She already knew how to start: the power that the baby seemed to use the easiest, and which would simultaneously make her own life improve the fastest. She needed to learn how to move things with her mind.
She resisted the urge to just open the old Matrix movie and watch that. She never would’ve thought reality was a simulation before, but now… maybe whoever ran the whole thing was just playing some incredibly unfunny joke with her. Next she’d be in a pool somewhere, and find the stairs removed when she wasn’t looking.
Instead she opted for something simple: a sleeping pad balanced on its side. A little push was all the roll needed to fall over.
Don’t feel stupid, she thought, settling down on her haunches about ten feet away. This isn’t some occult garbage. You know it’s possible. Fay does it over and over. If a baby can do it, you can do it.
She bit her lip, and stared. What would it feel like to move something without touching it? She imagined reaching out and pushing it with an invisible hand, pushed and shoved and persuaded against the air Matilda-style. Without success.
After several long minutes, her horn started to throb.
Not her head, though that was certainly part of it. But the feeling was higher up, extending out into the air in a way the rest of her head obviously hadn’t.
It was a little like the one time she’d had a migraine, like she could feel her brain pulsing with every heartbeat. Fortunately it was like a migraine in only one way, and there wasn’t a wave of nausea and lights flashing in her eyes. She rose, groaning quietly to herself in disappointment, making her way to the duffel bag. “Stupid mattress,” she muttered. “If I’m gonna be a genetic experiment, at least give me weird powers.”
She reached down, lifting an apple from the bag, and held it right in front of her to bite.
Held it entirely unsupported, in open air.
She squeaked in surprise, jumping back and spreading both wings so wide they scraped the walls. The apple fell, landing with a juicy thump on the cement, before rolling slowly away. “Dammit, scared me Fay.”
She turned, expecting to find the baby grinning mischievously up at her, proud of her little deception.
Fay hadn’t moved. As she watched, the baby opened one groggy eye, then rolled over. Her horn hadn’t been glowing, and she showed no sign of having actually been doing anything.
Was that… It couldn’t be that easy. She hadn’t even been trying anything specific. Shouldn’t there be some kind of… mystic wisdom involved?
She reached absently for the fallen apple, without moving from where she was sitting. The apple lifted into the air, settling there beside her outstretched hoof.
This time she didn’t scream and back away, or do anything else that might risk angering the baby. She just stared, trying to figure out exactly what she was doing.
There was a slight pressure on her forehead, subtle enough that she hadn’t noticed it over the throbbing. It pointed directly towards the apple, even when she tilted her head in one direction or the other.
“Woah.” She moved one leg under the fruit, without effect. Yet somehow it seemed to be pushing back on her regardless, as though muscles she couldn’t even see were working to hold it up.
She started panting, and the apple began to sag. She might even be making the same face Fay had made, after holding herself in the air a little too long. She grunted, then winced as the perfectly-good apple smacked into the ground again, splitting right down the middle this time. And this is how we get bugs.
She dropped back into a sitting position, reaching up to massage her sore forehead with a hoof. It might be flat and useless, but she had remarkable flexibility with her forelegs. That horn was more sensitive than it looked.
Progress, she thought, before bending down into the bag and removing another apple in her teeth. She took a few quick bites, dodging the core as best she could. There was nothing spectacular about the fruit, except that what would’ve been a sizeable breakfast of pancakes felt entirely inadequate. It’s not my fault. I’ve got to eat for two.
So she finished every one of the apples in her bag, and the one on the ground for good measure, piling up the cores in an empty bucket. Then at long last she started to feel full, and her headache faded.
Could it be connected to how much I eat? Magic powers must take some kind of energy to work, right? But what kind of energy did it take to change her from a teenager of average weight into a small horse? She might not have the best grade in AP Physics right now, but she was pretty sure the math didn’t add up on that one.
I don’t have to know how it works, I just need to figure out how to do it. Don’t get distracted, stupid.
She yawned and stretched, walking back and forth across the room with nervous energy. Now that the terror of her first night was winding down, she felt increasingly uncomfortable to just be sitting still. Too bad Mom and Dad are still here. Maybe I could sneak out in the middle of the night and run. Except that she’d leave muddy hoofprints all over the property if she did that. She was already taking a chance leaving the marks of her passing wherever she went.
Eventually she gave up on taking three steps and awkwardly turning around, and tried turning a shelf into a desk for her laptop. Whatever she’d figured out with the apple didn’t seem to be enough for the weight of a whole shelf, and she ended up dragging it along with her mouth. At least no spiders leaped out to try and bite her.
By the time she had it in place in the cleanest section of the stables, Fay was up and moving around again, exploring to the edge of the blanket then retreating again, with a nervous eye for the broken stables themselves.
It’s pretty dark outside. I should probably switch that light out. Kyle reached for it, and it clicked from across the room, plunging them into near-total darkness.
The baby’s horn began to glow a second later, a pale green that pulsed from brighter to darker. She squeaked nervously, reaching toward her.
“You don’t like the dark?” she asked, her voice melting into a sigh. “Me neither.” She sat down on the edge of the blanket, scooping the baby up into her grip. Fay squealed and relaxed as soon as she was being held, but the comfort didn’t seem to last. Her horn went out, and she started pointing out into the stable, waving a hoof energetically.
