Then she grinned as she set up a new spreadsheet and got to work.
She might not be able to build an app herself, but when it came to researching, she was a wizard. Ten minutes later, she had a long list of potential apps. Now she just needed to find out if they worked. She hurried into the other room, where Miss Appleby was sitting in her red chair, knitting.
“Ah, there you are, Midnight. Let me guess, you’ve run out of cleaning cloths.”
“Actually,” Midnight said, her heart banging against her chest. “I was looking for some spectral energy.”
“What?” The knitting needles in Miss Appleby’s hands dropped noiselessly to her lap. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve been looking at ghost-hunting apps and I think they’re based on the same technology that George Irongate used when he built the flying arm electroscope,” Midnight said, the words tumbling out.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because it’s all here in the diary.” Midnight held it up. “And I’ve been going through all the apps, and I’ve found some that we can test.”
“Is it really possible?” Miss Appleby’s voice wasn’t much above a whisper. “I might be able to have my life back? Leave the house and still do my duty?”
“I don’t know,” Midnight said truthfully, her phone clutched tight in her hand. “But I thought we could try them. Except to do that we’d need—”
“Spectral energy,” Miss Appleby finished off.
Midnight nodded. “Yes. I mean we could wait until the alarm goes off. But it would be good to test them now. Is that possible?”
“George recommended that I keep a small amount of energy nearby. As a reminder of how important the work is. I wonder if he suspected we might need it for something like this,” Miss Appleby said as she took in a deep breath and reached for the small brass box she kept on the bookshelf. “Okay. I think it’s probably best if we go to the study and get a transformer set up. We don’t want to release it for longer than we need to.”
“Agreed.” Midnight helped Miss Appleby to her feet, and they made their way back to the hidden room. Midnight collected the transformer and got it ready and then got on her phone and downloaded the first of the ghost-hunting apps. Once it was loaded, she put on her glasses. Miss Appleby slowly lifted the lid on the brass box.
Dark streaks darted out toward the ceiling and the flying arm electroscope rang out in alarm. Midnight’s pulse hammered and Miss Appleby’s eyes were wide with hope. They both looked at the phone in Midnight’s hand, but while the spectral energy continued to stream out and the alarm screeched in their ears, the electromagnetic meter on the screen remained undisturbed.
It hadn’t worked.
Midnight swallowed hard as she put the phone down and picked up the spectral transformer. Her hands shook as she pressed down on the brass button and watched as the dark energy was dragged back toward her. Once the room was cleared and the alarm stopped its incessant noise, the pair of them sat down.
“I’m sorry. I really thought that one would have the best chance of working,” Midnight said.
“But there are others?” Miss Appleby said, her mouth in a thoughtful line.
“Yes. Does that mean you’re not mad? Should we try again?”
“Of course we should try again.” Miss Appleby smiled at her. “After all, you’ve read George’s diaries. It took him months to perfect the flying arm electroscope, and imagine what would’ve happened if he’d given up the first time it hadn’t worked.”
“You mean when it blew up on him?” Midnight said, recalling the diary entry in question. “I think he even burned an eyebrow.”
“A small price to pay for what he has given the world.” Miss Appleby got back to her feet. “So, if you’re happy to keep trying, then so am I. And thank you, Midnight, for even thinking of this. I can’t tell you what it means to me.”
“You’re welcome.” Midnight picked up her phone and downloaded the next app on her list. Then she crossed her fingers. She really hoped that this one would work. For all their sakes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“What’s that smell?” Taylor said as she sashayed into the kitchen on Sunday morning. Midnight stiffened as she glanced down at her sneakers. She’d changed her clothes as soon as she’d arrived home to get rid of the smell but hadn’t thought about her shoes.
“I was helping Miss Appleby sort out some of her old clothing, and I guess they were a bit stinky.” Midnight studied her fingernails and didn’t make eye contact.
“A bit?” Taylor made an exaggerated show of holding her nose.
