Abra was never normal. From the moment she was born, she was magic. It frightened her parents--sometimes it frightened her--but mostly. . .mostly, it made Abra feel lonely. Because she could never be 100% honest with anyone in her life; not her parents, or her great-grandmother Momo, or her friends. There was this massive part of herself she always had to hide. 

Until Uncle Dan. She hadn't known he was really her uncle at the time; in the beginning, she actually just considered him her sort of telepathic pen pal. Every few years or so they touched each other's minds, checked in. It wasn't until her magic (her shine, Uncle Dan later called it) touched the mind of someone not like them, but someone who fed on people like them. And that was when her quiet little life in New Hampshire was upended.