Esther had fallen back into contemplation with a lull in the conversation, and she was wondering just what was happening to her. How was it that she had been given these powers, and then tossed about from place to place as a leaf on the wind, only to end up here, in a tiny, unassuming town in America where there were other people like her?

Was it possible that God had at last decided to create a momentary rest, a refuge from her suffering? Or was she merely being shown that she was being selfish by rejecting this part of herself, that other were suffering as she was, or viewing their abilities as a gift rather than a curse? She could not say, and it was all a bit too much for her to consider at once.

A knock at the door broke her out of her reverie. Who could possibly be coming in at this hour? The store was about to close... Standing, she nodded to the other two to indicate that she would answer, and pulled open the ancient-looking wooden door to see who had come about.

She was glad she wasn't still holing her teacup, because she might have dropped it. "But you're..." she was pretty certain that he was supposed to be in an ambulance right now, if not at the hospital already. It took her a few seconds, but eventually her better nature took hold of her shock and banished it. She offered an uncertain smile and gestured to the table where the other two were sitting. "Please, come in."

She moved back over to the table, leaving the door opened this time, and poured another cup of tea, setting this one in front of the chair closest to the door. She wasn't exactly sure what had happened to the boy to get him back here so quickly, but she assumed he must have a purpose for returning this soon. Still, her Italian mannerisms would not allow her to receive a guest without offering him some form of refreshment, and thus the tea.

She retook her own seat, deciding that she would not press him to speak. Whatever he needed to say, he would say in his own time.

"no fires..." kisa murmurs in her sleep since tea actually puts her to sleep, having a nightmare.

Walking through the buring city "No! no fires! this town is everything!" crashing to my hands and knees, starting to cry at the lose of the town i grew up in. looking up I see sunshine rays through parting clouds and an unharmed city "jesus..." watching everything start to drip like it's melting i back up and start to sink "Noo!" squeezing my eyes shut and opening them, noticing the changing scene again, sitting on my bed at home "dear god....what is wrong with this place!?" suddenly something jumps me at my side and brands something on my neck

Jumping out of her sleep and falling out of the chair she groans "no more tea for me..." she rotates her head and when her hair falls, exposing her neck an upside down star is shone, like it was a new but healed burn "stupid nightmares are always connected with caffine so no more tea please"

Spencer noted the mild surprise on Esther's face when she opened the door, but ignored it. Today was insane enough that he probably looked it, too.
"Thank you for inviting me in, I just wanted to return the jacket."
Moving inside, he placed it on the table beside the girl and took a seat. He glanced down at the cup of tea. He didn't like tea- didn't like any hot drinks for that matter- but she had already poured it so...? After a few seconds of internal conflict he added "And thank you for the tea as well.", picking up the cup and taking a large gulp, using the cup and the hand holding it to hide a slight grimace.

Suddenly one of the other girls jumped up, falling from her chair. She looked like she had just been having a nightmare. Nightmare, or demonic vision? If everyone in the room was somehow linked, then surely he wouldn't be the only one with such experiences? He reached down to offer his hand to help her up, and noticed the mark on her neck. "Forgive me for being a bit direct, but how long have you had that mark on your neck?"
He looked down at the backs of his own hands, and noticed for the first time the cross on his right one. "When did that get there?...Oh, right, the Angel. How nice of it to give me another one, to go with the nice Satanic mark I've already got."
Despite his sarcastic and nonchalant tone, the cross actuallly infuriated him. Although he was agnostic, he wasn't a particularly great fan of Christianity- there was just something about it that always seemed to rub him the wrong way. Like stuck-up Angels.

"Esther, do you have any marks like that?" he asked, before remembering that she hadn't been the one to tell him her name, and hastily adding "And don't freak out about how I know your name, I didn't use my...errr...ability. Believe it or not an Angel told me..."
He sat looked around the room, waiting for them to tell him he was crazy and scratched at the back of his hand, the one with the cross.

"when did i get what mark on my neck?" kisa goes to the bathroom and looks at her neck in the mirror "aw come on! really?!" she goes back to the room with the others saying "its new" before crossing her arms and slumping in her chair mumbling "stupid dream people who brand people with stupid bullcrap" angrily to herself

Esther tried not to notice that the young man wasn't especially fond of her tea. He was drinking it anyway, after all, which was awfully kind of him. And he'd come to return her jacket, which she truthfully hadn't counted on seeing again.

She was swiftly pulled from such thoughts when Kisa appeared to wake from some kind of nightmare, and the subsequent flurry of activity appeared to revel a strange mark upon the girl's neck. Esther saw it and stifled a gasp, trying not to think too hard of things she would rather forget. The ones on the young man's hands only served to increase the impact, and she had to stop herself from running out of the room right then and there. This was too much of a reminder, too close to something that had happened before.

Her head was beginning to hurt, and she rubbed her temples, barely registering the voices of her guests as they swirled about the air, too lost was she in a haze of memories best left untouched.

"Father! Father please, you must help me! Father, where are you? Please, please make it stop!" Esther knew not whether her plea was directed to the priest who had raised her, currently elsewhere, or the Father of them all, who seemed always to be so. She doubted that it mattered, since her voice was carried away by ripping winds into the void of silence.

The young woman, only 13, fell to her knees on the grass, struggling desperately against the powers that wished to be free of their forced imprisonment. But she had been holding them back for too long, and now they were everywhere: winds tearing at the convent structure, blowing out windows and forcing doors from their hinges, rain battering away at the insides even as more of it gathered in thunderous clouds overhead, the earth shaking beneath her and erupting into columns of stone from beneath the ground.

'Please, not the fire... I have to stop the fire!' But all such effort was useless, and the flames burst forth from her hands without her consent, growing in the wind and even against the rain, burning all in their path.

"No!" she screamed, a cry torn from hoarse throat, and followed only by a sobbing helplessness that she hated with everything that she was but could not stop. The convent was burning, and she would die for it. She was the devil's spawn, a sinner unrepentant, a monstrous evil that deserved only Hell. So why did she wish so desperately to live when her existence could cause something like this?

"Please," she begged in a whisper, in between shuddering breaths. "Please, if you are out there, make this stop. Help me. I do not ask for forgiveness, for I know it is not mine to receive. I ask only that you spare those I have hurt more suffering. End this, your unworthy daughter begs of you."

There was an excruciating pain which seemed to originate from her back, and then the world went dark and cold.

Esther shook herself, surprised to find that her cheeks were wet with silent tears. Had she really become so lost in her own recollection that it had affected her without her noticing? The mark on her back flared painfully, and she bit down on her tongue to keep from crying out as she had when it happened.

She managed to catch the young man's last few sentences. "An angel?" she supposed it could happen. It made abut as much sense as anything else in her life did. Esther did not need to believe in God of the Devil, she knew exactly how real they both were. She paused for a moment, considering her response. In the end, she knew she could not lie. "Yes, I am marked," she answered simply. Her own brand spread across her shoulder blades and down her back, a cross with an encircled pentagram at its center, and the reminder of what had occurred had been what deterred her from touching that book.

Shaking her head a little, she tried not to think about it. "I seem to be at a disadvantage. An angel has provided you with my name, but I do not know yours." Esther decided that if these people were marked as she was, it would be best if they all knew something of each other, or at least what connected them.