“Some of those were halfings, yeah.”

It was hard to believe. I hadn’t seen any sort of flickering or blurriness. One moment he’d been himself, and the next he’d been someone else.

“So, moving on to how you’re developing,” Graham said, “when people like us come into our abilities, it happens in four stages. First we perceive essence that’s been worked or half-worked. Once you can see halfings, they won’t fool you anymore. You’ll still see the worked shape, but you’ll also see the original. It’s like seeing two things occupying the same space at once.”

That thought made me slightly seasick.

“With full workings,” Graham continued, “there’s no ‘original’ state of things left to see. Sensing them just means being aware that the essence in that spot has been altered. To me, it feels like a strange eddy in the stream of reality.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to commit workings and half-workings to memory.

“Typically, people start perceiving changed essence all at once. It’s an all-or-nothing thing, like throwing a switch. It’s called ‘seeing through.’ If the essence has been disturbed, they’re aware of it. It isn’t happening that way for you. You’re getting little glimpses, but it’s mostly still hidden.”

I shook my head. “I’m not seeing either type of thing you described — workings or half-workings.”

“But you are — partially. Most of the halfings I just showed you, you didn’t see at all. You only perceived the worked shape. But with a couple, you described something that was part of the original, not the halfing. For instance, the young woman I created had black hair, but you said she was a blonde. That means you saw my real hair color instead of the illusion. I bet you’ve gotten glimpses of reality through other halfings too and just not realized it.”

“But I’ve never seen anything unusual, except in that picture I took.”

“Williams led me to believe there was more than one photograph.”

“Well, there were two he seemed interested in, but one of them just showed a regular person. I thought so, at least.”

“Huh. Can I see them?”

“You’ll have to ask Williams. He took them.”

Graham frowned. I guess Williams had neglected to mention that bit of thievery.

Suddenly I remembered Williams’s FBI file. Maybe when the chief had looked at those pages, they hadn’t appeared to describe some other person. Maybe I’d been seeing through a half-working Williams made.

“Okay, never mind.” Graham said. He got up and ducked into Callie’s dining room. When he came back, he was holding a camera — a little point-and-shoot job.

“You want me to try to take some more weird pictures?”

“Yep,” he said. “We’re going to visit your spooky cemetery.”