He opened his backpack and got out two large trash bags, which he unfolded and laid on the ground. We each sat on one. My butt instantly got very cold.

“Okay,” he said, “I’m going to test you for some common gifts. If nothing shows up, that’s no big deal. It just means you haven’t hit the second stage, yet.”

“Is there something about this place that makes it good for testing?”

“Yeah. This mountain’s made out of very hard rock, so it’s much older than the surrounding land — approaching two billion years. Its essence has been worked and reworked so many times that it’s thick with all the echoes and remnants. That makes it a place of power for people like us — the essence is easier to grasp, and sometimes you can build on the remains of someone else’s working, which increases what you can do.”

“So, the older things are, the more powerful they are?”

“Age is often associated with thickness, but it’s not consistent. Sometimes relatively new sites can get pretty thick. It depends on how much working has been done there and how much of it sticks in the essence. Some places seem to be naturally sticky.”

Graham spent the next two hours trying to figure out what I could do. He had me see if I could turn myself into mist, which involved trying to “feel transparent,” in his words. That didn’t go anywhere. He had me try to change into an animal by visualizing it. I remained stubbornly myself.

From that point, the list of failures just grew. I couldn’t communicate with him telepathically. I couldn’t heal a tiny cut he made on his finger. He pricked my finger with a pin, and I couldn’t heal that, either. I didn’t seem to have any effect on water or fire or stone or metal or the weather. I couldn’t move things with my mind. I wasn’t unusually strong or fast. I couldn’t speak or understand foreign languages. I couldn’t go invisible. And I couldn’t fly.

Which of course made me ask if they really had people who could fly. Graham’s response — “none living” — wasn’t particularly encouraging.

At the end of the session, he sat back with a sigh. A few moments passed.

“Remember, just because you aren’t demonstrating a particular gift now doesn’t mean you won’t be able to do it later.”

“Yeah, okay.”

I told myself that was good — the less I could do, the less interest this group would have in me.

“Are there other kinds of abilities people have?”