“It was probably the mothballs,” her mom said as she lifted a tray of gluten-free brownies out from the oven.
Phil fiddled with the broken coffee machine. When he wasn’t being a Viking, he seemed to spend all his spare time fixing broken appliances and painting walls. “I think it’s wonderful that Midnight’s giving Miss Appleby all the help she needs.”
“Yeah, Taylor.” Midnight grinned, resisting the urge to poke her tongue out at her sister. But she was poking her tongue out on the inside. Taylor shot her a dark look in return.
“So, how’s Miss Appleby feeling?” her mom asked, ignoring their antics. “Is her ankle getting better? She must hate being trapped in the house like that.”
“I think it’s healing,” she said.
They’d tried out fifteen apps yesterday, and they’d finally found one that seemed to work. The winner was a spoofy ghost-hunting app that looked more like a game than an electromagnetic energy reader. It even had a silly ghost cartoon that popped up and danced around when it sensed new energy.
She sighed and looked at the time. She was due to meet Tabitha to work on their history project.
“I’ve got to go.” She stood and reached for her backpack.
“Okay, but don’t forget that you’ll need to be back here by three o’clock.”
“What’s happening at three o’clock?”
“Remember, we’re all trying on our costumes for the Thanksgiving dinner? Don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten.” Her mom arched her eyebrow.
“Of course not,” Midnight quickly assured her, though she had been trying to forget all about the costume she had to wear. Her mom had been sewing it all week, and there was even talk of them all brushing dirt onto their faces to make them look more authentic. Suddenly, she thought longingly to when the mouse costume was the weirdest thing in her closet. “Er, I just meant that I didn’t know I had to try it on today. And now I really need to go or I’ll be late.”
“Would you like a lift?” Phil said, putting down his screwdriver. “I need some tools from the workshop to fix this machine. I could drop you off on the way.”
“No thanks.” Midnight caught her mom sending her a warning look. “I like walking.”
“Yeah right,” Taylor muttered under her breath, earning her a sharp glance from their mom.
“Of course.” Phil gave a quick shrug. Without another word, Midnight raced out the door. Not that she was in a hurry to get to Tabitha’s, but hanging out with Phil wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time.
The weather was getting cooler, and Midnight could see her breath. As she walked, the last of the fall leaves formed a soggy carpet. She shivered, her new, white cropped jacket doing little to keep out the cold.
“I was wondering if you’d stand me up again,” Tabitha said when Midnight arrived at her house. As usual, Tabitha was dressed all in black, with her hair pulled back with a skull and crossbones headband.
“I’m so sorry that I had to keep canceling.” Midnight followed her inside.
“Yeah, well once is an accident but twice smells of avoidance,” Tabitha said with a defiant sniff. “I was starting to think that your friends might not approve.”
“What do my friends have to do with anything?” Midnight wrinkled her nose.
“Please. Don’t tell me that they haven’t made any comments about the fact that you got stuck with me.” Tab
itha tapped her black-painted nails against her arm.
“Don’t be silly,” Midnight said quickly, not quite returning Tabitha’s gaze. “I can think for myself, you know.”
“Really? So why are you wearing an outfit that’s identical to theirs, then?”
“It’s not identical,” Midnight protested, not bothering to add that Sav’s jacket was red and Lucy’s was pink. She had a feeling that Tabitha might not appreciate the distinction. “And the real reason I had to keep canceling was because I got a job.”
Tabitha arched an eyebrow. “That was quick. I guess you can mark that down on your spreadsheet. So, what are you doing?”
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
“Just a few chores for Miss Appleby,” Midnight said instead. “She broke her ankle and can’t walk much on it.” She set her laptop up on the desk.
“What’s she like?” Tabitha looked up with interest. “I’ve never met her, but I have seen her at the cemetery from time to time. I like to think that she’s a witch.”
“A-a witch?” Midnight spluttered. “Of course she’s not a witch. She’s actually really nice.”
