The door reopened, and Moriah emerged from the doorway, dressed far more casually than I expected. She had a green woolly sweater atop a pair of jeans. The sweater was decorated with a cute cartoony red dragon resting near a campfire. It looked exactly like the kind of thing Lizzie would wear on Christmas. Her face quickly brightened when she saw us, grinning and offering a wave. “Hi, so glad to see you made it!”

                We walked closer to that elusive front door when she closed it behind her. I again gestured to my girlfriend in greeting. “This is Lizzie, my girlfriend.”

                “It’s so nice to meet you,” Moriah said sweetly, extending her hand.

                “It’s nice to meet you too,” Lizzie said politely, accepting the handshake. “I like your sweater.”

                Moriah smiled warmly. “Thank you, I figured it fit the theme of the day.”

                Lizzie’s jaw dropped suddenly. “Wait, you’re not saying- are dragons real too!?”

                Moriah laughed with a dismissive hand wave. “If they are, it’d be the first I’d heard of. Sorry, didn’t intend to mislead you there.” She crossed her arms looking between us, but not as though she was studying us. It felt like she was seeing her relatives for the first time in ages, and she was getting her first “new” look. “Thank you for coming over to talk, I know that it’s hard to trust everything that’s going on, so giving us a chance is really appreciated.”

                I nodded awkwardly, feeling better now that I was actually seeing Moriah in person. I’d been picturing this business-focused woman, no affability within her, despite what her phone call and social media implied about her. But looking at her now, she really did just feel like a concerned mother more than any kind of governmental secret agent. I knew that a real secret agent would be just as trusting initially to reel me in, but at this point I didn’t care. She already had a stranglehold on me if she was evil or not. If I was screwed, there wasn’t much point in trying to fight it. Instead, I decided to let go of my fears and just try trusting her. “I’m really sorry I’ve been so closed off, I was just making sure I wasn’t making any kinds of mistakes.”

                “And I don’t blame you at all,” she said understandingly. “We’re the same way here. It’s why I’ve been willing to let you know that there’s a place to go, but before you’re an official member, we need some assurance that you’re qualified.”

                I sighed. “You mean proving my electrical powers.”

                Lizzie’s eyes widened, but she bit her lip. She must not have been expecting me to relent so fast, but I was too far gone at this point.

                Moriah’s smile widened a bit. “So then… you’re confirming it? Would you be willing to demonstrate?”

                I pursed my lips awkwardly, exchanging a glance with my girlfriend. “Yes, it’s true. But… uh, I can’t actually demonstrate anything.”

                Moriah’s smile slowly vanished. “You can’t? Why?”

                “Because… I made a promise to my mother that I wouldn’t use my powers until after graduation. It’s a… long story…” I added when her face grew concerned.

                “I see… it sounds like it’s weighing heavily on your mind…” she said observably.

                I shrugged noncommittally. “It’s not exactly a thing you talk about with someone you just met…”

                Moriah nodded sympathetically. She rubbed the back of her head awkwardly, looking between me and Lizzie, trying to determine how best to break the bad news. “I’m… I’m sorry guys. I know you made the long drive over here, but for our own safety, I don’t know if I can answer any further questions about what we do here without some compensation. I know you know about Hazel, but for the safety of the others who are with us, I think it’s best if we end our conversation here.”

                I nodded slowly, trying not to let her disappointment sink into me. “I understand.”

                She smiled weakly at me. “Perhaps we can revisit this topic once you’re graduated then. Give you some time to focus on your studies, talk to your mom, and give us a call when you’re ready.”

                I again nodded, a bit more confidently. “Yeah, I’d like that--”

                “Hold on,” Lizzie interrupted, her eyebrows up in sudden realization. “We may not be able to demonstrate Beck’s powers in person, but I bet we can still prove them.” She began fumbling into her jean pockets, pulling out her phone. Moriah and I stared confusedly as I racked my brain to figure out what she was trying to do. She tapped around a bit until she turned the phone around, showing a picture.

                I gasped in realization when I saw it. It was one of the pictures that Lizzie and I took the night we discovered my powers back in Boston. That night, Lizzie and I retreated to the hotel room and just started messing around doing whatever we could think of that my powers could do. By the end of this night, I’d discovered I could telepathically speak, summon balls of electricity, charge up electronics without a cord, and so much more. After discovering some telekinetic abilities with electronic and magnetic items, we’d had fun taking pictures on Lizzie’s phone from a distance. I’d been able to manipulate the touch screen on her phone to think a finger was pressing on it and was able to snap pictures without being anywhere near the phone. She turned the phone over to Moriah to show a specific picture where the phone had been lifted up to near the ceiling, and we’d posed in a childlike way. I, specifically, was holding my arm out like I had the Force from Star Wars. Moriah narrowed her eyes in confusion. “What exactly am I looking at?”

