Midnight Reynolds and the Agency of Spectral Protection

by Catherine Holt

  “Of course I don’t mind. I’m pleased you’re going out. And Tabitha told me she’s also got a date.”

  Midnight raised her eyebrow as she turned to Tabitha. “How long have you been here?” She made a mental note to start meeting her friend outside the house. Not that she knew why Tabitha had insisted on coming over so early. She’d sent Midnight a text last night telling her to be ready by seven thirty.

  “Not long.” Tabitha jumped to her feet. “Your mom gave me one of her breakfast brownies. You know what happens when I eat them.”

  “It’s my secret weapon.” Midnight’s mom grinned. “Now, if you two girls are free before school, I’d love for you to be in today’s video. We’re making vegetable pakoras.”

  “Actually, we need to go to the library,” Tabitha said quickly, well aware that Midnight’s mom tried to rope everyone into her videos.

  “Well, far be it from me to stop the pair of you from learning.” Her mom gave them both a warm smile. “Hopefully it will clear this afternoon. Phil seems to think it will.”

  “Clear?” Tabitha glanced skeptically out the window as the heavy rain drummed down like a curtain. Thankfully she seemed to catch Midnight’s telling glare and immediately coughed. “Yeah, I heard that too. And it definitely looks lighter.”

  “Totally,” Midnight seconded as she grabbed the lunch her mom had made and dragged Tabitha toward the front door. It took them several moments to put on raincoats and pick up umbrellas before they ventured out into the stinging rain.

  The sky was the color of metal, and the sound of car tires splashing through the water filled their ears.

  “Don’t say it. I messed up about Logan and the date.” Tabitha groaned as soon as they were free from the house. “It was the brownie. It’s like catnip. I fall for it every time. At least Taylor wasn’t around to tease you.”

  “It’s okay,” Midnight said as they both raced for the bus shelter, the wind and rain making it difficult to speak. They usually walked to the school, but with the weather so bad, that wasn’t an option. “I was going to tell my mom today anyway. Not that I’m sure I should be going. After all, we don’t have a clue how to figure this thing out.”

  “What? No, you can’t cancel,” Tabitha said as the bus pulled up. They clambered on, water dripping off them as they sat down. “Besides, it’s only Wednesday. We have plenty of time. And I did get the face from the mirror.”

  Midnight nodded. Tabitha had sent her the photograph of the mirror last night, after she’d blown it up and applied several filters. It was just about possible to see a face, but they couldn’t tell who it was.

  “Plus, there’s the button you found. Any progress with that?”

  “None,” Midnight said as she pulled the silver button out of her pocket. She’d spent the night on the Internet, hoping that she would somehow find information about it. Perhaps that it once belonged to a convicted villain who was now living in Berry (at a location easily accessible for two middle schoolers). Or, at the very least, that it was only sold to people over the age of fifty. Or with brown hair. Something to help them narrow things down.

  Instead, it just appeared to be an ordinary button.

  “Oh.” Tabitha didn’t look too disappointed as the bus stopped at the school and they clambered off. “Well, luckily, I have a new plan. That rude woman from the museum told me to read it in the newspaper like everyone else, and I realized that was the perfect idea! Mrs. Crown has lots of old Berry Gazettes in the archives, and I thought we could go through them to see if anything like this has happened before. Something so old that it isn’t on the Internet.”

  “Wait? So we really are going to the library?”

  Tabitha looked confused. “I told you that back at your house.”

  “Yes, but I thought it was a cover. Or code,” Midnight said as they reached the building in question. A large notice on the front wall stated that no raincoats or umbrellas were allowed inside, and that wet children would be kicked out immediately. Midnight gulped as she tried to shake the water out of her hair. “In case you’ve forgotten, Mrs. Crown hates me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you,” Tabitha said. Mrs. Crown was at the counter returning books, but she looked up as they walked in. She gave Tabitha a smile and nodded to a glass door that led to an off-limits area where Midnight had never been before. The librarian narrowed her eyes as she noticed Midnight.