“When did I say that she wasn’t nice?” Tabitha blinked, as if surprised that Midnight would think it had been an insult. She let out a disappointed sigh. “I mean how cool would it be if she were a witch and teaching you how to do loads of black magic?”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course. Unfortunately, the boring truth is that she probably just goes there to visit the Irongate mausoleum. I think she’s related to George, Mary, Elizabeth, and William.”
“She is,” Midnight said, thinking of the numerous paintings in the hidden room. But she suspected that the real reason Miss Appleby was at the cemetery was because of spectral energy. Not that she was going to tell Tabitha that. “We should get started.”
“Sure.” Tabitha gave a lethargic shrug, obviously still disappointed that Miss Appleby wasn’t really a witch. “So, I went to the library and got out a few things to help with our research on Tobias Benson.”
“A few?” Midnight opened one of the books, which smelled of old pages and mildew. “These look like they haven’t been touched in years.”
“They probably haven’t, so be careful with them. They were down in the archives, but Mrs. Crown lets me go down whenever I want in return for helping her sort out the sixty boxes of paper that she bought at a recent auction.” Tabitha took the book out of Midnight’s hand and checked that it hadn’t been damaged.
“And here I was thinking that you didn’t know how to have fun,” Midnight quipped before biting her lip. For some reason she’d forgotten that instead of being with Sav and Lucy, she was sitting next to a moody loner who liked witches and had a fanatical interest in all things dead. But instead of looking annoyed, Tabitha started to laugh.
“Yeah, the rumors are all true. I really am a wild one.”
“Not that I’m complaining,” Midnight added, suddenly remembering her own run-in with Mrs. Crown. “I’m not even allowed in the library for another week, so I couldn’t have gotten any books for us.”
Tabitha looked mildly impressed. “You got banned from the library? Even Trevor Mitchell didn’t get banned when he covered the ceiling in spitballs.”
Midnight shrugged. “I just found a whole lot of books on the wrong shelf. It was a legitimate misunderstanding.”
“Sure it was.” Tabitha’s lips began to twitch.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s a little bit funny,” Tabitha countered, still smiling. “Logan said that you were different.”
“What?” Midnight’s smile faded, and she almost dropped the book she was holding before she remembered Tabitha’s warning about taking care of it. “You know Logan?”
“Kind of hard not to when he lives next door. His folks like tennis as much as mine.”
“Oh,” Midnight said in a neutral voice. She’d been surprised to discover that Tabitha and Sav had once been friends, but it was even stranger to imagine Tabitha and Logan hanging out.
“He’s pretty cool. Sometimes he even lets me paint his fingernails black, and he helps me with science.”
“Science?” Midnight’s eyed widened. “That doesn’t make sense. He hardly understands it himself. He doesn’t even know what gravitational pull is.”
Tabitha shot her a confused look. “Um, yeah he does. He’s a total brainiac.”
“So why would he keep asking me for help?” Midnight drew her eyebrows together.
Tabitha shrugged. “Maybe he wants to hang out with you. Why? Are you interested?”
“Of course not.” Midnight gave a violent shake of her head before realizing that Tabitha was his friend and might think she was being rude. “I mean—”
“Relax. I’m not Sav and Lucy. I don’t care if you like him or not. I also don’t betray people behind their backs, so I’d never tell him anything you said.”
“Oh. Right.” Midnight winced. She wasn’t sure what she felt worse about: misjudging Tabitha or saying she didn’t like Logan. “Honestly, I don’t know how I feel, but I do seem to lose the ability to speak English when I’m around him. I think it might be an allergy.”
“I see.” Tabitha’s lips twitched in amusement. “So I guess we’d better get to work. Unless you want to keep talking about boys?”
“Definitely not.” Midnight hid her face behind the laptop screen.
