Midnight Reynolds and the Spectral Transformer

by Holt, Catherine;

  “Hey, Midnight,” a voice said from behind her.

  Midnight slowly swiveled around and looked up. A silent gasp escaped her lips.

  Logan Johnson.

  Why did this keep happening to her?

  The shirt that had offended Sav and Lucy was gone, and he was wearing a pair of jeans and a blue hoodie with a robot on the front. Midnight scrambled to her feet and tried not to think about how close she’d come to being caught—or how close he was standing to her.

  “What are you doing here?” she said, hoping that she didn’t look as panicked as she felt.

  “Kid sister. Park. Too much energy,” Logan said as he nodded his head over to a little girl with long, dark pigtails, who was wearing a tutu. She was doing somersaults on the frosty grass while singing at the top of her voice. “So, how about you?”

  “I just felt like some exercise,” Midnight lied.

  Logan’s brow furrowed. “At a fountain?”

  Midnight tightened her grip on her bag. “Well, um, I made a bet with my older sister that I’d run around it five times.”

  “Man, sisters are the worst.” The confusion left his eyes and he laughed. It was a nice laugh and Midnight found herself smiling. “My sister was supposed to take Bella to the park while my parents practice with their band, but she begged me to do it just because she wanted to go shopping with a friend. What’s that about?”

  “It’s their duty to make our lives a misery,” Midnight explained, momentarily forgetting that she’d only made up the bet with Taylor to cover what she’d really been doing. In her defense, her sister had made her do more than enough dumb things in the past. “So, your parents are in a band. That’s cool.”

  “Not everyone would agree with you. Most kids at school think it’s lame.”

  “My mom’s about to marry a guy who dresses up like a Viking and we all have to go along to a Viking Thanksgiving. I think I win lame,” Midnight said.

  “Oh, hey. I know those guys. They practice at the park every Saturday. It kind of looks like fun.”

  “I guess,” Midnight said. “Though I’m not sure they do it to be fun. I think it’s about preserving history. At least that’s what Phil said.”

  “Right.” Logan grinned, his dark eyes catching hers. Midnight’s breath quickened. “Actually, Midnight, I was—No. Bella. Peppa does not want to explore the fountain.” They turned to see his young sister dangling a vaguely familiar pig over the water.

  “Sorry.” Bella immediately stopped what she was doing and gave the pig a pat on the head, then resumed her somersaulting.

  Logan sighed. “She’s obsessed with Peppa Pig. I mean really obsessed.”

  Midnight let out a little gasp. “Was Bella with you last weekend when I saw you at the mall?”

  “Oh yeah.” He rolled his eyes. “I was kind of hoping that you hadn’t noticed the shirt. They were doing a big promotion at the toy store and Bella insisted that we all had to wear our best shirts. I live in a house that’s ruled by a three-year-old.”

  Midnight bit down hard on her lower lip, a wave of shame racing through her. “A-about at the food court. I’m not sure what you—”

  “Relax, Midnight,” he said, scuffing at the grass with his sneaker. “I’m not mad that Sav and Lucy were laughing. I’d probably be laughing too if I saw a twelve-year-old wearing a shirt like that.”

  “Oh.” Midnight breathed in and caught a whiff of his shampoo. It was nice and clean smelling, not like some of the boys in her class. She tried to shake off the strange, breathless sensation as she thought about her conversation with Tabitha the other day. Was her friend right? Did Logan like her? More importantly, did she like him? Well, of course she liked him because he was nice. But did she like him like him?

  It didn’t matter. She’d told Sav and Lucy she didn’t like Logan Johnson, and if she changed her mind, they’d think she’d lied to them. Which meant that no matter how cute Logan’s laugh was or how dark his eyes were, she needed to stay out of his way or risk losing the friendship of the only two girls who’d ever been nice to her.

  “Is everything okay?” Logan asked.

  “Um, yeah. I just remembered that I’ve got to…” She paused. She couldn’t exactly tell him she had to take the spectral transformer back to Miss Appleby’s house. “Well, I’ve just got some things to do.”

