." I can't even begin to fathom how they kept the Portal energies coherent from a distance without a focus..." Great gods, if we could figure out how ...o do this before those stuffed robes in the Guild, we could..."Jothan tossed a blue pearl into the air. At the top of its arc, it emitted a flash of light and cracked the air with a sound like that of a whip. Silence had fallen by the time the pearl returned to his hand. "Stop missing the point!"Marlon waved his hand over the orb, and the. She couldn’t believe he would take a chance and make a pass at her in his office! She knew the company had a very strong anti-sexual harassment policy. ‘What am I going to do?’ she thought, her mind whirling. ‘He…he is making a pass at me!’ ‘Ann, I’d love to see you get that promotion,’ Mark said, ‘and my recommendation will carry a lot of weight with the people at the district office who have to make the final decision, do you know that?’ He continued to run his fingers lightly up and down her. She had marks on her wrists and on her ankles from manacles. I never thought much about a slave being human. After all you could buy and sell them like a horse or a cow and they even came with ownership papers.I wondered about the talk of secession and the possibility of Lincoln becoming President. I knew where my father stood on the subject and I also knew where my Uncle stood too. How could two brothers have such vast differences over the same issue?After my late lunch Aunt Grace sent me up. I watched the second-hand make its final, tortuous circuit of the clock face before the twelve o’clock bell and felt my heart-rate steadily lift as adrenalin surged through my system. I thought my life as someone who had never had a boyfriend might be in its final moments. I was wrong, sadly; but at the time it was a sweet feeling that I will never forget. I fetched my sandwiches from my locker and stepped out into the sunshine in front of the school oval. Rick was standing by the football.