                “That,” Lizzie said proudly, “is a picture taken telekinetically. Beck’s holding the phone up from afar with his hand and pressing the picture button on the touch screen without touching it himself.”

                “Telekinesis!?” she gasped in pleasant surprise. She glanced my way, an excited smile plastered on her lips. “That must be cool. How did you discover that?”

                I sheepishly rubbed my head. “Sorta by accident. We were fiddling around with magnetic items at first, altering the magnetic field and such, and I discovered that I could just kinda… hold them in place. In midair. I tried it with electrical items as well, and it worked as well.”

                “Incredible…” she said, revisiting the photo again. But the more she stared at it, the more her smile began to falter a bit. “I’m… I’m afraid to say that while this is reassuring, I don’t think it’ll suffice as proof. There’s still room for doubt that the picture was taken through supernatural means.”

                “Seriously?” I blurted out in surprise. “The phone’s practically on the ceiling of the hotel room, how could that happen?”

                “A third party on a chair or desk? Incredible balance on a cupboard and a timer? Trust me, I want to believe you Beck, but there’s just too much plausible deniability.”

                I was about to argue further, but Lizzie’s grin expanded suddenly. “Perhaps… this will change your mind.” She swiped a couple of photos to the left, stopping on a different photo. This one had the phone much more directly aimed in our direction, but this time neither of us had our arms extended. Instead, I was hovering my hands around what could only be described as a ball of electricity. Bright and yellow, the ball was about the size of a volleyball, and instead of being in contact with my hands, it floated in between them. I’d held my hands to either side of it in a flexing position, as though I was pushing something in between, when really in contact with nothing. Lizzie was off to the side, an exaggerated and fake look of shock to her expression, complete with hands to the face and a dropped jaw.

                Moriah’s eyes widened as she took the phone from Lizzie’s hands and brought it closer to her face. She studied it closely, nodding to herself. “Taken Tuesday March Fourteenth… that checks out. What is this thing?”

                I shrugged. “Pretty much exactly what it looks like, just a ball of electricity. I can conjure it with my hands, and it stays within my control as well. I haven’t done much with it besides light shows, but… you know.”

                She sighed and gave the phone back to Lizzie. “Well, this is definitely shoddier evidence than normal, but I really believe that you’re being honest with me. So, I’m going to put my trust in you two that you’re telling me the truth.”

                “Are you sure?” I asked. “There’s probably more damning photos in there, we took a lot of photos that night…”

                Moriah cut me off with a bit of a chuckle and a nod. “I’m sure. At this point you’ve done enough to earn my trust, barring breaking a promise that’s clearly very personal to you, so I won’t pry any further.”

                “Thank you…” I replied gratefully, not wanting to recount my personal business to her so soon. “And thank you for trusting us. I know it’s not easy to trust us without better evidence…”

                She dismisses my concern with a hand wave. “It wouldn’t be magic without secrecy. At this point it’s part of life,” she chuckled. “Now then, I know you have many questions. Why don’t we go inside and escape this chilly weather and continue our conversation there?” Lizzie and I nodded, and Moriah gestured for us to follow her in.

                She led us up the front doorsteps and held open the door for us to go through into the house first. The place wasn’t as big as I expected, a stairway right at the entrance and a hallway leading to an open concept living room and kitchen. Moriah closed the door behind us and gestured forward into the hallway, where Lizzie and I passed through, eyeing the city skyline photographs that lined it, ones I quickly recognized as Chicago. “Hey Cole, I have someone I’d like to introduce you to,” she called out ahead of herself.

                The open concept room was spacious enough, a quaint kitchen to the left, and the living room to the right. A half-circle of couches and recliner chairs surrounded a flat-screen, one that was currently playing the local news, recapping the Chicago Bulls’ and Blackhawks’ seasons thus far. Sitting on the big sky-blue couch was Hazel, nervously fidgeting her hands, raising a small smile toward us when we came into view. Next to her, beginning to stand, was the man I’d recognized as Cole Bentley, Moriah’s birth son. He had a goofy grin on his face the moment he stood.

                “Cole, this is Beck Roland, and his girlfriend Lizzie. Beck, Lizzie, this is Cole, my son,” she paused for a moment and gave us a smirk, “and our group’s pyrokinetic.”