I have a feeling Elly’s situation is just a terrible coincidence.  Things like that do happen and considering the “luck” of the family, I wouldn’t be surprised.  Or Grandpa Markson’s developed sleep apnea and Elly doesn’t know about it.  I would think banishing part of a living person would take much more skill than that of a 16 year old frivolously using her powers would be able to manage.  Making nesting dolls and a hip flask disappear is slightly different than banishing a malignant part of a person, or their nonphysical essence.  Personally I have seen Elly do enough with the power she has to be able to accomplish something to huge just yet.

As for the whole grandpa thing, I’m in a similar position as Elly, just without the death.  My dad and his mother haven’t spoken in 25 years.  The anger isn’t there on my dad’s side and the guilt isn’t there on his mom’s but their both pig-headed and are estranged (to put it nicely) because of it.  Maybe I’m a lesser person for it but I just don’t feel like Elly does.  My dad’s mother had 18 years to make contact, put aside her issues with her son and have a relationship with her granddaughter.  She opted out.  Therefore I feel I have no obligation to attempt to forge a relationship.  She obviously didn’t want one and neither do I.  Can’t miss something you never had, right?  The major difference, though, was that Elly’s grandpa just wasn’t there.  Not in the picture at all.  My dad’s mother was, for a little while after I was born because her father was living with her and my dad was close to him.  When he had me in his arms, she turned her back on us and walked away.  My dad keeps saying she did it to him.  Well, I’m guilty by association then.  If my dad can step around his mother to carry on a relationship with his grandfather, there was no reason why his mother couldn’t do the same for me.  Yeah, slight difference there.

Sorry.  Rambled.

I look forward to when you write next.

p.s. love reading everyones comments too and seeing how everyone else is totally wraped up in the story too! well done!

Oh well. Anyways Very well written and very well planned. Your characters are so detailed and the immersion is very impressive. Even the Wheel of Time series couldn’t gain or regain immersion for me as swiftly as your story does.

Although I have to note the typos sometimes make it difficult to keep focused on the story. Perhaps running a quick spell check over each chapter before you post it. If you haven’t already got a preferred text editor I suggest OpenOffice.org It doesn’t take nearly as much RAM as Word and has most if not all of the functions.

I fear i’ve begun to ramble. Allow me to close up with my theory about this last chapter.
I agree that it seems like Elly killed her grandfather but I think that perhaps it’s just meant to seem like that. I agree that the only person she will wind up telling seems likely to be Sien. I don’t think she could face telling her father that she just killed his father, though they are Markson’s and they tend to do view things a tad differently than the rest of us.

Thanks for all the compliments I’m really glad the story comes off that way as it’s exactly what I hope for.

I’ve seen one bit of that show on YouTube.  It was where Bernard receives a rejection letter and writes this irate letter back.  It was funny.