(Photographer Unknown)

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"Thanks for getting the mail, chickee," her mom called out right when Anthemone noticed the silver and gold envelope protruding from the fiberglass showbox.  Decades after the Postal Service had yielded to the times, some Regulars insisted that physical post was a matter of tradition and refused to correspond any other way. Her mother, a forward compass for the local police forces which employed all sorts, thought nothing of it.  Anthemone didn't know what she thought.  She could see wanting to opt out of a group that would never include her—don't think about it leave it alone it's fine mom doesn't care dad loves me it's finefinefine—but she didn't see the purpose of inviting scorn.  Stand out but not too much. Isn't that what everybody says?

Anthemone shoved the fretful thought right out of her head and stalked into the house, only to stumble over her youngest sister Kim, alias: Thing 2, hiding behind the holographic potted fichus in the hall.

"Marco!"

Anthemone grabbed her temples at the babyish shout that assaulted her ears from the inside out.

"Polo!"

"Marco!" replied Thing 1, Bally the middle child, from the middle room.  Anthemone would know her sister sight unseen, even in the echoing cavern of her braincase.  There's that headache.  Cal – 1, Me – negative 500.

"Polo!" Kim sounded a second time like a screeching avenging angel who'd just discovered pitch.  Bally was the projective telepath of the tandem duo and Kimmy the precognitive.  Together, god only knew what they'd do.

 "Marco!"

The noise scraped Anthemone's nerves raw, and she could not be doing with raw today.  The pitying looks. The sneering. Now, this? This where my baby sisters do everything I wish I could for a game?

"Enough!" she snapped.  "Both of you, reading time. Go see momo."

Bally appeared at the entryway to the family room, peaking into the foyer with copper bright eyes.

Kimmy hiccupped in alarm. "Momo's mad."

"No, she's not."  Anthemone hadn't done anything wrong, but she already saw the disappointed look in on her mother's face.  Come on, ma. Let up.

A soft "Uh oh" skittered across Anthemone's thoughts in Bally's voice. 

Kimmy raised her shoulders and ran to join Bally in the archway where they immediately joined hands.  "Almost."

'Almost' was their word for soon. They hadn't got the gist of temporality just yet, so all they knew was yes, no, and almost.  Mom's almost mad.  We're going to have a fight right before my birthday.  No second sight and grounded.  Some bittersweet sixteen I'm having.

Anthemone refused.  She refused to have that kind of day today or tomorrow. She didn't want to fight, all she wanted was to move on.  I've always been a little bit of a freak, so this'll be a change.

She turned over the missive in her possession to the littlest Manigault.

"Kim Kim, give momo this letter. Bals, make sure she does.  That's your mission, 'kay?"

They nodded in synchrony. "Mmmhm," Bally answered for both, leading the way as they scurried toward the study where mom was sure to be balancing the ledger.

Anthemone bolted to the townhouse attic where her room was located.  She'd moved upstairs when one new addition became two and it seemed unfair to try to make one bedroom big enough for three.  She had mourned the distance from her parents for weeks, nightmares about being forgotten plaguing her sleep and she theirs until she realized that they didn't love her any less or miss her any less than she missed them.  She remained well aware of this even as she locked her door behind her, knowing that her mom would take an unsecured door as an invitation to give her eldest the third degree, inevitably leading to a fight.

It wouldn't be the first time lately.

Anthemone had been quietly fuming at the world for weeks with her mother as the unlucky recipient of her moods in the present and in the moments her mother could predict.  She's getting it in both directions. 

She flung herself on her creaky wicker daybed to brood at the reclaimed exposed beams that made this attic her home.  Suspended holo-chimes and flower chains filled the airspace above her head, swinging softly when she'd blow like she was a force of nature instead of a failure of the same.

Mom's on the stairs, thinking of coming in.

Anthemone stared at the door, waiting to see what tonight would bring.  One minute passed, another; her mother didn't show.  She grunted.  Some seer.  I can predict what might happen with 0.953% accuracy.  That'll change the world.  Thanks a lot, ma.

As unfair as it was, Anthemone blamed her mother for how useless her Sight was.  Cherise Blessed was a ten to twenty-second seer. That was well beyond the threshold for certifiable Sight, yet scientists had only verified genetic linkage among offspring of seers of a minute's duration or more. Her mother's gift was not merely Sight but nigh on infallible intuition, none of which Anthemone had inherited.  Intuition, sure. Infallible, not so much.  From her father, she'd gotten nothing save the furrow in his brow and his kinky corkscrew spirals of hair.  It was common knowledge that children could only inherit abilities from one parent and once Anthemone had dipped to avoid a flying discus to the shnoz at age six, any question of whose sense she'd be sharing had been laid to rest.