  “What do you call that, then?” Midnight asked in a whisper.

  “Okay, so perhaps you’re not her favorite person in the world, but at least she’s letting you in.” Tabitha opened the door to a reveal a room filled with metal shelves from the floor to the ceiling. On the shelves were stacks and stacks of newspapers. They were brown with age, and the musky smell of ink and paper hung in the air.

  “I suppose,” Midnight said. After an incident last year, when Midnight had discovered a pile of books on the wrong shelf (and she’d pulled them all out and piled them on the floor, like any self-respecting Dewey lover would do), she’d been barred for two weeks. Apparently Mrs. Crown had a memory like an elephant, because she still hadn’t forgotten it. “So, what exactly are we looking for?”

  “It occurred to me that the Agency of Spectral Protection doesn’t even know for certain that this weapon exists. It’s just a theory,” Tabitha said as they reached the corner with the oldest newspapers. It was off-limits to most students, but Tabitha wasn’t most students. Apparently she’d even seen Mrs. Crown smile, though Midnight wasn’t sure she believed that.

  “Okay. So, how does this help us?” Midnight wasn’t sure where her friend was going with the idea.

  “Don’t you see? They also didn’t know about the spectral transformer that George Irongate had built.” Tabitha nodded her head as if hoping that would make Midnight understand.

  And suddenly she did. She let out a soft gasp. “You think that George might have made another weapon?”

  “That’s right.” Tabitha walked over to the racks of old papers. “And if he did, that might be what we’re looking for!”

  Midnight scanned the dates until she reached 1875. “This is the year that George Irongate invented his first weapon, according to his diaries. It’s a good place to start.”

  “Hey, not so fast.” Tabitha jumped to stop Midnight from touching the newspaper itself. “No wonder Mrs. Crown doesn’t trust you. These are archives. Which means we both need to have clean, dry hands.”

  “Sorry.” Midnight followed Tabitha to the sink in the corner of the room. “I didn’t realize.”

  “You’re just lucky Mrs. Crown wasn’t looking.” Tabitha finished drying her hands and showed Midnight how to take the newspaper out and carefully spread it onto the viewing desk. She then collected a newspaper of her own, and they both got to work.

  The paper was brittle with age, and the print was tiny. Midnight had to remind herself that she wasn’t on a device where she could just increase the size. Then she noticed a large magnifying glass on the table. She reached for it and studied the first page. Miss Soybean Winner! Fire on Pitt Street! Drink this Vitalizing Tonic!

  “They sure liked their exclamation points back then.” Midnight turned the page. By the time she put away the twentieth newspaper, her shoulders were tight and her eyes were beginning to ache. She took off her glasses and was about to reach for another paper when Tabitha let out a small gasp.

  “I think I’ve found something. Look at this. April 5, 1901.” Her friend pointed to an article in the paper she’d been studying. Midnight leaned over her shoulder.

  Houdini Was Here!

  Astonished onlookers didn’t know what to say when a four-carat pink diamond, set in an engagement ring, melted in the display cabinet in Berry’s oldest jewelry store, Nixon and Wright. Trevor Nixon said that the diamond ring had been commissioned by the mayor, who’d been left heartbroken and angry by the mysterious occurrence! Police haven’t been able to shed any light on the disappearance, and if rumors are to be believed, the mayor
ordered for the ring to be taken so he could break his engagement.

  Below the article was a photograph of three men. It was grainy, making it impossible to see any distinctive features, but the caption underneath named the men as Trevor Nixon, Simon Wright, and their longtime employee, William Irongate.

  William Irongate?

  Midnight and Tabitha turned to each other.

  William was George Irongate’s younger brother who was buried at the Irongate mausoleum along with George, his first wife, Mary, and his daughter, Eliza. But Midnight and Tabitha didn’t know anything else about him, other than the fact he’d never married. It was entirely possible that he had access to all of George’s inventions.

