Xaviers!

On the advice of Miss Kinney, Sam knocks on Doctor Malcolm's door.

"Come in!" Melody calls out cheerfully. Her office is unpacked now and filled with a wide variety of occult knick-knacks from her various travels. She's something of a collector and in the various displays, students might spot a Hand of Glory, a jar full of fangs, and books made of questionable types of leather.

It was a little creepier. Especially since Melody kept the shades drawn.

"Miss Kinney said I should probably talk with the..." Sam gets a weird look as she steps in and sees the decor. "...guidance counselor?"

"That would be me. I'm Dr. Melody Malcolm," Melody says cheerfully, putting a book she had been browsing through back on the bookshelf. "But please, call me Melody. Or Mel. I've never had much use for titles and all that nonsense."

"Are you sure you're not... like, some sort of late night B-movie horror hostess?"

Melody laughs, "I actually did that once in the '70's. Bit of a long story, not really worth getting into. But I am your guidance counselor."

Melody sees Sam glancing around a bit and her eyes widen. "Oh! Oh. I'm sorry, I should've...the books and stuff, yes, of course. Silly me. No, this..."

She gestures around the room.

"This is my research. I'm an occultist by trade. I study the supernatural, dear. I agree that quite a lot of it looks silly, but you acclimate to it after awhile."

"...oh. That... gets you a foot in the door for being a guidance counselor, does it?"

"Well, I started out as a consultant for X-Corp. I have quite a bit of experience with supernormal biology," Melody explains happily. She's already fixing tea as she talks. "They liked my approach so I was contracted to design some training courses. Eventually, I took over a position as a full-time personnel trainer at X-Corp."

"I was looking for a more permanent position and so I applied here once the posting opened," Melody says. "I'll admit, I've never worked with people this young before, but I have experience that the Headmistress believes might be useful."

"Tea?" Melody offers.

"...guess nothing I'm about to say is going to sound weird, then." She mutters.

"No thank you on the tea, I'm fine."

She sits down near Melody's desk. She keeps glancing at Melody. Or more in Melody's direction, but a few feet behind her.

Melody glances at Sam and smiles, "Did you have something in particular you wanted to talk about or did you just need general gui--drat!"

As Melody is talking, she drops a cup and it shatters. She sighs and crouches to pick up the pieces.

"Third one today. Where is my head?" Melody dumps the pieces in the garbage and sits down at her desk. Forgetting her tea.

"What can I help you with, Ms. McManus?"

"Well I've... got a problem. When my powers came out I had to be at Muir for awhile to figure out how to... I don't know, put myself back together."

"And now I'm finding that I might not have put myself all the way back together."

"Sounds like the sort of thing that'd get you in a tizzy," Melody agrees. She does her best to look comforting and friendly, but there's always just a bit of the uncanny to her appearance.

"I'm mostly trying to convince myself that I'm not... well you know, crazy."

"I mean, I'm normal. Most of the time. The divisions balance themselves out usually. Just sometimes one of them comes into sharp focus."

By now, she can't help but direct that odd unfocused stare at Melody.

"...something's wrong with you."

"Wow. That's a bit rude," Melody says. Her smile twitches a bit nervously.

Sam blinks in surprise.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I don't know why I said that!"

"Just..."

"...you should be dead."

Melody laughs. Well, no point trying to keep it a secret now. "You have a good eye. Most people don't notice."

"What tipped you off?"

"I... don't know. It just feels like..."

"...you should've died a long time ago."

"It just feels wrong."

"Oh, good. It's weird stuff. Weird stuff is duck sauce," Melody says. "I was worried I was forgetting to breathe again."

"Right off the bat, I'm sorry if I'm making you twitchy, kiddo," Melody says. "But everything's jake. I mean you no harm."

"I don't even know how I know this, Doctor Malcolm. I'm really not trying to be rude here, it's just hard to ignore this feeling."

