Mara Purnhagen - Past Midnight

I turned on the light to my room and gasped. My parents had all their equipment out—the ion meters and recorders and even the thermal camera. They brought the thermal along only if they felt confident that it would capture something on-screen. Something paranormal.

Dad set the thermal reader down on my bed. “It’s time we showed you something,” he said.

I couldn’t help feeling dread. Dad turned on a video screen. I immediately recognized the Courtyard Café in Charleston.

“Do you see those white shapes?” he asked.

I sucked in my breath. “What is it?”

Mom shook her head. “We’re not sure yet. But Charlotte, whatever they are, it appears they followed us home.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

Dad turned to me. “We think something powerful was triggered back in Charleston. We’re getting readings stronger than anything we’ve ever recorded.”

My legs felt shaky and I gripped the back of Dad’s chair. The still images on the screen stared back at me. “Do you know what caused it?” I asked. No one said anything. I looked at Mom. “What triggered it?”

“You did,” she said gently. “We think you’re the trigger.”

A sincere thank-you to my wonderful agent, Tina Wexler, and equally wonderful editor, Tara Parsons.

A round of applause to Ed Davis, Marguerite Demarse, Karen and Patrick Dulzer, Heather Foy, Kimm Gildea, John and Martha Lohrstorfer, Nancy McDaniel, Rita Owen and Kathy Payerchin.

A standing ovation to Robert Lettrick (Web site guru) and Kristi Purnhagen, who read the first draft.

And a special shout-out to my guys: Joe, Henry, Quinn and Elias, who keep me busy, make me proud and remind me that I am never alone.

Dedicated to four people who have always lived far from normal: Sayrah, Christine, John-Paul and Matthew

I know a lot about ghosts. More than the average person and way, way more than any other seventeen-year-old. Except for Jared and Avery, but most of what they know they learned from me this year, when things got crazy. I know a lot about things going crazy, too, thanks to my parents. They’re paranormal researchers, and let’s just say they like to bring their work home with them. And sometimes, their work follows them home.

For good.

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter eleven

Chapter twelve

Chapter thirteen

Chapter fourteen

Chapter fifteen

Chapter sixteen

Chapter seventeen

Chapter eighteen

Chapter nineteen

Chapter twenty

Chapter twenty-one

Chapter twenty-two

I was never normal, but I liked to pretend that I was. It usually took a few months before everyone else caught on. School would start out just fine, then Halloween would roll around, my parents would be all over the local news, and suddenly I would find myself exposed as Charlotte Silver, Princess of the Paranormal. I don’t know why I thought this year would be any different, but I did. And maybe it was different, but not in the way I had hoped. If anything, it was much, much worse.

We had spent the summer in Charleston, South Carolina. My parents were producing another one of their documentaries, this one called Haunted Hospitality. They spent their days researching old hotels and restaurants that claimed to have ghosts, while I relaxed at the beach and took walking tours of the city with my sister Annalise, who was a sophomore at the College of Charleston. She worked part-time at one of the supposedly haunted local restaurants during her summer break.

“The only spooky thing about the place is my boss,” she told me as we spread towels out on the sand. “He can get a little handsy, if you know what I mean.”

I didn’t, but I could guess. Annalise was strikingly beautiful with large hazel eyes and glossy black hair, just like our mom. Growing up, everyone talked about how she would become a model, but she was just over five feet tall, which is definitely a drawback in the modeling industry. Still, my parents had used her a few times for reenactments in their documentaries. Annalise would pull her hair into a bun, slip on a white Victorian dress and walk slowly in front of a green screen. When special effects were added later, she would appear as a transparent figure floating above the floor. She made a great ghost, which was ironic because in real life she was the one everyone seemed to notice while I was the one who slipped by, barely detected.

While Annalise resembled Mom, I took after Dad—tall and wiry, with dark hair that hung so straight it was infuriating. There wasn’t even the hint of a curl. I kept it just long enough to tuck behind my ears and secretly resented it when Annalise complained that her glossy locks were simply “too bouncy.”

During our third week in Charleston we decided to spend the morning at Waterfront Park. It was a warm Friday in June, the breezy air tinged with the sharp scent of seawater and the shrieks of gliding gulls. We walked along the pier searching for a place to sit and watch the boats. Tourists occupied all of the wide wooden bench swings that lined the dock, so we waited until a couple laden with cameras lumbered to their feet, then claimed the swing as our own. We sat back and rocked slowly, enjoying a clear view of the docked cruise ships and darting birds.

“This is nice,” I said, pushing down on my feet to sway the swing.

“Summers are the best,” Annalise murmured. She sounded drowsy. I felt tired, too, and worried that we might both fall asleep on the swing and wake up hours later, our arms bubbling red with sunburn.

“Maybe we should walk down to the beach.”

“Can’t. We have to meet Mom and Dad in less than an hour, and it’ll take that long to walk to the beach and back.”

I stopped swinging. “They didn’t say anything to me about filming a scene today.”

Annalise smiled. “They called me this morning. They need more chum.”

“Chum” was what we called anyone who was brought in specifically to draw out paranormal energy. Some people claimed that a ghost would appear only if a certain kind of person was present, such as a curious child or a pretty girl. I didn’t have to guess what kind of person my parents needed, and I felt a familiar twinge of jealousy. I was never asked to serve as ghost bait. Maybe I should have been grateful, but part of me wondered if it was because our parents didn’t think I was good-looking enough to attract the interest of some dead, disembodied guy. It was insulting, really. Of course, no one in my family truly believed in ghosts, but still. Before I could get myself too wound up, Annalise spoke.

“They said they needed you, too.”

“Really?” Maybe I had been wrong. Maybe my parents did see me as chum.

“Mom said the sound guy is sick. She needs your help.”

Of course. Need a beautiful girl to lure reluctant spirits from hiding? Call Annalise. Need a plain and reliable worker to pick up the slack? Call Charlotte. Or don’t even call—just tell Annalise to drag her along. After all, I couldn’t possibly have anything else to do on a summer afternoon. I shook my head.

“I’ve got to stop thinking like that,” I muttered.

“Huh?”

I sighed and rocked the swing harder. “Nothing.”

We sat a little while longer before strolling through the old section of town, our flip-flops slapping against the sidewalks. The air smelled like jasmine and felt cooler than it had been at the pier. Guys stopped to gawk at Annalise while I pretended not to notice. It was actually easy because there was so much to look at: the historic mansions, the moss-draped trees, the horse-drawn carriages pulling noisy tourists through the streets. I looked for black bolts on the outside of houses, the telltale sign that the structure had been damaged in the earthquake of 1886 but had survived. There was something amazing about those homes, I thought, that they had been strong enough to survive devastation and were still standing today. “It’s so beautiful here,” I sighed.