At home, she experimented with her hair. Pigtails made her feel as though she was wearing a costume, but when she pulled her hair back into a high ponytail, put on black stockings and lip gloss and popped a piece of bubble gum in her mouth, it looked perfect.
It would be easy to get in—it was a museum, after all, and welcomed visitors—but much harder to get into a locked study and then a locked cabinet without anyone noticing. And much harder to cut a page out of a book and leave with it before getting stopped.
On Monday, she put her plan into swing. She told her mother she was sleeping over at Laura’s house, then forged a doctor’s note for school. Then she took the bus to Northampton. From a discreet distance, she watched the kids troop inside, gave them fifteen minutes, and showed up.
“I’m late,” she told the woman at the front desk, looking as panicked as she was able. “I am so sorry. My mom had to drop me off and I am going to be in so much trouble. They’re here, right? Can I go in?”
The woman hesitated, but only for a moment. “Go in. Hurry.”
Charlie dashed past and joined up with them, relieved that the first part was over. She found the class but stayed clear of them until they went into Arthur Thompson’s study. Then she moved into the flood of students and slid inside. This was the important part, because the door was alarmed and only one group was let in at a time.
Their teacher—a rather young-looking priest with an Eastern European accent—cleared his throat. “Now, we’re going to listen with our ears, not with our mouths.”
Charlie slid behind a bookshelf.
A museum staffer began to go into Arthur Thompson’s childhood, the challenges of Harvard in the eighties, how the prototype of the lightning harvesting mechanism shocked him badly enough that he spent six weeks in a hospital.
“Is that when his shadow became magic?” asked one of the girls.
The priest gave her a speaking look, but the museum staffer nodded. “That’s generally thought to be the case, since he pursued shadow magic after that. He joined some of the early message boards and even originated calculations about the energy exchange between the gloamist and their shadow.”
“So what happened to him?” asked a boy in the back.
“Did you not do the reading, Tobias?” the priest demanded.
“No, I mean the shadow,” the kid said. “Rowdy Joss, he called himself once he was a Blight, right? Like, did they hunt him down?”
“Nothing about that was in the reading,” said the priest. “And we don’t need to waste the time of the staff.”
“I saw the video,” the kid said. “Online.”
The staffer smiled, although the smile had become slightly strained. “No one knows what happened to Arthur’s shadow after the Boxford Massacre. There was some speculation that the transfer of energy created memory loss, or that it was confused. But remember that Rowdy Joss wasn’t Arthur. Arthur died at the Boxford Massacre, a victim like everyone else that day.”
Charlie listened to the conversation follow the familiar pattern, as the teacher and staffer valiantly struggled to get it back on track. Fifteen minutes later, the class filed out, leaving Charlie hidden behind the bookshelf. She waited until the room was empty to scoot out and crawl beneath Arthur Thompson’s enormous desk.
She watched feet move back and forth, realizing she should have come in with the last group and not the third-from-last group. But it wasn’t like she had to worry too much about not making noise or moving or something. Sound was all around her, a cacophony of giggling and gum chewing and lectures.
And then the final group filed out. From the other room, she heard the museum staffers—all two of them—talking together. One of them laughed. Then, distressingly, the hum of a vacuum began.
But it wasn’t brought into the study and faded away after a few minutes.
Charlie breathed a sigh of relief.
She listened as the locks were engaged and the alarms set. Outside, night had fallen. Charlie crawled out, more nervous than she thought she’d be. Despite all the houses she’d walked through, this felt different. The slightest sound made her start.
Taking a few steadying breaths, she used her phone to give her enough light that she could pick the lock of the cabinet. It took her three tries before her fingers were finally steady enough to open the door.
Behind it, she found the notebook they wanted—it was one of the ones on display. She flipped through until she found a page marked “Shadow Energy Exchange,” then took a razor out of her backpack.
But as she got ready to slice, she felt guilty. It seemed wrong to hack up a book. When it was Rand doing stuff, she never had to think about morals. He was a bad guy, and they were doing bad stuff, and that was that.
Charlie ate a granola bar from her backpack, looking at the cabinet.
She walked around the room, looking at the photos. Arthur Thompson’s original sketches of the lightning farm. A congratulatory letter from the governor. And in one corner, a letter from someone claiming to be a Blight in a looping, spidery hand.
To A. Thompson in the City of Northampton.
You have been trying to contact me and I urge you to desist. Yes, there are ancient beings in the shadows, but you are better off letting us stay that way.
I have no interest in being studied. My origin may have been with your kind, but I am of you no longer.
Written on the 23rd day of April by Cleophes of York
She frowned at it, wondering if Arthur Thompson’s Blight was still hanging around, writing letters.
Finally, Charlie took out her phone and took a photo of the page from the notebook. It had the same information, and if that’s what they wanted, this ought to be enough. Even as she did it, she had the sinking feeling that she was screwing up, but she couldn’t bring herself to slice out the page.
Then she went to the windows, hoping there was a way out, but they were alarmed. Charlie sat down in the chair, spun it a bit. Played a game on her phone. Crawled back under the desk and napped.
And then she saw something in the window. A shadow in the corner of the room, sliding away from the wall. Charlie curled up more tightly and tried not to breathe.
It moved across the room, pausing at a strip of black tile that crisscrossed the floor. Then the shadow stepped over, becoming more solid as it did. For a moment, it took on features, as though of the gloom controlling it. Then it was past the onyx tiles and to the cabinet. It flooded through the keyhole and the cabinet door swung open.
Then the shadow became solid again, as though someone shaped the night into a human form. It must have to be like that to carry the book. Charlie’s heart thundered and she held her breath again as it passed her by. It left the book tucked into a corner of the room, in a basket of rolled-up architectural plans that might have been reproductions.
As it flooded out the window, Charlie realized why it hadn’t taken the book with it. It couldn’t get it out the window or the door any better than Charlie could. But it could relocate the book so that the gloamist could come in tomorrow and slide it into his bag and leave without anyone the wiser.
It was almost dawn when she decided the shadow wasn’t waiting outside and went over to the basket to look at the book.
And scowled. It was the exact volume she’d been sent to slice the page from. And belatedly, with a sense of wicked glee, she opened the book and took out her razor.
Whoever the gloamist was who was attempting to take the book was going to be very surprised when he got it. She hoped he was furious. She had the sudden, wild urge to sign her work and fought it down.
By the time the first class filed in the next day, Charlie was feeling giddy with victory and desperately in need of a toilet to pee in. As they left, Charlie scrambled out from under the desk and behind the bookshelves. One more class. One more lecture. And then she was out of there.
The next group filed into the study. Charlie smiled at a boy who moved to stand near her. She wiped the edge of her mouth and then frowned at him.
“You have something—” she said.