  The girls let out a small squeal as Tabitha held up her cell phone and quickly took photographs of the article, the picture, and the date of the newspaper. Finally, they had a clue that wasn’t a button.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Midnight, how lovely to see you,” Tabitha’s mom said as the two girls upended their umbrellas at the doorway to Tabitha’s house later that day and hurried inside. Unlike Tabitha, who wore mostly black clothes, her mom favored jeans and pastel sweaters. Today’s was robin’s-egg blue. She was also super nice and didn’t even seem to notice when Tabitha got grumpy.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Wilson,” Midnight said.

  “My pleasure.” Tabitha’s mom beamed as she ushered them in. “You two are soaked. Would you like to dry off while I make you some snacks?”

  “We’re okay,” Tabitha said quickly. “We have loads of homework to do, so we’re going to head straight up to my room.”

  Which wasn’t really a lie. Their math teacher had given them pages of work to do, but they’d finished it at lunchtime. Right now, they were going to research William Irongate using Tabitha’s numerous genealogy programs.

  “Of course. Oh, and Tabitha, Louisa from the club wanted to know if you could join us for doubles. Her sweet daughter’s very eager to see you.”

  “The one who wears pink bows in her hair and talks like a Chipmunk?” Tabitha said, looking mildly disgusted. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, let me know,” her mom said cheerily as she wandered back to her home office. Once she was gone, Tabitha groaned as they walked to her bedroom.

  “I wish my parents would stop trying to drag me to their stupid club. Do I look like a person who wants to play tennis and sit around drinking orange juice on the patio talking about the Gap catalog?”

  “Perhaps she just wants to spend time with you.”

  “Well, then she can come to the cemetery,” Tabitha retorted. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about tennis or my mom. We need to get to work.”

  Midnight had contacted Peter, and the team at ASP had gone through all of George Irongate’s possessions that had been taken from Miss Appleby’s house. They hadn’t found any mention of William’s personal details. So, the new plan was to keep doing local research for anything connecting William to spectral energy.

  The words needle and haystack came to mind.

  The girls hurried up the stairs to Tabitha’s bedroom. It was sleek and modern, like the rest of the house, but the walls were covered with posters from old movies that Tabitha kept threatening to make Midnight watch. Yes, she could see ghosts, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see people get killed by vampires.

  However, while they didn’t agree on movies, when it came to working, they got along perfectly. Ten minutes later, Midnight was set up at the base of Tabitha’s bed, while her friend was spread out on the floor. They’d agreed that Midnight would do a general search while Tabitha went through the Irongate family tree.

  “Okay.” Tabitha toyed with her pencil. “We know that William was born in 1858 and died in 1910, so he was about forty years old when he was working in the jewelry store. And potentially stealing from it. Oh, and he never married.”

  “And we also know George Irongate died in 1895, and that Miss Appleby continued to live in his house. Which means William must’ve been living somewhere else. If only we could find out where.” Midnight typed another search into her laptop.

  “Yes, but this is going back one hundred years. Even if we find out, what are the chances that anything would still be there? I know George left behind a secret room,” Tabitha said, referring to the hidden study where all of George’s inventions had been kept. “But I doubt we’ll be so lucky a second time.”

  “If William did have one of George’s weapons, then whoever’s using it now must have gotten it from somewhere,” Midnight mused.

  “Okay, so we’ll try your idea of finding out where he lived.” Tabitha began to type. Five minutes later, she let out a groan. “I have good news and bad news. He lived in a boardinghouse that was run by a woman named Cecelia Perkins.”

  “Really?” Midnight’s eyes brightened before catching Tabitha’s expression. “What’s the bad news?”

  “It burned down in 1899, just before the robbery,” Tabitha said as her mouth tightened. “Why do I know the name Cecelia Perkins?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps you’ve seen her gravestone at the cemetery?”

  “No, it’s not that,” Tabitha said as their cell phones simultaneously began to ring. It was the ghost app, letting them know that somewhere spectral energy was trapped.