They spent the next hour researching the person who they had randomly picked to be the center of their history project. They discovered that Tobias Benson was a local lawyer who married his neighbor and had three girls. He also liked baseball and bird-watching. It was surprisingly easy to work with Tabitha. Despite her gloomy appearance, she was smart and studious.
“Okay.” Midnight got to her feet. “So, should we meet here again on Sunday?”
“Can we change it to Black Friday? My folks are making me do something on Sunday. I’d like to go to the cemetery to take some photographs of Tobias’s gravestone. Plus, I think I know where his parents are buried, which might be cool to mention.”
“Is there any chance that if I say no to the cemetery you’ll stop bugging me about it?” Midnight checked.
“Nope.” Tabitha shook her head, sending her dark hair billowing out around her face. “So, what do you say?”
I say that between Miss Appleby and you, my life has become pretty strange lately.
“Fine.” Midnight sighed. “The cemetery it is.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By the time the final school bell rang on Wednesday, Midnight was rethinking the ghost app. The good news was that each time it had gone off, it had been completely accurate. Miss Appleby had given her a spectral transformer so she could respond to notifications on her own, and she was making more money than she’d ever dreamed.
The bad news was that it kept going off, and trying to juggle everything was proving to be complicated, even with a spreadsheet. She yawned as she caught up to Sav and Lucy. They were checking their reflections in the mirror that Lucy always carried with her.
“Have you ever thought about wearing makeup?” Lucy studied Midnight’s face and made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Because a little bit of foundation might do wonders for those bags under your eyes.”
Midnight touched under her eyes. “What bags?”
“They’re like two bruises,” Lucy offered as she held the mirror up.
Midnight winced. She did have bags.
“Midnight doesn’t need to wear makeup if she doesn’t want to,” Sav chided. She held out a tube of pale pink lip-gloss. “But you could always try this. It will detract from the shadows under your eyes and everyone knows that lip gloss isn’t really makeup. It’s more like a necessity.”
Midnight wasn’t quite sure she believed that. More to the point, neither would her mother, who’d refused to let Taylor wear even tinted moisturizer until a few months ago.
“Maybe,” Midnight said in a dipl
omatic voice. Sav fiddled with the tiny golden studs that were sitting in her earlobes. Midnight looked at them with interest. “Are those new? I haven’t seen them before.”
“Oh.” Sav paused for a moment before smiling. “Yeah, aren’t they cute? My aunt sent them to me as a good-luck present for next week’s talent show.”
“And speaking of the talent show,” Lucy quickly cut in, “didn’t you want to go rehearse?”
“I do. You guys are coming to watch, right? You know how nervous I get.” Sav gave a grateful nod of her head, not looking at all nervous.
“Definitely—” Midnight started to say before she was cut off by the sound of the ghost app going off in her school bag. “A-actually, that’s probably my mom wanting me to go straight home.”
“Sure.” Sav’s mouth tightened; then she plastered on a smile. “Well, have a great Thanksgiving. I get back on Sunday night, so I’ll talk to you then.”
“Absolutely,” Midnight said, trying not to feel guilty that she had to cancel.
Once her friends had gone, she studied the message. The GPS map showed that it was at Butler Park, and if she walked quickly, she could get there in about fifteen minutes.
By the time she reached the park, the sky was the color of steel and she had been hit with the low buzz that always accompanied the spectral energy. Midnight caught sight of rapid flickers of white light dancing above an ornate water fountain. She pulled out her glasses and put them on. As always, the true face of spectral energy made her gasp. The clear columns of water were replaced by layer upon layer of swirling black fog.
Midnight fought back her fear and ducked behind a neat shrub to unpack the spectral transformer. She paused to check that the glass plate was correctly loaded and that the flash was hooked up. Once it was ready, she aimed it directly at the vile energy and pressed down on the button. The flash illuminated the sky and the swirling fog howled as it was dragged into the camera. By the time it was finished, her forehead was covered in sweat from the effort. She quickly put the transformer back into her bag.
Midnight Reynolds and the Spectral Transformer Page 7
