Legacy by Molly Cochran

wrong. And “great-grandmother” was really awkward. Finally I came up with “Gram,” which I hoped she wouldn’t think was too familiar. One day I tried it, tentatively, as I held up a quilting square.
    “How’s this . . . Gram?” I swallowed.
    She smiled. “It’s perfect,” she whispered, adding “Katy.”
    Sometimes a name can mean a lot.
    Then there was Peter. Peter, with his beautiful chiseled face and eyes like an angry sea. Peter, who’d caught me in his perfectly muscled arms on a marble staircase. Oh, Peter . . .
    Actually, Peter hadn’t done anything romantic since that day.
    What if he was only being nice when he walked me to class, or joked with me at work, or stayed up with me late nights studying? What if he was just being friendly when he took me to his friends’ dorm parties?
    Maybe he totally wasn’t interested in me at all. Maybe he was gay.
    The prospect began to gnaw at me. I wished I knew someone who understood these things. I needed a consultant, but I couldn’t think of any girls who might be able to help me. Verity Lloyd was, if anything, even less worldly than I was. The Muffy girls would probably know, but I could just imagine what they’d say if I asked them how to get my pseudo-boyfriend to kiss me.
    So I did the unthinkable. I went to my relatives.
    Aunt Agnes was standing in the entryway, talking with Jonathan and his crew. I was glad my great-grandmother wasn’t around. I loved her, but I wouldn’t feel right talking about the possible homosexuality of my boyfriend with an eighty-year-old woman who wore a doily on her head.
    As I approached, once again all the lumber and tools fell out of the carpenters’ hands onto the ground. It occurred to me that these guys must be the clumsiest workmen in New England.
    “It’s all right,” Agnes said quickly. “Katy’s a teleporter.”
    “Oh, is she now?” Jonathan asked, smiling in surprise, although it was not the degree of surprise I might have expected from a workman hearing that information. Then he lowered his hand to his side and spread his fingers. The fallen hammer shot upward through the air into his waiting palm.
    “Me, too,” he said cheerfully.
    It took me a moment to recover, but as he and his men all summoned their tools in the same manner, I realized that they hadn’t actually dropped anything when they’d seen me coming, because they hadn’t actually been holding anything in the first place. The materials they’d been working with had been suspended in midair.
    “Get me one of those three-inch planks, would you, pretty?” Jonathan asked, gesturing toward a pile of wood.
    “Uh, sure,” I said, picking one up. They were very thin and light. “Do you want more than one?”
    “One’ll do. But don’t use your hands.” He winked at Agnes. “Well, you said she was a witch, didn’t you?”
    Agnes crossed her arms over her chest. “She doesn’t need to prove anything to you, Jonathan.”
    “Oh, let her.” He gave me a smile of encouragement. “Have at it, Katy.”
    I hesitated. I’d never pushed in front of anyone before. There was the incident at the Halloween party, but the blanket I’d used to put out the fire was imaginary, so no one really saw anything.
    Blushing a little, I tried to forget my embarrassment and concentrate on moving the wainscoting.
Up
, I thought, and there it was, easy as pie. Then I pushed it toward Jonathan. It wobbled a little at first, dipping and veering off course once when I looked over at Agnes.
    “Hold on to it, Katy,” Jonathan whispered. That brought my attention back to the piece of wood. “Right, girl. Put it in this slot here.” The wood moved into place with a satisfying
snick
. “There you go,” he said, nailing it in. “You’d make a fine carpenter, I’d wager.”
    I was so pleased with myself that I focused back on the lumber and lifted the whole pile into the air, organizing it into a solid wall before sending it flying over to Jonathan. He laughed