"I don't mind. It isn't the first time I've given someone the feeling of being around an abomination of nature," Melody jokes. "As long as you don't try to drive a stake through my heart, I'll be fine."

"I'm more worried about you, kiddo," Melody says. "Do you get feelings like this often?"

"Not... really? Probably the closest I could say is I have a roommate whose power is to see and touch ghosts. I can sense when she uses her powers. It kind of wigs me out, but it doesn't feel like... this."

"But I guess the whole reason I'm here is... unfamiliar impulses, aye?"

"Sounds like it," Melody says. "Tell me about these 'unfamiliar impulses'. When did you first notice them?"

"The first time was... just the other night," she says, fidgeting in embarrassment.

"It was like viewing myself through a funhouse mirror. I was still in control of myself I guess, just... some things were magnified."

"Was this accompanied by physical changes? Or was the process entirely mental?" Melody asks, starting to take notes.

"I don't... think I shifted? Miriam said I was looking a bit lanky before I came back inside."

"She's the one who checked in my head to find out more about this."

"And what did she find?" Melody asks.

"My subconscious is apparently..." she sighs. "...split into three parts."

"Miriam seems to think it was a defense mechanism. They're extremes. She thinks they make it easier to distinguish myself from the background noise."

"What do you think?" Melody asks.

"I don't... really know what to think. Like I'm still trying to find a way to say this that doesn't sound like I'm crazy."

"And that's without the... ah... more fanciful bits of those three that Miriam saw."

"I think you're doing fine. This sounds more like a development of your abilities, not a reflection on your mental health," Melody says. The shape of things was starting to fit together. She scribbles "triple goddess" on her notepad.

"I just... spent so long trying to get back to where I was before I got my powers, and now it feels like I'm moving away from it again."

"It can be difficult to feel like you're backsliding," Melody says. "Believe me. I get that."

"But sometimes it can help to explore these new developments. Sometimes what feels like regression can actually be progress," Melody suggests. "For example, these aspects of you may have always been present and it's only now, when you've started to gain more control over your abilities, that you're able to perceive them."

"So what does it mean? What does it say about me if what's inside my head is... this?"

"It could say a number of things. Your abilities might run far deeper than you suspect and you might be reflecting something old and ancient that exists deep within the wellspring of the collective human consciousness," Melody says. "Or it might mean that you are capable of building mental constructs much more complex than you previously thought was possible."

"And of course there's always the ability that you are exactly what these aspects say you are. There have been stranger things in this world," Melody says. "Did Miriam manage to catch any names?"

"She said they claimed to be aspects of the Morrigan. You know, like my code name."

"I thought that might be the case," Melody says. "But the Morrigan is a complex bit of mythology."

Melody stands up and starts looking through her bookshelf. "She's generally presented as a tripartite goddess, a three-in-one sort of deal, but the aspects can differ according to the account."

She pulls a large, old book from the shelf and flips through it. "Badb, Mancha, and Nemain is a common combination, but there are others."

Sam shivers faintly as Melody says the names, gritting her teeth after as she composes herself.

"I just thought... you know, she's a shapeshifter too. So when they had me pick a codename, it was like a little piece of home I could have, and something to look up to."

"And it's possible there's nothing more to it then that," Melody says. "Here."

Melody sets the book in front of Sam. It's an old, heavily annotated, facsimile of a manuscript describing the different aspects of the Morrigan. Next to the description is a picture of all three aspects blending together within the boundaries of a single goddess.

"Deidric the Chatterer," Melody says. "Not a great historian, but he was obsessed with pre-Christian Irish mythology. Claimed to be a direct descendant of Amergin mac Eccit, the poet."

"So... we're in a position where me being crazy might be the most benign option."

"It's also the least likely," Melody says. "You noticed that I'm not really alive. That's not telepathy, Sam. You have strong gifts, but you wouldn't be able to casually pluck that information out of my head."

"You know because what I am is antithetical to the nature of the Morrigan."