Eleanor Stafford's expression remained neutral as she appraised Ethan with her cold eyes. "So be it," she said at last. "But I won't teach you everything at once. Neil tried to rush your training, and that can be dangerous to an inexperienced mind. So it will be slow-going. I don't expect to be finished before the end of the school year. And I won't be teaching you how to enter the Worldmind on your own for at least a month. Probably two."

Ethan's heart sank. Why not? he wondered. Neil, Pryce, and Kara can do it and they're all my age. Why the baby steps for me?

"Not happy about it?" said Stafford. "Then we're already done." She opened up her laptop, turned her attention away from Ethan and toward the screen before saying, "Go take your lunch break, Murdock. Be a normal kid."

Mouth agape, Ethan wondered what the hell he said to make her change her mind so quickly. "How...?"

"It's a psychic thing," she said simply, resting her chin on her hand and lazily clicking her trackpad. "If you don't have the patience it takes to learn, then why should I take time off my already busy schedule to teach you outside of school hours?"

Ethan stood up, trying not to let his anger show and doing a poor job of it. "I've been attacked. If anyone needs to learn the ropes quickly, it's me. What if the rogue astro guy comes after me again?"

"You've heard my offer," said Stafford, her eyes still on the laptop screen. "I don't owe you anything. I'd be happy to teach you psychology if you register for my class next semester, but that's all you'll get from me if you insist on being so impatient."

Frowning, Ethan said, "You're not giving me much of a choice in the matter, are you?"

"On the contrary, I'm giving you a very simple choice, Murdock: Learn about the Worldmind over the next several months, or refuse to overcome your restlessness and go back to living a normal, safe, pleasant life."

"I can't go back, choice or no choice. But I don't want to have to wait two months just to be able to do the telepathy thing."

"Then that's you removing choice, since your impatience only leaves you with the option of forgoing training. You shouldn't limit yourself so, Murdock. Tsk, tsk."

Unsure what else to do, Ethan sat down again, sulking. Having to essentially add another class to his school schedule wasn't what he had in mind when he came into Ms. Stafford's office, but if he wanted to learn to make use of his psychic potential, he'd have to suck it up and learn at Stafford's pace. He considered asking Neil to train him again, but he doubted Neil would agree where Stafford turned him down. He could go to Kara or Pryce, but Kara seemed altogether too timid, and Pryce altogether too obnoxious.

He wanted to explore the Worldmind, though. He wanted to be able to communicate using his mind. And he wanted to be able to defend himself if the dream man came around again.

"Okay," Ethan said at last. "We'll do it your way."

Ms. Stafford looked up from her laptop. "It will be a lot of work," she said. "I'm going to need you to follow my instructions exactly, and only my instructions. That means no trying to take any shortcuts or learning on your own. The Worldmind is dangerous. Tampering with it doesn't just affect you, but countless others. As such, I must forbid you from commiserating with other psychics."

Ethan told himself not to argue, but he couldn't help it. "But most of the people I know at this school are psychics. Am I just supposed to avoid them altogether? Heck, Neil sits right beside me in English."

"You may speak to Edwards and the others, but only regarding normal subjects. You must avoid any conversations about psychics and the Worldmind entirely. I will ensure they know not to discuss such with you."

Still unable to keep his opinion to himself, Ethan said, "This sounds like censorship to me."

"It's for a very good reason," said Stafford. "You'll understand in time."

It was becoming more and more difficult to keep himself from arguing, but Ethan knew that this was his only hope at getting a reasonable education about the Worldmind. So, grudgingly, he nodded his head. When Stafford raised her eyebrows, Ethan said, "Okay. Deal."

Ms. Stafford smiled and offered her hand over the screen of her laptop. Ethan shook it, hoping he was making the right choice.

Ethan's training would begin that evening after school. Ms. Stafford told him to meet her in her office again once classes were over, but said that most lessons would be given to him telepathically. When Ethan asked why, she said that they couldn't keep meeting one another without raising suspicion, especially since Ethan didn't have any classes with her. Ethan didn't know who would be "suspicious," but he quickly realized it wasn't the psychic stuff people would be suspicious about. The thought made him blush.

She gave him her card, which had her cell phone number on it, in case he needed to contact her outside of school hours for Worldmind-related things. He added the number to his contacts list in his cell phone, still red in the face.

