Aunt Tilly was the kindest. She only sighed and said it was a lucky thing I’d come first, or Lan would have been a thirteenth child with all the power of a double-seventh son. I wouldn’t be near so much a danger when I went bad, Aunt Tilly said. Uncle Earn and Aunt Janna disagreed. They said Mama and Papa ought to have drowned me as soon as Lan was safely born, and it wasn’t too late yet if they just had the resolution.

There were plenty of others, too, all anxious to tell Mama and Papa how I was sure to go bad, and to report every little thing I did as evidence they were right. If I spilled my soup, it was done apurpose and with evil in mind; if a ball I kicked went astray and tore up the new plantings in the kitchen garden, it was done deliberately in malice and spite. And of course their children heard the talk, just like I did, and if they didn’t understand it all, they understood enough to make my life a misery.

My cousins were the worst, mainly because there were so many of them. Papa had six older brothers and three older sisters, and four of my uncles and two of my aunts had married and stayed in Helvan Shores. Sometimes I thought the whole town was related to me. But even the children who weren’t relatives took their cue from my cousins.

I tried to stay out of trouble, but when I hid away from my cousins, they said I was sly and sneaking. Mama and Papa started giving me gray, worried looks when they thought I wasn’t noticing. My older brothers and sisters, the ones nearest me in age, tried to protect me sometimes, but sometimes they joined in teasing me. Lan was the only one who always stuck up for me, no matter what.

When Lan and I were almost five, and because Lan was the seventh son of a seventh son, our grandfather had decided he should have a private tutor. “He’s still too young to learn spells, of course, but he can learn the theory,” my grandfather said, with a sidelong look at me. “Private lessons will make sure he learns goodness as well as strength and skill.” Even then, I didn’t need him to say anything more. I knew that what he really wanted was to make sure Lan got his magic lessons without me anywhere near, in case I might drag him down when I eventually went bad.