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The light from the glowing embers in the fireplace danced across the walls, the furniture, and across Phryne Fisher’s face as she stared silently at the flames.
“So, when did you first discover…” Jack asked cautiously.
“I fully realized it when I was with Rene but, looking back, it may have started earlier and grown gradually. After puberty, boys seemed to notice me and it made sense to me that every young girl would be invigorated after her first inroads into romance. Holding hands for the first time, the first kiss. Even without any physicality, I found I had the ability to encourage some people to pay attention to me, see my side of things, feel certain ways, certain positive, erotic, or calming emotions. It helped during the war to get the soldiers to calm down, to help lessen pain or panic, to get them to rest and sleep. I always felt better after I had helped them.
When I first met Rene, he said I was his muse but when I gave him my virginity, it was like a tidal wave. I had never felt anything like that and neither had he. I was exhilarated and assumed that what I was feeling was love. The more intense the sex, the more vital I felt and the more exhausted Rene felt, yet at the same time, he seemed to become obsessive towards me as though he was somehow addicted. Rene became insanely jealous, wanted me to stop seeing any friends, and accused me of being unfaithful, then beat me claiming that I was going to leave him.
I came to understand what was happening gradually and learned, overtime to control the taking and utilization of the energy. In fact, I used it to escape him when the time came. After that final beating, which was the worst, I “encouraged” him to sleep for several days. That’s when I escaped back to England.
I confessed to Mother what had happened and she burst out in tears. She had hoped that I would be spared. Apparently, I had inherited this anomaly from my father. We can utilize certain forms of emotions as sustenance much like needing food, air, & water. The stronger the emotion, the more energy we take in. Different people take in different ranges of emotion but, within a family line, there will be at least one common emotional range. The Fishers’ common emotional range is desire. I prefer the positive emotions as the negative ones make me ill. Father, as should be no surprise, tends to prefer to feed on greed and the more negative emotions.”
Jack slowly took a sip of his drink as he took in the information and simply said, “Go on.” There was a strong part of him that wanted to make a quip concerning the common emotional range but thought better of it. He knew how difficult this discussion was.
“As I mentioned, if we take too much or too often from one individual, they can become addicted. I have always suspected that it was the reason why Mother never left even after everything he put her through. She was never actually in love with him, she merely became addicted to him.” Phryne’s eyes filled with unshed tears for her mother’s situation. She then closed her eyes, took a breath, and continued.
“That’s one of the major reasons why I chose to never marry, I didn’t want to lose myself and I refused to take anyone else’s control away from them. If I did that, I would be no better than my father or Rene’. I taught myself to absorb small amounts of energy when I flirt or energy from groups, such as when I go dancing and if I find myself needing more energy to accomplish a task, or to heal an injury, or I’m going to be exerting myself quite a bit, I have a dalliance. We’re both sated, I get the energy I need without worrying that I have injured anyone and they leave tired but sated.”
“So you never take energy from anyone here at Wardlow or Mac?”
Phryne shook her head vehemently. “Not directly. I couldn’t, these are people I love, my family. I just… I just couldn’t. They are my family. Dot, Mac, and Mr. B have offered when I’ve really been hurt but I would rather heal naturally than put them at risk. I have to admit that I think I actually felt better just knowing that they cared enough to offer but I will not turn my family into… food.”
Jack found himself wanting to ask another question but fearful of her answer. Just as he started to ask, she supplied the answer as though she was the one with telepathy.
“Ironically, had I needed to when we met, I would have enjoyed having a dalliance with you but all too soon you became my friend and, as I said before, I just couldn’t. Even after what Foyle did to me, I refused to consider…”
Jack’s heart quickened because her original words had been that she couldn’t take energy from people she loved. Was he included in that category?
“I will, however, admit you were included in a couple of group situations but they were either emergencies or I wasn’t aware you were there until after I had started.”
“When was that?”
Phryne smiled at the memory. “The first one was when you released me and Sasha from the steam bath. I was a bit closer to succumbing than I would have liked to admit. Luckily, the officers’ reactions to a woman wearing only a towel and, for one of the officers in the back, the sight of Sasha’s nude posterior provided me with more than an adequate amount of sustenance to keep me from completely passing out into your arms.”
Jack cocked his head in extremely mild rebuke but then said, “I don’t remember feeling unusually tired that evening.”
Phryne thought for a moment. “To be honest, I’ve never really had the ability to check or gauge the levels of energy taken against the number of people in the group. I do know if I had taken that amount of energy out of one person, they would have felt it. They wouldn’t have gone unconscious but they would definitely have been exhausted.”
“When was the other time?”
Phryne smirked but then looked sheepish. “In my defense, I had no idea that you were going to be there, that ANY of you were going to be there. It was at the club during the fan dance. I just thought I’d never get another chance like that to absorb such a large crowd of aroused people and the prospect of “shortening” some of the patrons’ date nights was, shall we say, a bit of a giggle. By the time I saw you all standing there… let’s just say that that much energy was intoxicating. All the different avenues of energy, some had nothing to do with me or what I was doing, most were streams of different intensities…” Phryne chuckled, “I may have accidentally pulled Hugh the rest of the way through puberty that night. And then there was… well, I just made the choice to concentrate on the job at hand. It’s a wonder I wasn’t glowing.”
Now it was Jack’s turn to smile, “Miss Fisher, you are always glowing. Your aura needs its own postal code. But that does explain some things.”
Now, it was her turn to tilt her head in confusion.
“At least for me, my form of telepathy is synesthetic. I see and read auras and other’s emotions. Through the aura, I can ascertain if their basic attributes and by reading the changes while we are speaking, I can determine if they are lying to me or not.”
Phryne’s eyes danced as she listened to him. “What a marvelous attribute for police work!”
Jack took another sip of his drink. “Yes, as long as I kept it hidden so the attorneys didn’t try to claim I had invaded the individual’s privacy. But the ability caused a lot of pain in personal relationships. Rosie’s family is quite bigoted against those with ‘talents’ so I never discussed mine. That was fine until the war. I knew I had changed because of what I had gone through and had emotionally shut down but then to watch her love for me wither and die… I hadn’t been able to share my gifts with her and then, not wanting to burden her with the horrors I had seen during the war. I felt she deserved more. And, ironically, as my emotions shut down, my abilities seemed to diminish. Because I closed myself off, they shut down.”
Phryne took his hand and squeezed.
“But you mentioned you could see my aura? When did your gifts re-emerge?”
Jack’s head dipped and he felt himself blush. He took a sip of his drink for fortitude knowing that his admission would make everything clear.
“When I kissed you at Café Replique.”