After leaving Stafford's office, Ethan had time to kill before lunch was over. Stomach growling, he made his way to the cafeteria, only to find Violet sitting at the same table he and her sat at three days ago. She was sitting alone, staring blankly at the desk, her head nodding and her eyelids drooping.

"Hey," said Ethan a little loudly, waking her up. Her eyes shot open and she looked at him in a daze. He smiled disarmingly, trying to come up with something to say that couldn't be taken negatively. Tongue-tied, he eventually said, "How are your... doing?" He mentally slapped himself.

"'Sup?" she said groggily, unaware or uncaring of Ethan's nonsensical greeting.

Not much, just finished a meeting with a teacher I met in a memory world about getting personal psychic training, you?

"Not a lot. Long day?"

Violet groaned tiredly in response. "Don't wanna talk about it. Stupid ... article stuff. Stupid Neil." She groaned again. "Sit down. Distract me."

"Sure." Ethan pulled up a chair and sat, ignoring his rumbling stomach. "Why did the mermaid wear seashells?"

Frowning, Violet shrugged.

"Because she couldn't fit into D-shells."

Violet stared at Ethan blankly for a full four seconds before her mouth twitched and she puffed out a half-restrained laugh. She rested her face in her palm, shaking her head, but still smiling.

Ethan practically glowed with satisfaction.

"Okay," said Violet, folding her hands over the table. "I've got one. Where does a general keep his sleevies?"

"His what?"

"In his slee-- oh shit! I meant armies. Dammit! I screwed it up!" She covered her face and laughed, long and loud, and Ethan laughed with her. She flattened her head into the desk, her dark hair spilling over its surface, her shoulders shaking as she laughed herself hoarse. "God," she wheezed, "I'm really losing it."

"More than usual," Ethan added.

Violet thwacked him in the chest by swinging her arm along the surface of the desk. She then sat upright, wiping the laugh-tears from her eyes.

"Hey," said Ethan, "are you going to the school Halloween thing tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I have to help take pictures for the paper."

Ethan did a little dance in his mind, then wondered if he was dancing in the Worldmind.

"How about you?" asked Violet

"Yep," said Ethan. "Someone convinced me to give it a go."

"Dressing up?"

"Maybe. You?"

"Maybe."

Intriguing. "Then I guess I'll see you there. Assuming I recognize you."

Violet made a finger gun at Ethan and clicked her tongue.

After Ethan's last two classes (Art and Information Processing), he went to Ms. Stafford's office again to get his first training lesson. He had to wait a few minutes for her to finish talking to other students. She beckoned him inside once she was finished.

Ethan entered the office. Ms. Stafford leaned on the edge of her desk, arms crossed. Before he could ask whether or not he should shut the door, Stafford said, "So you're interested in psychology as a career goal, is that right?"

Ethan blinked in confusion. He opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut off by Ms. Stafford's voice speaking directly into his head.

"Say yes," it said.

Unsure what else to do, Ethan said, "Uh. Yes. I am."

"What draws you to psychology, Ethan?" she said out loud. Telepathically, she said, "This is your first lesson. Answer the question."

But I don't really want to be a psychologist, Ethan thought. Sitting in a room, talking about feelings? Eugh. "I'm really interested in sitting in a room and talking about feelings for a living."

Narrowing her eyes, but smirking, Stafford said, "Psychiatric counselling is just one of many possible paths for those studying psychology." At the same time, Ethan was hearing her telepathically say, "You must learn to determine what words are being projected in the Worldmind and what words you are physically hearing. Respond to everything I say out loud, but to nothing I project. Nod if you understand, and respond."

Oh, God, I'm so confused. Ethan was trying to comprehend what he was hearing in both worlds, but was mixing them up or forgetting which was which. It was like having two people speak to him at the same time, except it was only one person speaking two conversations at once. His mind was having difficulty focusing on one without tuning the other out.

Following her instructions as best he could, Ethan nodded, but said, "Tell me more," forgetting what, exactly, she had told him about psychology.

"Psychology is a broad field," said Ms. Stafford aloud, attempting to hide a smile at Ethan's baffled expression. "There are so many fields of study, from behavioral psychology to social psychology to forensic psychology to human sexuality, and much, much more." Telepathically, she was saying, "The trick is to realize that you are not hearing me speak to you in the Worldmind: you are merely registering the words as a very recent memory, as though I had just finished speaking."

All I heard was "sexuality."

