November sat on Dyna’s bed, hands planted on the faded floral pattern of the covers as she looked around through the thin cosplay glasses. She kept giggling. Little titters of laughter that really only served to annoy Dyna. It was like she was seeing something through the glasses that she found amusing despite Dyna not being able to see anything at all through them.

“You did good work here.”

Dyna crossed her arms. November’s words didn’t carry the inflections of sarcasm, but it was hard to tell with the woman. She wasn’t human. She was just an amalgamation of human memories and ideas given form. It was theoretically possible that she didn’t actually know what sarcasm was.

Maybe. Dyna was just now trying to get more into the science of psychics and psionics. Research papers about entities was effectively nonexistent given how recently they came to the Carroll Institute’s attention. Dyna didn’t have access to most of the research and what she did have access to was general to the point of being useless. She knew more from firsthand experience than most of what she had read.

“Can we go back to the part where you said you ate my thoughts?”

November looked down with an expression on her face. Dyna wasn’t quite sure what that expression was supposed to mean, with the furrowed brows but genuine smile. “It’s nothing big. Psychics release their thoughts far more easily than the average person. Given my presence here, several of those thoughts have tried integrating me.”

“And some of them were my thoughts?”

“Indeed.”

“What do they… How do you… How do I stop it?” Dyna decided to focus on what felt like the most pressing aspect of the situation. “I don’t like the idea of people eating more of my memories. I’ve lost enough as is.”

November shook her head. “I don’t think that is how it works. You’re not losing anything. From my own experiences and what I’ve been reading here, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are just excess psionic energy with a bit of an imprint from the psychics.”

“Alright. Assuming that is true, how do I stop it?” Dyna asked again, this time giving a different reason. “I don’t like the idea of people peeking into my memories. This is supposed to be a secret, you know? I worked hard to keep Beatrice and Ruby out of here and now you just waltz up knocking on my door, already knowing about everything?”

At Dyna’s gesture, November removed the glasses and set them over on the desk. All without getting up from the bed.

Dyna immediately reached over and picked up the glasses, putting them on immediately to try to see what November found so amusing.

She didn’t see anything at first. The room was just how it always was. November had spent some time giggling at the ceiling, but Dyna didn’t find anything different about it, amusing or otherwise. Looking back down, she just about tossed them off to the side again, only to freeze when she saw the thing seated on her bed.

“Oh.”

It looked like someone’s shadow brought into the third dimension. Stretched and elongated just enough to trigger that sensation of uncanny valley. The shadow’s features didn’t help much either. It didn’t have a face. Not really. More like a mask that someone had painted over after having heard a vague description of a face. The mouth was a thin line that didn’t actually look as if it could open, there was no nose at all, and the eyes were deep black holes that stretched into the ‘head’ far further than the head’s size should have allowed.

A few months ago, Dyna would probably have screamed and ran away. She generally liked her horror movies to stay inside the screen. The stringy-haired ghost-girl sitting on her bed was still probably going to haunt a few nightmares, but knowledge really was power. Dyna knew what November was, she had heard a similar description from Ruby, and she knew that November probably didn’t mean her harm despite those comments about eating her thoughts.

Just to check, Dyna lifted the glasses up to her forehead to find the oddly familiar face of November’s human form looking at her with a smile. She slowly lowered the again.

“They work?”

Now that the initial shock of seeing that thing on her bed was wearing off, Dyna actually started to feel excited. Maybe they weren’t quite what she had been hoping for—she had been expecting to see things like November all over the place or even a whole other world with subtle yet extensive differences—but they were doing something now. She could see the actual November.

“I think they need a bit more tweaking.”

“Wait… this is supposed to be an artifact. You didn’t just bind with it, did you?”

“I don’t know what any of that means.”

Dyna opened a desk drawer and pulled out the randi level reader. A quick scan of the glasses displayed a number only two higher than it had been before. Far too weak to be considered a proper artifact. But they were doing something and November had seen them doing something?

“I’m not sure I understand my power at all,” Dyna sighed.

“What you want comes true.”

Dyna shook her head. “That’s not how psychic powers work.”

“Ah, because you are, of course, the foremost expert in the subject. And not just some initiate who is repeating what they heard in a lecture despite having seen the odd abilities wielded by your friends.”

“Well…” Dyna trailed off. “Yes? I mean… Okay. I get your point. How about this: That isn’t how my powers work. If they did work like that, I would be the coolest psychic in the world with the coolest power. And not… you know, me.”

“It is hard for humans to change who they are, isn’t it?”