  “Oh. Right.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and nodded. “Sure. Okay, so I guess I’ll see you around.”

  “Yeah.” Midnight’s cheeks burned as she turned and made her way across the park.

  She was distracted by the sound of her phone and gratefully fumbled around in her pocket and studied the pop-up message on her screen. It was from someone called Peter Gallagher. Midnight frowned. She had no idea who Peter Gallagher was and she was just about to ignore it when a familiar green ghost icon appeared on the message. Understanding dawned and she opened it up.

  Dear Ghost Hunter!

  Congratulations on tracking down five ghosts. We’re so pleased that you love our app and would appreciate if you could take the time to complete this survey to ensure that we continue to be of service to you!

  Yours,

  Peter and the rest of the Ghost Hunting team

  Midnight’s lip twitched. Taylor always teased her for doing surveys and rating forms, but the organizational geek inside her could never say no to helping other people create order in their business. She followed the link. It was a reasonably simple series of questions and after hitting a lot of yes and no buttons, Midnight reached the end and was rewarded by the ghost icon doing a happy dance.

  Midnight’s phone buzzed again. She winced as her mom’s name flashed up on the screen, reminding her that she’d promised to come home early to help with dinner. Midnight quickly sent her back an apology. First, she’d had to ditch her friends and now she’d forgotten a promise. For the most organized girl in the world, she was really having an off day.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The old Berry Cemetery was on a narrow wedge of land that ran halfway down a hill. Many of the long-forgotten headstones jutted out at angles, like crooked teeth. A newer, more level cemetery had been built on the other side of the river, which explained why, as Midnight pushed open the creaking wrought-iron gate the day after Thanksgiving and walked over to where Tabitha was waiting, the place was deserted.

  “Hey,” Midnight said as she reached her. “How are you?”

  “Better than yesterday.” Tabitha pulled a tragic face.

  “Thanksgiving at my parents’ country club? Big mistake. How about you?”

  “The less said the better.” Midnight shuddered, pleased it was over for another year. The highlights had been watching Phil and his friends playing rock, paper, scissors to decide who got to carve the turkey with a sword as Taylor flirted with a guy dressed up as a berserker. Oh, and in complete irony, for the first time since she’d installed the ghost app, it hadn’t gone off, which was a pity because Midnight would’ve been more than happy to cut the festivities short.

  “So bad times all around. Still, at least we’re here in my happy place,” Tabitha said, lifting a fancy camera from her skull-and-bones backpack. “So Tobias’s grave is over on the far side. Just follow me.”

  “Right.” Midnight blinked, not really surprised by how comfortable Tabitha was at the cemetery. Normally a place like this would’ve creeped Midnight out, but after everything she’d seen in the last three weeks, it was barely registering.

  She followed Tabitha, careful not to trip on the uneven path. It was impossible not to feel maudlin as she passed gravestone after gravestone, but thankfully, Tabitha was more interested in getting the best camera angle than making small talk. They spent the next half hour almost in silence, taking photos of Tobias’s family’s graves.

  They were over at his grandmother’s headstone when Midnight’s skin prickled. She looked up just in time to see flickers of white light radiating out from a small mausoleum. Adrenaline pumped in
her veins and she thrust her glasses on. It was probably just going to be some harmless spectral energy, especially since the ghost app hadn’t gone off. But all the same she knew she had to find out just in case it was—

  Slender tufts of pale pink fog?

  Midnight shut her eyes and then opened them again, but the delicate fog was still there, wrapped around the crumbling stonework of the mausoleum. A hundred questions surged through her mind as she watched the slim tendrils pulsate. Was it spectral energy? But if so, why wasn’t it black?

  She took out her phone and called Miss Appleby, but there was no answer. Indecision gnawed at her. What if it wasn’t spectral energy? Then again, what else could it be? And if it was spectral energy, there really was one answer. She still had a small transformer, and if she could make her way to the other side, she should be able to neutralize it without being seen. Thankfully, Tabitha was twenty feet away, lying on the ground as she tried to get a close-up of one of the headstones. Midnight made her way toward the mausoleum.

