The lady who Inherited the Compass came to my house about a week later. It was her job to find other Inheritors - I think she had the power to sniff us out or something - but she couldn’t ascertain distance, only direction. And of course she had to be allowed to leave first. The government wouldn’t let her get anywhere until they confirmed the new Inheritor was already somewhere. The Compass Inheritance wasn’t strictly dangerous, but it was a formality that it be kept with the others. It was also a formality that the Inheritor of the Compass be the one to greet the new Inheritor.

Her birth name was something ordinary, but she changed her name to South East when she Inherited the Compass. I don’t know if it was more of a reference to her Inheritance, the celebrity child of opposing name, or her new geographic location inside Inheritor’s Valley, Tennessee. Maybe all three. She dressed in a black pantsuit and talked to my parents quietly in the kitchen for what felt like hours. I eavesdropped from the hallway, and they could tell I was there due to the temperature, but they didn’t say anything.

I was being signed away. The Inheritors were too dangerous to be allowed to roam free. I won't bother recounting every minutia of my parents' reception of this news. But it involved their empty stares at me, their murmured agreements that something needed to be done, their slow acknowledgement that they knew it was coming, their attempts to feel resentment, or even grief. They'd never see me again. Whatever. I felt more or less the same about them.

I don't know why, but I expected the parting to be more meaningful, more dramatic. Instead it felt like I was watching something on television, something distant from me.

South East was surrounded by guards dressed in black, with earpieces and sunglasses, who spoke to each other in hushed tones and hand signals, both barely looking at us. South East was by far the least dangerous among the Inheritors, and she still had to be watched like this. A formality. My new life, I supposed. We sat in the backseat of a police car together. Everything I could manage to pack in thirty minutes was in a couple suitcases, stuffed in the trunk.

"Margo," South East tried to initiate conversation, "Do you know where the Inheritor's Valley is?" Her tone was smooth and matronly, as if she was genuinely educating me in something I might not know, as if she had an interest in my well-being.

"No." I lied.

"There are some pockets in the Appalachian mountains that have a dampening effect on Inheritances, and Inheritor's Valley is the largest and most effective of these. It's located in North Carolina, but we'll be far from everything else."

I nodded.

"I know it must be a lot, but you'll have a new life and new family when we get there. You'll be able to make new friends!"

I nodded.

"You'll get an apartment all to yourself, but you can invite me over whenever you're feeling lonely. Doesn't that sound exciting?"

I nodded, but it did not sound exciting. This lady was like forty years old, almost as old as my parents, and having a sleepover with her sounded just about the same as having a sleepover with my parents. In other words, completely ordinary but also awful. I had no intentions of inviting her into my home, or inviting anyone else for that matter.

It was curious though, that I was being provided a living space. Being a teenager, I'd never had a place to call my own before. I could play my music as loud as I wanted. Well, if I had Internet there, but something told me I wouldn't.

"There are even some kids your age there, and younger. You'll be able to hang out with them and do kid things."

Kid things. Joy. I nodded anyway.

I was sixteen, I had a driver's license and everything. I could have been driving the car. But I was so powerless. It felt like a really was a kid again, and my mother was talking down to me about how the doctor wasn't actually as scary as I was making him out to be. But this wasn't some whitecoat prodding me and telling me I had strep throat, this was everything I knew and (debatably) loved being ripped from me as I was sent somewhere else where I knew absolutely nothing.

I couldn't really fault South East for trying, but I should feel about her the same way I felt about my mother: love underneath, but resentment and anger over the top of it. She was annoying and didn't understand me. She'd make a fine surrogate. She professed her love for me, but wouldn't be bothered to help if I was in pain or trouble. Somehow, that thought comforted me.

We rode for an hour or so in silence, interrupted occasionally by her attempting to make conversation. I got sick of it, and asked the driver to turn on the radio. He laughed shortly at this, as if I'd said something stupid.

"He thinks you're going to use it to receive communications." South East whispered to me.

I widened my eyes in response. "He knows I have connections to all the radio stations? That I formed them through blood bonds in anticipation of the rare event that I Inherited?"

She smiled at my sarcasm, but it was clear she did not feel like smiling.