And it hasn't risen since.

Most seers and sayers manifested their senses around the age of fifteen, if not before. Those that didn't show signs by sixteen typically never did.  Upon their sixteenth birthday, those people became formally known as Regulars.  Informally, they were the blind and the mute, the ignorant and the mealy-mouthed. To put it diplomatically, and Anthemone tried always to be the type, they were "the less fortunate" that the modern world had to offer.  And they hate it.

Anthemone hated that she didn't need heightened senses to see her future in detail.  Regular didn't have to be completely without sense to be deemed of little use. Anybody with less than four seconds of precognitive ability or who wouldn't project knowledge to more than one person at a stretch was Regular by design.

 In a world that thrived on collective influence and the "big picture," there wasn't much room for those who could only affect change in ones and twos.  Seconds and singles. Ones and twos.

"You know what, forget this.  Forget this. This is bunk.  So what if I'm Regular. I'll be the best freakin' Regular anybody's ever seen."

Anthemone scrounged under her bed for her emergency midterm snack stash before setting out to study for the next day's exam.  She could be ordinary and still shine.  Nothing has to change.  This isn't anything I didn't already know.

She powered on her data con that occupied the further wall of her room from corner to corner, loaded all of the term's outstanding lectures and attacked her studies with the relish of the truly depressed.   Biology wasn't the boss of her.  Not any further than it kept her from seeing what she wanted to see, at any rate.  Dinner later, study first.  If all Anthemone had before her were the little victories, so be it; she'd dominate those, too.

A handful of notifications for vid post messages appeared in the top right hand corner of the screen soon after she began reviewing 19th Century discoveries in seerist biology.

Guiren Lee and Cal were silent figures dancing in the periphery. Both were wearing matching mint green birthday hats, waving black light sticks.  Khadijah Mallard, the genius upperclassman, wasn't dancing but she was waving.  Anthemone ran her finger down the column of chat messages and each one popped up with a preview: Happy BDay, An! They all read, laden with a variety of promises to ambush her with whacks and hugs between classes throughout her big day.

Anthemone watched her friends make fools of themselves a while longer, and then conceded to her real need to study.  She wasn't usually one to put important stuff off to the last minute, knowing as well as she did how time flew when she was pressed.  The sooner tomorrow comes and goes, the better. I'll make it up to everyone. I'll make it up to mom.

Hours later, Anthemone was pacing the buffed floor of her room, reciting the natural history of the degenerative telepathic disorder Carré's Aphasia to keep from falling asleep before the last lecture's end. Carré's Aphasia is a disease afflicting sayers of 20+ telepathic range who find their powers suddenly and most often permanently stunted.  Has been linked to the suspected null capabilities of certain members of the population who are neither subject to the influence of Sayers nor visible in the purview of Seers.

She yawned.  There's something worse than being senseless: being a Trojan horse to every non-Regular you meet.  She chomped a handful of dried apricots and paced onward.

Imposing Lecturer Tenaka, head of the Natural Sciences at Keyworth-Day, finally took a breath after his marathon session on the plasma vid, rounding off his lecture with a reminder of the test format, testing guidelines, and warnings against attempts to cheat.

"The consequences will be severe.  This isn't a an imprecation not to be caught, it's a promise that those of you foolish enough to think academic dishonesty will serve you well have only yourselves to blame for what's to come.  Testing will begin sharply at eight. Bring your slates and do not be late.  As I'm sure you're all reviewing this recording at five in the morning on the night before the exam, nap well and coffee will be provided." He winked with his typical subtle humor right before the recording shut down.

Best instructor at Keyword-Day eleven years running and that's why.

Anthemone shrugged out of her day clothes to dress for sleep in a mint green nightshirt.  It smelt of lavender oil and vanilla bean teacakes.  I should have brought a box home with me. Bally likes them best.  She vowed to be a better sister in her sixteenth year, to be better all around.

I can do this, she told herself in the last few moments that preceded a sure dead sleep.  I can be good at anything. I've never been less.

The brass clock above her desk ticked over to two a.m. on the anniversary of her birthday sixteen years prior.  Anthemone hated the reminder, yet she smiled regardless. She'd always loved being a birthday girl and her parents were the best at celebrating.  Tomorrow will be sweet. Safe in the knowledge that tradition walloped Sight for expectation, Anthemone fell fast asleep.