table. “You mean this is some kind of ghost detector you’re planning to use over on the McCulloch property?”
“Of course not!” she said in a huff. “It’s a spectral energy visualizer. Weren’t you listening?”
I placed my hands flat on the slate table, hoping to channel some of that cool into my demeanor. “Listen, Phin. You can’t go around spouting off about supernatural phenomena. I mean, Austin is pretty open-minded, but we’re not in Austin. This is a small town. And you definitely can’t go ghost hunting or energy visualizing or whatever on the McCullochs’ place. We need to keep well clear— What are you doing?”
She continued to open and close the workroom cabinets and drawers. “I’m trying to find an EMF meter in Aunt Hy’s things. I blew mine out in an experiment for my physics final.”
“You don’t need an EMF meter. You need to pay attention. This is important.” I followed her around the room, talking to the back of her head. Maybe if I threw enough words at her, some of them would penetrate her skull. “The McCullochs are already peeved at Aunt Hyacinth. If they’re trying to build this bridge, and then this body turns up, and if the ghost talk is making it even harder to get business done, their tolerance for quirky girl ghost detectives is going to be really low right now.”
“Aha!” Triumphant, she extracted something that looked like a ray gun from one of the drawers.
“What is that?” I asked in spite of myself.
“Infrared thermometer, of course. I knew she’d have one. Culinary equipment has made it so much easier to be precise in cooking up spells.” She continued searching. “She’s got to have an EMF meter, too. It’s important to know where the electromagnetic fields are when you’re working.”
I tried a more logical approach. “The ranch is about a bazillion acres huge. How are you going to know where to look for spectral auras or whatever?”
She gave me a don’t-be-ridiculous look. “At the shallow grave, of course.”
“Oh, that’s brilliant. Because the only thing worse than trespassing would be trespassing on a crime scene.” I slapped a hand on the cabinet door she was about to open. “Are you listening, Phin?”
Finally she turned and faced me. “We wouldn’t be trespassing,” she said, as if stating something obvious. “We’ve been invited.”
“By whom?” The only thing obvious to me was how much we would not be welcome.
“By Mark.”
“And who is Mark?”
“One of the anthropology people. I met him in the hardware store. He’s the one who told me they’d be digging tomorrow, and he invited us to come and see.” She pulled at the cabinet door.
I leaned against it. “Right. The dig. Tomorrow. Not ghost hunting tonight.”
“It needs to be dark to image the Kirlian aura!” Pull. “Plus if we go tonight, I can get data before and after excavation.”
Push. “I’m not going.”
She stopped and gaped at me like I’d told her I wanted fried kitten for breakfast. “But you have to go! Investigations have to be done in pairs to corroborate subjective experiences.”
I dropped my hand from the cabinet and drew myself up to my full height, which was respectable but only nose high to my sister, Galadriel. I made the best of it, though. “I have one purpose in this family, and that’s to convince people we’re normal. I haven’t done a bang-up job of it so far today, but I’m not going to make it worse by aiding and abetting your trespassing.”
“But how else am I going to test my coronal aura visualizer?”
“Test it on Uncle Burt.”
Snap. The lights went out and the air conditioner stopped humming. Again.
“Dammit, Phin!” With the blackout curtains still up, the room was pitch dark.
“It wasn’t me!” she cried. “You see—Uncle Burt doesn’t want me to test it on him.”
“We’re in the country. The power goes out all the time, even without your, or Uncle Burt’s, help.” It went out so often that there were flashlights stashed in all the rooms. I stumbled to a drawer by the door and rooted around for one.
There was the scratch of a match and then a flickering glow as Phin lit one of the many candles around the room. Aunt Hy made those, too, but I rarely lit any, since I didn’t know what was for decoration and what held some arcane purpose.
“Maybe it’s the McCullochs’ ghost,” said Phin, the dancing flame casting eerie shadows on her face, the stone walls and black drapes turning the cozy room into something