  The pink fog fluttered in answer and sent out long, thin tendrils, as if to scare her off. Midnight hardened her resolve and carefully took the spectral transformer out of her backpack. As always, the brass edges of the camera were cold in her hands as she took aim.

  Before she could tighten her finger on the button, the fog disappeared.

  She blinked. Miss Appleby had specifically told her that unless spectral energy was neutralized, it would grow stronger and stronger within whatever object it had taken over. In other words, it didn’t just disappear. She stared at the faded stone, now purely gray. It was definitely gone. Which meant that whatever she’d just seen wasn’t—

  “There you are. I was starting to think I’d lost you,” Tabitha’s voice called from somewhere behind her. In one fluid motion, Midnight dropped to her knees and thrust the spectral transformer into her backpack just as Tabitha appeared.

  “Sorry.” Midnight tried to look casual. “I, er, was just having a look around.”

  “Please, I know exactly why you’re here.”

  “You do?” Her voice was little above a croak as she wondered if Tabitha had somehow seen the pink fog—or worse, had seen Midnight with the spectral transformer. She licked her lips.

  “Sure. This is the Irongate mausoleum and you’re working for Miss Appleby. I figured you must want to check it out.”

  “This is the Irongate mausoleum?” Midnight choked. “It is.” Tabitha gave her a penetrating look before grabbing Midnight’s hand. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

  Midnight gulped. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was look at any mausoleum, let alone one where George and his family were buried. Unfortunately, short of telling Tabitha the truth, she wasn’t sure how to get out of it. When had life become so complicated?

  The mausoleum was six feet deep, with three plain walls and a rusty metal gate that barred the entrance. There were no statues or carvings, like so many of the surrounding tombs had, and the only attempt to break the sparseness was the two small pillars flanking the gate.

  Along the top was the name Irongate, but the engraving was so blackened with age that it was almost impossible to pick out. For all the good George Irongate had done, he and his family were fading even further into anonymity.

  “Look, you can just about see the names.” Tabitha pointed a finger through the rusted bars. “George Irongate was born in 1853 and died in 1895. His brother, William, is also here along with George’s wife, Mary, who was born in 1857 and died in 1883, and Elizabeth was born in 1883—oh, she was born the same year her mom died. That’s so sad. And even sadder, she died in 1895, just five days before her father, which means she was only—”

  “Twelve years old—our age,” Midnight finished as she bowed her head. Even though she’d seen the portrait of Elizabeth, Midnight hadn’t known that she’d died young. And even though it had all happened such a long time ago, there was something terrible about it.

  “I’ve often wondered why there are only four people in the crypt,” Tabitha said as she took a few shots with her camera. “The cemetery didn’t close until 1926, so I’m surprised that there aren’t more names. Perhaps you should ask Miss Appleby next time you see her?”

  And admit that she’d been snooping around the family mausoleum? Not likely. However, Tabitha was enthusiastically nodding her head, so Midnight just gave a vague reply before suggesting that, if they’d taken enough photographs, they should probably get going. Tabitha reluctantly agreed and Midnight let out a long sigh. They stepped through the wrought-iron gates and back into the normal world.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  By Monday, Midnight was exhausted. The ghost app had gone off three more times since her trip to the cemetery on Friday. Also, she hadn’t had time to go back to Miss Appleby’s house yesterday afternoon, so she currently had a brass box with two glass slides full of spectral energy in her backpack. Not only did it weigh a ton, but it was also like the dark energy was creeping out into her skin. The only good news was that while she hadn’t mentioned the mausoleum to Miss Appleby, Midnight had asked about the pink fog, and her employer had assured her that whatever it was, it wasn’t spectral energy, which meant that was at least one thing Midnight could take off her ever-expanding to-do list.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t take school off the list. She yawned as she tried to navigate the busy corridor and increased her pace as her locker came into sight.

