“I don’t think it happened like that. When he was telling lies about me from our schooldays, I felt very angry with him, and said to myself, ‘I’d like to take him down a peg.’ The light did so literally, it waited until he climbed up somewhere from whence it could take him down.”

“So it fused the whole box–c’moff it, Mum, it’s not that powerful.”

“Oh yes it is,” declared little Einstein, who was balancing a ball of energy on her hand.

“How d’ya do that?” Julie’s eyeballs were nearly out on stalks.

“Watch,” Trish flung the energy at the television and the fuse promptly blew in the plug.

“I hope you haven’t broken it,” I said wondering where we had a three amp fuse.

“I don’t think so, but it proves it can break things and fuses.” Trish was going to be a ruthless researcher if she went into science.

“Where did you get it from?” Julie was interrogating her little sister.

“From Mummy, where d’ya think.”

“How?”

“I just took it from her, she’s surrounded by it all the time.”

“Surrounded by what?” I asked pulling out the plug and unscrewing the top.

“The healing energy.”

“Can you see it?” I asked Trish.

She nodded.

“Can you see it now?” Julie was peering at me very strangely.

Trish nodded again.

I looked–I couldn’t see it.

“Where are you looking?” Julie peered at me.

“It’s like a very thin light all round her–go and put your hand next to her.”

Julie did as she was told, “Coo, I can feel something,” she had her hand nearly touching me, “It’s, like, buzzing.”

“It’s coming up you arm,” Trish chuckled.

“D’you mind? I’m trying to fix the television before Isaac Newton zaps it again.” There was a blue flash and Julie ended up lying on her back.

“What happened there?” I looked at Trish.

“When you got cross–a big lump of energy flew off you and hit Julie.”

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” I asked of my supine daughter.

“Yeah–wow, it was like an electric shock–I like saw this, like, blue flash and I was lying on the floor.”

“I think I might still have a small problem with controlling it,” I sighed.

“Wow, I wish I could do that.”

“You’d be decidedly dangerous,” I scolded her.

“Yeah, so–’s better than a knife like some people use.”

“Yeah, a built in taser.”

“Can’t you two see how awful this could be? If I’d been really angry with Julie or even that bloke the other night–I could have killed him or Julie.”

“Can I try?” said Trish.

“NO,” I said loudly and the blue flash threw her across the room, her fall only being broken by the fact that she hit the sofa, from which she bounced giggling.

I ran out of the room and up to my bedroom where I locked the door. If I stayed away from everyone, maybe no one would get hurt. I had visions of my students being thrown about the lecture theatre if they annoyed me, or cars catching fire or swerving off the road because I shouted at the driver for cutting me up.

I lay weeping on the bed–I couldn’t bear the idea that I might actually hurt someone with something that was designed to heal. I suppose I felt like those scientists, Nobel, Oppenheimer and so on who developed ideas which became weapons and thus killers.

I know it’s not the idea it’s the use it’s put to which matters. I seemed to be unconsciously hurting people simply by being cross with them. I was still responsible, how could I change things?

I drifted off to sleep, at least I think I did. I was lying on the bed and some strange woman walked up to me and touched me.

“You are finally learning the truth about our gift to you, Catherine.”

“I am?” I asked in astonishment, “I am–so what is the truth?”

“That is for you to learn, for if we reveal it to you, you will learn nothing and therefore not progress.”

“Why do you always talk in riddles? Why not take your gift and shove it? I’m tired of your silly games.”

“Your impudence does you no favours, Catherine.”

“Neither does your gift, apparently.”

“You challenge our wisdom?”

“Wisdom–hah–if you chose me, it seems signally lacking.”

“We did not choose you, you chose yourself and your path.”

“Yeah, like anyone with half a brain is going to choose to be transgendered and all the complications it causes.”

“You seem to have risen above them and coped very well, we are pleased with much of your progress.”

“Progress? What progress? You make it sound like I’m playing some sort of game of snakes and ladders–it might be a game to you, but this is my life you are pissing on, and I wish you’d stop and just let me get on with living it and raising my family.”

“You seem to miss the point, Catherine, life is a series of challenges from which you grow, mentally, physically and spiritually.”

“Yeah, well I’ve grown enough.”

“You never cease growing, Catherine, it’s what the human condition is all about.”

“Sure, only because you insist on it–like some payback because Prometheus took the knowledge of fire from the Olympian gods. Oh I suppose you’re still pissed at Eve and her apple?”

“That is beneath even you, Catherine, you know perfectly well the Garden of Eden refers to a combination of folk memory of the hunter gatherer society and pure allegory. Humans haven’t fallen, they never quite rose to fly, except with your primitive technology.”

“How about I give you some of the blue light treatment, throw you into a wall?”

“Then you would die, horribly.”

“Fine, at least I wouldn’t hurt anyone who matters to me.”

“Your attachment to your family is touching, if erroneous, and we are not going to be able to overlook much more of your insubordination without imposing consequences.”

“I don’t want to play this game anymore, take it away and go play with yourself with it.”

“You are so close to understanding–yet so far.”

“Let me wake up and be rid of you.”

“Be rid of us? Perhaps you’ve not made as much progress as we’d hoped.”

“Go away and leave me in peace,” I heard myself shouting and woke myself up.

“Are you alright, Mummy?” called Trish through the locked door.

“Oh–I fell asleep, I’m perfectly okay.”

I went and opened the door and she threw herself at me. “We were so worried.”

“About what?”

“About you, silly, Mummy. You were upset and we were worried.”

“Can you still see the blue light round me?”

“No, it’s gone.”

“Thank God for that,” I said grimacing at my own failure to avoid such loaded clichés.

“Can you still do the healing?”

“Who cares?” I felt quite relieved.

“You haven’t mended Auntie Stella yet or got her able to produce milk.”

“I don’t think I can, sweetheart–I can’t perform miracles, you know.”

“You can–I’ve seen you do it.”

“Yeah sure, I changed five loaves and two fishes into wine–still tasted of bread and fish mark you.” I laughed at my own cleverness.

Trish rolled her eyes–“You shouldn’t mock like that, it’s blasphemy.”

“Yeah, so what?” I didn’t care one way or the other.