she's thought about my offer of help to find your grandfather?"

Sammy stops tugging him toward the kitchen.  "My grandfather, who was probably at least part djinn?  Or my dead grandmother?  Mom... wasn't eager to pursue that.  She wants to leave the past in the past."  She thinks for a minute, and then says quietly "Would you like to see a photograph of my grandmother?  I know where to find one, and with all these people moving around, it'll be easy to get it." 

"I'd like to." Colin says. "Well, I only asked because I'd like to help. I don't want to stir up anything your mom would like left alone. I just thought knowing where you come from could be useful to you. I'd like to know more about the Spirit Dancer before me, but I can't. It's hidden to me."

"You can't really hurt anything by just looking at a photograph," Sammy opines.  "Come with me."

The wall for the stairs going up is a kind of gallery for family photos.  There are many pictures of Sammy's parents with their girls, and of the girls alone.  There are some older pictures too, from when Sammy's dad was a boy.  The symmetry is preserved with a photo of Sammy's mom and her mom from when Mrs Jameson was about 5 or 6 years old.

Colin's attention focuses on the older woman. He tries to print the details of her face in his memory to be able to draw them later, if the need arises.

"What was her name?"

Sammy's voice is low and confidential.  "I think it was Marnie."  She looks at the photo of the then 20 something young woman, sitting on a wooden porch swing with the little girl who would become Mom.  "She looks sad."

Colin silently agrees.

"What has your mom told you about her?"

Sammy whispers back her answer.  "Not a lot.  She died in a car accident when Mom was pretty young, and Mom doesn't really talk too much about her life before she met Dad.  She said my grandma had a tough time in their town because she wasn't married when she had a baby."

"I'm sorry she did. People shouldn't be judged this way. As if being an only woman with a little child wasn't hard enough."

Colin lets his thoughts flow for a moment.

"Sammy, do you think your mom could know more than what she told you? Do you think she might have withheld something she knows from you, just to protect you?"

Sammy appears uncertain.  She chews on her bottom lip, then says "Maybe.  There's a lot she doesn't talk about.  I think there's a lot she just wants to forget, and she isn't proud of some of the things she did when she was a teenager."

Colin looks at her. "Would you rather know anyway?" he asks.

"I... I don't know.  Sometimes there are really good reasons for keeping secrets.  Beyond the identity of my grandfather, I'm not sure how much of it is really my business."

"I won't poke around then. I'll just use what you told me to find out what I can about your grandfather. Nothing more, ok?"

Sammy chews her lip some more.  "Yes..." she says slowly.  "I suppose that'll be okay.  But if there's anything else besides that which my grandmother wants me to know, don't stop her from talking, ok?  Maybe there's a family treasure hidden somewhere, and she died with the secret."

Later in the evening, when Sylvia has had enough of small talk and has that restless, ADD look on her face, she wanders to wherever Colin is brooding and somehow drops her pink Hello Kitty pen onto the floor near him, where he can see it.

The pink pen summons Colin's attention back from a distant land. He squats to pick it up, and as he hands it back to Sylvia, he looks at it.

"Is it yours? It doesn't look like your style."

Sylvia, despite her sometimes surly demeanor, has a small stash of Hello Kitty accoutrements that she carries in her big bag.  She doesn't bother to contradict, though.  Instead, the look that crosses her face for a second is contemplative, like she's come across a vexing word problem and doesn't have her calculator handy.  "I have a style?  Do you have a style?"  She pauses and drops her pen again.  "What is it?"

Colin tilts his head slightly. "Do you like it better on the floor?"

He picks it up again, but sometimes he waits before giving it back to her.

"I dunno. But I wouldn't have been surprised if you or your mother took an otherwise blank pen and went all art attack on it."

"Sorry.  I'm clumsy tonight.  Maybe someone put something in the punch."


Sylvia looks self-conscious.  "I must look like a ragdoll most of the time, huh?"  Whoops.  Down goes the pen again.