"I see," he said, trying to process everything that was said to him, out loud or otherwise. After his brain caught up with him and he understood what Stafford was saying in the Worldmind, he realized that telepathic messages weren't being spoken at the same time as the words Stafford was speaking aloud, he was just remembering them that way.

"You might even go into a more scientific discipline," said Stafford, "such as, say, the study of memory formation." She winked at him, which inadvertently caused his legs to weaken. Meanwhile, she projected, "When I project a sentence, you aren't hearing it as a flow of words that takes time to listen to. You simply acknowledge the whole message as a memory because it is flowing through a memory-based world."

Is she flirting with me? With the sexuality and the winking and... He then received the telepathic message, and paused to comprehend it, along with the words she said out loud. Oh, she was making a memory joke. Hence the wink. Right.

He then considered what she said about receiving messages all at once in a memory. It seemed to make sense in that he definitely knew a whole message at once, yet he would remember hearing the message as something spoken gradually, even though he didn't really hear it. Ugh, my brain's going to leak out my ears at this rate. Still, with that logic in mind, he paid close attention to both of Ms. Stafford's next messages.

"Anyhow," she said after waiting too long for a response, "I encourage you to do more research at home. If you find you're still interested, you're more than welcome to choose my psychology class next semester as a subject option." This time, Ethan recognized her next, telepathic message as being spoken in a fundamentally different way than the first. "It will require a lot of practice to easily divide the two methods of speaking apart," she projected. "And much more practice to be able to speak in both worlds at the same time yourself."

This time, Ethan easily picked apart the two messages,. He recognized one as being spoken gradually by all but counting the words, and the other as being an instant memory simply because he just knew what was said rather than having to wait for the message to finish.

"If that's all, Ethan," said Ms. Stafford, "then I bid you good evening. Perhaps I will see you at the Halloween Festival, if you're attending." Telepathically, she added, "I see by the goofy grin on your face that you think you've mastered the art of comprehending two conversations at once, so long as one is psychic. Bravo, Murdock. The next lesson is on Monday."

Wait, that's it? That's the whole lesson? No wonder this is going to take half a year if each lesson is only five minutes long. "I... want to know more," said Ethan, attempting to imply that he meant about the Worldmind, not psychology.

"Then you will have to see me another time," said Stafford. Then, telepathically: "Such as Monday."

Ethan glared. Stafford smiled sweetly.

Once again, Ethan waited up until midnight to make sure that he was safe. Once again, he had no visitor. He wanted to believe he was safe for good, but he couldn't shake the worry that the moment he got too comfortable, the dream man would take him by surprise.

He asked Neil about it the following morning, despite Stafford's warning that he not talk about psychic affairs. Neil must have been informed of Stafford's decision, because he was vague about his response.

"I checked in," he said. "No sign of trouble." Just as the day before, Neil seemed disappointed by this.

"Any ideas?" Ethan asked.

Neil rolled his bony shoulders. Ethan got the feeling he was shrugging the question away because he was forbidden to talk about it, not shrugging because he didn't have an answer. Ethan thought it best to change the subject. Given that the Halloween Festival was that night, he asked Neil if he'd be going.

"No way," he said. "Too many people. Too many masks. It's not safe."

"I thought Shirewood was supposed to be a pretty safe little town," said Ethan.

Neil looked at him and opened his mouth, then closed it, apparently thinking better about whatever he was going to say. After a pause, he said, "Yeah. I guess you're right."

Mr. Cheek began his lesson, and the conversation ended.

A few people in the school were already dressed up for Halloween, but it seemed that many of them were saving their costumes for the party--assuming they were going. Ethan himself decided to leave his costume at home and put it on before the party. He didn't want to wind up being the only kid in class with a costume, especially since he was still new.

But once school was over, and after having supper with Vic, Ethan went up to his room and donned his costume in preparation for the party. He stuffed its primary accessory in the costume's baggy pocket before leaving his room. When Uncle Vic saw the costume, he laughed.

"Suits you," he said.

"I thought so." For a different reason, maybe.

"You're off, then?"

"Yep. I'll call you when I need a ride. And thanks in advance."

"No problem, little man. Have fun."

"I will."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"I won't."

"And may the Force be with you."

Ethan grinned, flicked out the green plastic cups from the toy's hollow hilt until they tapered into a full "blade." Then he left the house, his brown robes swishing at his feet.