“You think it is easier for you?”

“Of course. Every time I integrate another one of us, I change a little bit.”

“Isn’t that just like humans? We gather knowledge and experience through action, changing ourselves by learning and growing. You gather knowledge and experience through eating other… thoughts, thus changing yourself by learning and growing.”

“Well, with the right phrasing, I’m sure anything is possible to explain away.” November brought her hands up to her face and started mushing and pinching her cheeks and forehead. Every bit of contact she made with herself caused elevated static activity all over her fingers and face. “I suppose I am far less malleable at the moment. Though if you put those glasses on again…”

Dyna set down the randimeter and put on the glasses once again.

The shadowy figure that was November performed a similar action, bringing its arms up to its head. Instead of mushing its shadowy mask-like face around, it started changing. It didn’t become more human, that was for sure. A nose appeared on its flat face. It didn’t have holes for someone to breathe through, but looked like that same inexperienced artist looked at their drawing, thought something was missing, and having heard about a nose but never actually saw one, decided to add the general contours.

Dyna lifted the glasses to her forehead to find November’s human form unchanged and her hands in her lap.

“I think…” Dyna said, wanting to change topics, “my power is actually to make artifacts. But these don’t seem to act like normal artifacts do, so maybe I’ve got a bit more control over it than I thought? Except I can’t seem to control it consciously at all.”

“Well, that’s a step in the right direction, I suppose,” November said. As she spoke, Dyna dropped the glasses back down over her eyes and frowned. Despite the changes to its face, shadow-November still didn’t move is mouth while talking.

It was probably time to discuss this with Doctor Cross. Dyna doubted the glasses would be secret for long anyway. November…

Dyna wasn’t sure how November was allowed out and about. She had no qualms with telling other initiates that she wasn’t human. Most probably didn’t believe her, but she was still going around saying things that the Carroll Institute probably wanted to keep under wraps for the time being.

Out of curiosity, Dyna aimed the thermometer-like device in November’s direction and took a quick scan. The reader on the back didn’t display any numbers, just three dashes. Too high to be measured by the portable device? Probably. Dyna got the same result when she pointed it at herself.

“To answer your original question: No.”

“Question?”

“About stopping your thoughts. I don’t think there would be a way to stop it. Maybe some specially designed equipment could stop it or a device to capture your thoughts and contain them before they escape into the greater world. But I have seen no evidence that such things exist.”

“But they can be created?”

“Perhaps. You created those,” she said, nodding toward the glasses on Dyna’s face.

Dyna quickly took them off. Eerie as it was to see November’s true self, watching her talk in that form was even worse. The lips didn’t move and the motions were all wrong. Not to mention, she kept gesturing. Yet her limbs lacked hands or feet. She had these ends that tapered off into a shadow. Hardened to horror though she thought she was, the uncanny valley wasn’t so easily shoved aside.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing,” Dyna said, looking down at the lenses. She flicked off the switch behind the ear, cutting off the blue glow. Then, curious over whether they would still work or not, she quickly put them back on just to confirm that no, they did not work while the switch was off. Which felt a bit ridiculous, given that she knew all that switch did was turn on a small LED.

“That’s what you’re doing right now, isn’t it? Figuring things out?”

“Well, yes. But… Other people know how to use their powers almost innately,” Dyna said, thinking back to Mel’s story of her childhood. Perhaps too innately in that case. “Mine seems to be fighting me every step of the way. I thought this would let me see things… well, things like you all over the place. Unless this place is just empty, it isn’t working the way I thought it should.”

“It isn’t. Empty, that is. There are others watching me right now. I could see them with your creation, but maybe I’m just a little more in tune with them. If you work on it some more, you might get it working fully. You don’t learn to play the piano the first time you sit down and touch one,” November said. Her eyes drifted off and she let out a small hum. “I think I’d like to learn an instrument.”

“I’m… sure the institute can find a piano somewhere for you,” Dyna said, half distracted as she focused on the first part of what November said.

Practice.

She needed practice.

And maybe something with a simpler effect than seeing into some alternate reality that she had only been aware of for a few weeks. Something more verifiable too, with obvious effects that she wouldn’t have to run to the local friendly inhuman monster to check if they were working or not.

That local friendly inhuman monster slowly stood from Dyna’s bed. “Yes. I think I will go talk to Doctor Teeth about procuring an instrument and an instructor. Perhaps a harpsichord. I’m not exactly sure why, but I feel I have an affinity with harpsichords. Maybe it was something I ate.”