“That’s… really smart, sweetie,” Kyle muttered. “Telling me about things that way. I guess you’re a pretty old baby.”
Fay squirmed, beginning to hyperventilate. Even Kyle knew what she was about to do—it was the prelude to crying.
“Hey, hey, I don’t want to live in here either! But it’s the only way to keep safe until I figure out how to change back. If you want to change me back, we can walk inside right now.”
The baby wasn’t terribly interested in changing her back, it seemed. She sniffed and began to cry, lifting into the air and slipping out of her grip. Of course the door was locked, and this time there was nowhere to go, so all she could do was bob up and down, not committing to getting too far away, but not getting close enough for Kyle to grab her.
Thank god we’re not in the house right now, Kyle thought, rising to her hooves and reaching out for the baby. But whatever she thought she’d done with her “powers” before might as well have not happened at all. “Settle down, Fay! We don’t want to get cocky out here, even if we don’t think we’ll be overheard. Maybe cool it with the glowing? We don’t want this place to look haunted or anything. If a bloody exorcist comes for us…”
She answered with a squeal, sticking out her tongue.
“Hey, hey, I want it to be good too!” She bent down, removing a stuffed ferret from inside the bag and holding it up. “Hey, what about Taylor here? He’s cute, right? I used to love this guy.” And seeing it float in the air like that is going to be in my nightmares. She tossed it up towards Fay, and finally there was some sign of movement.
Fay lunged for it, catching the stuffed animal and hugging it close with her forelegs. For a moment her voice caught, and she looked around with wide eyes. Kyle could practically sense the gears turning, as she decided whether or not to continue her hysterical breakdown.
“See, look how much fun he is? I’ve got a few more if you want them too…” She bent down, picking up a stuffed fox with her mouth. “This one’s Flynn, isn’t he fun?”
Fay took the second doll too, though she was still watching the room around them with obvious fear. Maybe I could put up a tarp to block off a small section. Could black out the windows too…
Fay threw both the dolls back at her, hard enough that they bounced painfully off her face. She glared furiously around, wings spread on both sides of her even if she didn’t use them.
This time, Kyle did feel it. Like the hair on her whole body was simultaneously standing on end, along with powerful pressure against her forehead. It’s the horn. It can sense whatever power we’re using!
“Don’t do it, Fay! Whatever you’re about to do, it isn’t going to make our situation better, it—”
Her horn went from a faint glow to an eye-searing white in less than a second. Kyle didn’t wait this time, but jumped to the side with all her strength, desperate to be out of the way. One blast had already turned him into an animal, what could the next one do?
It surged around her, filling the stable without touching her at all. Kyle slumped to the floor, momentarily overwhelmed by the light. We’re fucked. That demon-baby is going to kill me. “Fay, you’re not going to… stay hidden very long if you keep doing things like this!”
She groaned, cautiously opening her eyes and looking down. But whatever faint hope she might have that the process had been reversed was instantly dashed. Those were still pink-furred legs down there, ending in stupid hooves.
But that was one of the few things that hadn’t changed.
She wasn’t standing on a hard cement floor anymore, in a dark abandoned stable. Warm white light filled the space, illuminating plush carpets themed with bright red hearts.
The broken stables were gone, replaced with an open hallway leading to a spacious… crib? It was made of that same strange crystal-looking stuff that Fay had been inside when she first appeared, a warm blue with red accents in more hearts, with a comfortable-looking mattress at the bottom.
There was also a huge cushion in another corner, with a squishy look that Kyle knew instantly was for nursing. She could lay on her side on that, instead of standing up naked like an animal.
Fay landed on the ground in front of her, panting heavily but looking remarkably smug. Kyle’s stuffed animals were still there, along with the laptop now sitting on a shelf beside… baby supplies? An entire rack of diapers, in a wooden box covered with blobby almost-letters and a few grinning horse faces. The duffel, sleeping bags, and food hadn’t come with them apparently—they were just gone.
“Where the hell did you take us?” Kyle asked, pawing nervously at one of the walls. Clean wallpaper, with little smiling horses circling around a sun-and-moon pattern. Yet for all that, the actual shape of the room wasn’t any different. The wall ended exactly where he expected, trailing away from the light of the strange overhead lamps.
Fay squealed, reaching towards her with both forelegs.
Kyle bent down beside her, pulling her in close. “Is this where you came from, Fay? Is this… where you were created?”
The baby giggled happily, rocking back and forth in her grip.
“Yeah, I can see what you did. Really supersized Taylor and Flynn too, didn’t you?” She bent down, picking one up in her teeth and settling it onto the ground beside them. No more dirty cement, no more worry about spiders hiding in the corners. The floor felt soft and comfortable, even against her sensitive underbelly.
But if she could change me, of course she could move us. She should’ve brought her phone… how was she supposed to call for help now?
Something rattled in the distance—a key in a lock. At least Kyle wasn’t going to be left wondering about where they’d been brought for long.
A door swung open, and Kara stepped out of the gloom, wearing jogging shorts and a tank-top and staring around in open shock. “So, uh… you’ve been redecorating,” she said. “I like the new look. Very ‘holy shit what is going on.’ It’s in season this year.”