Inheritance

There’s a nice cottage in Cornwall I got from my grandmother. I used to spend a great many of my holidays from school there with her. I inherited the cottage and an expectation. She was a Watcher. As was her son, my father. I wonder if they both felt as chosen as Slayers do. Felt that picking up the burden of protecting the innocent was inevitable. Hmm, that is the kind of question one does not think to ask one’s family until one is so old that they are no longer here to answer. Or were they as conflicted about it as I was? They certainly didn’t seem so to me when I was growing up.

Many Watchers come from just such families. It becomes tradition. But unlike, say, royalty, more than just birth is involved. There’s extensive learning and sacrifice of time and leisure involved. So, unlike royalty, the more unsuited are weeded out.

It occurs to me that may be why I’ve always been rather glad I had no children of my own. I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to resist laying this burden on them.

On a lighter note, I also seem to have inherited Andrew Wells.