“Good luck with that,” Dyna said, holding back a scoff. She wasn’t disparaging November’s desire to learn an instrument, merely the idea that Doctor Teeth would help her out. Of all the researchers running about the Carroll Institute, Dyna liked Teeth the least. So far. He was a bit too self-absorbed and ignored actual injured people in favor of examining… well, November.

November just shrugged. “He should be quite agreeable. At least once I agree to sit still for one of his inane tests.”

“Make sure you get it in writing. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he ‘forgot’ about your harpsichord after the test.”

“Excellent idea,” she said, nodding her head. “Farewell, Dyna Graves. Keep up the good work.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Looking down at the glasses as November stepped out of the room, Dyna put them on once again. She flicked on the LED and started looking around.

November took her shadow with her, leaving nothing behind that Dyna could see. No other shadow monsters hiding in the corners or hanging around outside her window. Whatever amused November was still nowhere to be seen.

Good work?

“What are you wearing?”

Dyna froze, startled for a moment. Turning, she found Mel staring at her from the open door to her room. Mel, for all her faults, wasn’t the kind of person to just barge in. At least not without a courtesy knock and long pause. November must not have closed it on her way out.

“Nothing?” Dyna said as she removed the glasses, flicking off the LED in the process, and dropped them into the foil-lined drawer of her desk. Using her bare heel, she slid the drawer closed. “Did you need something?”

Mel gave her a flat stare for a bit too long of a moment before she shook her head. “That woman left?”

“You didn’t see her leave?”

“I heard the doors opening and closing, but I was hiding in my room. Something about her… It’s not right. And this is coming from someone who had an imaginary friend without a face as a child.”

Dyna started to nod. She honestly wasn’t sure if she could or should say anything about November. The only instruction she had received regarding the matter was simply an informal note to not discuss it. With November herself having either missed that memo or ignored it completely, it was probably more suspicious to avoid the topic altogether.

But that wasn’t what stopped her nodding.

Mel looked different.

As an illusionist, and a powerful one, that wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. Mel could and often did make herself look different. Sometimes she would be the most beautiful person around. Other times, she opted for a more incognito look. Her clothes changed through so many different outfits that she couldn’t possibly have room for them all in her closet. Dyna, having gotten used to her, wasn’t always the most attentive person to all the changes. But now, she had a thought.

“Could you make a large illusion? Not necessarily your imaginary friend, if you don’t want, but just something big and obvious.”

“Sure?” Mel said with a shrug, then nodded her head off to the side.

Dyna followed the motion to find an entire jungle of flowers where her bed had been. Lilacs, daises, lilies, roses, and plenty more that Dyna couldn’t even begin to name. Their colors ranged from pure white to a near black violet and everything in between. She didn’t have bad allergies, no more so than any average person, but Dyna was still feeling a small sting in the far back of her nose making her eyes water a bit.

Shoving that feeling out of her mind, Dyna tried to focus on the illusion itself. All the Carroll Institute’s training on how to detect mental intrusions. She combed through her mind, checking over each crevasse, feeling what was going on without trying to fight it off.

“What parts of your brain are active when using your power? Do you know what parts of my brain you’re activating? How is the psionic transmission waveform structured? Do you—”

The flowers shimmered, fading back into Dyna’s regular old floral covers on her bed.

“What’s all this? I thought you figured out your ability?”

“Well, maybe. But I had an idea and I think you can help me with it.”

An obvious effect. Something she could test on her own. Maybe even something useful. Illusions. It didn’t have to be anything too special. Even if Mel’s illusions were far superior to what was slowly percolating in Dyna’s mind, it wasn’t the artifact that she was after, it was the practice.

Practice with creating an artifact that did what she wanted it to do.

“Want to go into town?” Dyna asked. “Maybe look around the strip mall and shop a bit?”

She needed an object. Something to bind the concept of illusions to. She wasn’t quite sure what that would be just yet, but Idaho Falls was an old timey town with plenty of antique shops. One of those shops had to have a perfect object.

“And,” Dyna added to sweeten the deal, “maybe we could look at cars too.”

“Cars?”

“I came into a bit of money recently. Waiting around for the bus every time I want to go anywhere is annoying. So cars? My treat?”

“You’re going to buy me a car?”

Dyna blinked. “I mean the rest of the shopping trip. Maybe some clothes or books or whatever. Within reason. I didn’t come into enough money to buy multiple cars.”

Mel put on a pout, but it was so obviously forced that she couldn’t hold it for more than a few seconds before it turned into a smile. “Yeah, let’s go shopping. That sounds like fun.”