Colin frowns this time. "Sylvia, why don't you sit down for a while?"

He picks up the pen, puts it his pocket, and looks around for what Sylvia was drinking.

"Sure," she says, and drops herself into a seat where she can look at him, face to face.  "Not so mopey now?"  Sylvia's so beautifully tactful sometimes.  "Having a good time?"

Behind the chit-chat, she's pushing him as hard as she can.  TAKE THE PEN OUT OF YOUR POCKET.  It's a little like learning to ride a bicycle with neither help nor instruction.  All she knows to do is to pedal as hard as she can.

Will save (1d20 6=23) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1548775/)

"Not really. Syl, are you all right?" He's beginning to worry now. She looks a bit strange. For good measure, he tries to touch her hand.

She's looking, if anything, strained--as if she's practicing isometric body-building exercises while sipping her perfectly ordinary punch.  "I'm fine.  But you're not enjoying yourself?"  She frowns, and it distracts her from the exercise at hand.  "I'm sorry we hauled you out, then.  I thought you'd be miserable sitting in your room alone."  Take the pen out of your pocket, please?

Will save (1d20+6=18) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1556977/)

Sylvia's efforts bounce on Colin's mind, and he doesn't even notice them.

"It's a nice party. It's just that I've had... unexpected news. Have you have ever felt like you had finally understood something about the world, and then everything crashes on you to prove you wrong?" He keeps looking at her.

"Are you sure you're all right? You look... tense."

"I'm still waiting to be proven wrong," Sylvia says, without a trace of the bleakness.


Sylvia relents.  "Sorry.  I was using you as my punching bag.  I met someone a little while ago who did this cool trick, and I've been trying to teach myself."

"Well, it's weird. I'm not sure what to think. I guess I expected it to be very different."


It takes him a few moments to realize what she means.

"Oh." he says taking the pen out of her pocket and giving it back to her.
"I'm not sure I'm a good punching bag. I've been training myself to resist this kind of things. I'm too scared of what could happen if someone like Torrance would take control of my actions. I've seen first hand what Sammy almost did."

"What was it you learned?"


Sylvia idly sweeps her pen off the table, into a crowd of hardcore band geeks.  One of them returns it to her, and while she thanks him, the success doesn't thrill her.  "How do you train yourself to resist mind control?"

"Vandross. He's not who I expected him to be."


"Meditation. You try to focus on a single thought, until everything else fades away. Not unlike what monks do, I think, but doing it in the silence of monastery should be easier I guess."

Sylvia leans forward, intent on what Colin has to say.  "Who is he?"


She seems skeptical.  "What one thought?  I mean, what do you think about to the exclusion of all else?"

Colin seems reluctant. "Donnie Howell. Megan's brother."


"Any. It's not important what. I usually choose something very simple. A glass of water. The rhythm of your steps. I think it's the process of focusing that builds embankments into the head. It helps during tests too."

"Holy--!"  Sylvia would do Carolyn proud with the expletive she utters.  "Are you kidding?  Who told you?"  Her head swivels, eyes seeking out Logan as a kind of reflex.  "What are we going to do?"


"I'm usually trying to shut out the static during tests.  It's hard to tell sometimes which ideas are my own and which are just noise.  I'm terrified that someday I'll write down someone else's answer and I'll get accused of cheating."

"Nothing. At least for now. We let the police do their work, now that they know what to look for. We only have to wait."


"So it's more like hearing than seeing? I mean you can't close your 'mental eyes', can you? Or you think you could learn with practice?"

"It can be like overhearing a conversation.  Sometimes you can't help it.  With some people it's like they're talking all the time, nonstop, and with some people it's like they never talk.  And some are loud, and some are soft.  I can ignore most of it, but tests are hard because people are thinking loudly and explicitly.  Or they're anxious, and the monlogue is something like:  'Can't flunk.  Gotta focus.  Can't flunk.  Gotta focus.'"