  “It’s at Seven Oaks Mall.” Midnight studied the screen as her stomach dropped. Normally when spectral energy was trapped in a public place, she waited until after hours to lessen the chances of being caught. However, the mall was locked up after hours, which meant there was never a good time to go there.

  Tabitha’s face went pale. “That’s risky.”

  “It’s even more risky not to help release it. Especially with what’s happening to the Black Stream. Things are crazy enough in Berry right now without making it worse.”

  “Okay, so we should get going.” Tabitha reluctantly shut her MacBook. It was obvious she would prefer to keep researching—and if they wanted to solve the case, they needed to find out more about William Irongate.

  Midnight shook her head. “I think you should stay here.”

  “Life would’ve been easier if George Irongate had invented a machine to let us be in two places at once,” Tabitha said in a wistful voice before nodding her head. “Okay, I’ll keep researching, but let me know how everything goes.”

  “I will.” Midnight got to her feet, her mind already planning her course of action. Get CARA. Tell her mom she was babysitting for an hour. Use some of her expense money to get a cab to Seven Oaks. Release spectral energy, and be home in time for dinner. It was tight, but if she hurried, it might just work.

  * * *

  Midnight gritted her teeth as she pushed her glasses further up her nose. The entire department store was filled with black fog, pulsing like a heartbeat, while people wandered past, oblivious. She’d spent ten minutes trying to locate the source on the lower floor before making her way up the escalator. The high-pitched buzz rang in her ear as she followed the dark tendrils, her knuckles white as she clutched her backpack.

  “I swear I haven’t worn them before,” a familiar voice said. Midnight looked over to see Malie standing in front of a customer service counter. Her dark skin was glowing, and amazing spiral curls were flattened down and held back from her brow by one of Sav’s old headbands. She was leaning over the counter, clutching a pair of jeans that looked like the ones she’d been wearing at the museum. “Please, you have to give me a refund.”

  The clerk was silent, then gave a curt nod. “Very well, but next time there’s a stain, we won’t be able to do anything.”

  Midnight looked over with interest. When she’d been friends with Sav and Lucy, she’d tried her hardest to keep up with their belief that new clothes were everything. It’s what had led her into working for Miss Appleby—she’d needed the extra money. Of course the irony was that while Midnight had accidentally helped an evil old woman to try to compete, Sav and Lucy had been shoplifting.
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br />   “I swear it was there when I bought them.” Malie took her money and turned around. At the sight of Midnight, her mouth dropped open. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just shopping,” Midnight said, trying to act like the entire room wasn’t filled with hideous darkness.

  “More like spying on me,” Malie retorted, two patches of color forming on her cheeks. “And whatever you think you just saw, it’s not like that. I have money. Lots of it.”

  “Okay,” Midnight said, torn about whether to say anything or not. It was none of her business. Then she caught the strain around Malie’s eyes. “But for the record, I know better than anyone how exhausting it is to try to impress Sav and Lucy. If you want my advice, just be yourself.”

  “As if I’d listen to you. After all, if your advice worked, you would’ve gone skiing with them. Plus, look at your outfit.” Malie gave a dismissive snort and folded her arms so that the plastic bag she was holding was on full display. It was from a costume store at the far end of the mall.

  Midnight flinched at the memory of the ski trip she’d been invited to go on before being unceremoniously dumped. And there was nothing wrong with her outfit. She glanced down at the plain jeans and the random T-shirt that she’d put on, topped off with a comfortable hoodie. She’d spent so much time worrying about her clothing when she’d been friends with Sav and Lucy. These days, she enjoyed wearing whatever she wanted.

  “I was just trying to help,” Midnight said as the spectral energy swirled around them, a low hiss buzzing in her ears.

  “Well, I don’t need it.” Malie patted the bag in her hands. “I have it all under control.” Without another word, she stormed out of the department store. The gathering spectral energy shrouded around her like a veil.

  Midnight opened her mouth to protest, but before the words could come out, she finally saw the source of the spectral energy. It was coming from a display of headphones. She pushed Malie from her mind and walked over.