  Lucy suddenly stepped out in front of her, no sign of a smile on her mouth. “Midnight, where were you yesterday afternoon? We left you like a million messages.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said as Sav joined them. No smile from her either. Midnight gulped. While there hadn’t been a million messages, there had been one, but she’d been so tired that she’d fallen asleep, still in her clothes, and had forgotten to send a reply. “Something came up.”

  “Like what?” Lucy narrowed her eyes.

  Like all the work she had to do trying to make money to go on their ski trip. Yesterday, there’d been a haunted lampshade in a law office, and she’d had to get to it by standing on a trash can and aiming the spectral transformer in through an air vent. Unfortunately, she couldn’t exactly tell them that. She shifted her weight and tried to pretend her bag didn’t weigh more than an elephant. The sooner she got to her locker, the better.

  “Um, family stuff,” Midnight said instead, before realizing that Sav still hadn’t spoken and that there were delicate dark bags under her normally sparkling eyes. A tingle of alarm ran through her. “Why? Is everything okay?”

  “No.” Lucy folded her arms in front of her chest. “Everything’s not okay. It’s the talent show today, and in case you’ve forgotten, Sav’s doing a solo. Which meant she spent all of yesterday freaking out about it. We could’ve really used your support. You know how stressed Sav gets.”

  “Lucy, relax. It’s fine,” Sav finally said, giving Midnight a watery smile. “I know that it seems ridiculously dramatic. I was just having some last-minute nerves, which is why Lucy wanted you to be there.”

  “Misery loves cookie dough,” Lucy said before relenting. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get in your face, but you know how nervous Sav gets before these performances. She totally needs our support.”

  “I’m so sorry that I forgot.” A rush of embarrassment went through her. She couldn’t believe that she’d let Sav down. She thought that facing spectral energy was bad, but dealing with Sav’s upset face was even worse. Sav and Lucy were such good friends, and they cared enough to try and help Midnight become the best she could be. And how did she repay them? By not returning their calls. She needed to completely overhaul her spreadsheet system. She was a bad, bad friend. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay.” Sav dabbed at the corners of her eyes and plastered on a heroic smile, but her bottom lip was trembling. “I was just being a diva.”

  “No you weren’t,” Midnight said in an impassioned voice. “Not that you need my support. You�
��re the most amazing singer ever, and you are going to slay in the talent show today.”

  “Exactly.” Lucy nodded. “And then on Saturday, we can properly celebrate your success.”

  “Saturday?” Midnight said, worried that something else had slipped through her normally organized schedule.

  “Don’t worry. You haven’t forgotten anything,” Lucy teased. “We were going to tell you yesterday but you didn’t show. Anyway, we’re all going to the movies. That is, unless you have something else planned.” This last part was accompanied by a telling look, no doubt as a reminder that Midnight had been less than reliable lately.

  “Absolutely not. I’d love to go to the movies.” She gave a vigorous nod of her head. Tabitha might pretend to be okay with being dumped by Sav, but Midnight had no intention of letting that happen to her.

  “Good. Now, we want to get ready for the show,” Sav said. “Will you come with us?”

  “Um, I need to go to my locker. I’ll meet you there,” Midnight said, her grip tightening on the backpack. She wasn’t sure of the school policy on carrying around deadly energy that could corrupt everything it touched, but she had a feeling it was probably frowned upon. She waited until her friends linked arms and headed in the other direction before letting out her breath.

  “Thank goodness they’ve gone.” Tabitha suddenly appeared, her normal mocking expression replaced by one of boredom. “Those girls sure can talk.”

  Midnight blinked. “Were you eavesdropping?” And why did everyone keep visiting her at her locker? Was there a sign above her head that said, Something Dangerous Is Hidden Here?

  “Yeah. Because nothing says fun to me like hearing Savannah Hanson and Lucy Gibson spout out their little gems of wisdom,” Tabitha deadpanned. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small vial of sludgy, red liquid. “Don’t worry. I was just waiting until they left so I can ask you about this.”