Classical music filtered down from the attic as Lucy opened the front door to her house. That could only mean one thing: her mom was elbow-deep in writing her book. While Lucy and her dad were jazz connoisseurs—“Take Five” was known to blare from his office—her mom, predictably, hardly ever listened to anything composed after the invention of the automobile. Vivaldi if her research was going well; Beethoven if it wasn’t. Sounded like his Ninth Symphony. Uh-oh.
Schrödinger perched on the bottom step and assessed Lucy warily.
“Had a manic Monday too?” she teased, approaching him with unfamiliar trepidation. Lucy dropped her book bag to the carpet and stooped down to stroke him. As her hand hovered above his mottled black-and-auburn fur, it began to stand on end. Schrödinger emitted a low-frequency growl that escalated to a full-fledged howl when Lucy’s hand made contact.
A spray of bright, white sparks traveled from his head to his tail. Alarmed, she lurched backward, tiny pops bristling along her skin. The cat launched himself at her, claws extended for mortal combat. Lucy ducked and he crashed into the brass umbrella stand beside the doormat.
I’m sorry, she mouthed because she couldn’t get the words out. Lucy’s breaths came in short bursts. Schrödinger recovered quickly and dashed into her father’s office, still hissing.
The percussion of kettledrums and vigorous violins came to an abrupt halt.
“Lucy? Is that you?”
Gulping down a lungful of air, Lucy rasped out, “It’s me,” because she didn’t want her mother to think there was an intruder in the house. Even if Lucy had recently added breaking and entering to her résumé.
“Can you come up here?”
Tremors pulsed through Lucy’s body. Not seizure tremors, she didn’t think. Standard-issue freaked-out-to-the-nth-degree tremors.
Lucy crept up the stairs like she was walking the plank. She tried to divide the incidents into some sort of order. Categories. Classes. Schemas. That was what a scientist would do.
The sparks she’d produced petting Schrödinger were attributable to static electricity. As was hugging Claudia the other night. If it weren’t for everything else, she’d be able to laugh it off.
Those were the first electricity-related phenomena to occur since Lucy discovered Tesla’s secret lab.
The second kind were the tingly sensations provoked by Cole, Claudia, and the Brit. Kissing Cole was equivalent to sticking her stomach in a centrifuge, whereas contact with Claudia and Ravi had been warm, pleasant—ticklish, even. It wasn’t strictly electricity-related but definitely a result of her experience in the Tesla Suite.
The more disquieting phenomena were Lucy’s seeming ability to magnetize metallic objects, cause them to levitate, interfere with radio transmissions, and electrocute iPads. The first three in the list suggested that Lucy possessed an electromagnetic field and should therefore be classified together, while the latter suggested that Lucy transformed that field into electricity.
Megan was right. Lucy was four different kinds of freak.
As for the Tesla Egg, it didn’t seem to be a power source in and of itself. The expression on Tesla’s face in the photograph had been one of smug mastery. He’d been in complete control. Lucy suspected he’d been aping—in a suave manner—for the camera. Daring people to notice. The way it’d been levitating made her think of a maglev train. Was Tesla’s magnetic field that powerful?
Her pulse kicked up. Would that happen to Lucy too?
She reached the second-floor landing and wiped her sweaty palms against her jean skirt. A ladder had been lowered from a trapdoor in the ceiling leading up to the attic, and buttery light shone down, illuminating the dusk-darkened hallway. Lucy had always viewed it as a place of mystery. For years she hadn’t been allowed to climb the ladder to her mom’s study in case she injured herself. Now that she could, it retained the allure in Lucy’s mind.
There was a combination of irritation and concern as her mother repeated, “Lucy?” Evidently she still worried her daughter couldn’t handle the ladder.
In this instance, she might just be right.
Her mom swiveled in her desk chair to greet Lucy as she emerged through the trapdoor. As always her mother sat with prima-ballerina posture, silhouetted in the tangerine haze of a Tiffany lamp, although her French knot was slightly askew. The aroma of her one daily cigarette lingered in the air. Odd. As a rule, she saved it for after dinner.
“How was your day?” her mom asked, distracted, glancing back at an enormous leather volume open on the desk. “Picked up a new phone for you.” She gestured at a shopping bag but her gaze remained fixed on the book.
“Thanks. And, uneventful,” Lucy lied with a shrug, her eyes shifting toward the tome preoccupying her mom. Drawing closer, she could tell it was actually a facsimile of some old manuscript too valuable to remove from a library. Greek alphabet letters that she recognized were sprinkled among strange symbols and pictographs that looked like an archaic version of emoticons.
“Translating?” Lucy surmised.
Her mom gave a tired laugh. “Translating would be generous.” She pulled the clip from her hair before hastily rearranging it into a tighter knot. “I need to stick at it, though. Hope you don’t mind eating alone. There’s an organic squash and roast-chicken salad in the fridge.”
“Sure.” Lucy had zero appetite. She hadn’t even been able to bring herself to finish the chocolate poker chips on her walk home.
She bent over to collect the shopping bag from where it rested by her mom’s feet and heard a gasp.
“Oh, honey. What happened?”
Lucy’s mom smoothed the Wonder Woman Band-Aid over her eye. Instantly, she tensed—then, nothing. Only the reassuring touch of the woman who had soothed hundreds of her bruises over the years.
“It’s no biggie. Had a fight with my locker.”
Their eyes met. “Lucinda,” her mom said, low, a warning tone.
“Really.” Lucy fiddled with the handle of the bag because she couldn’t lie while staring her mom in the eye.
“Maybe I should call Dr. Rosen? I’m sure he’d fit you in.”
“I don’t need to see Dr. Rosen!” So much for making up for snapping at her this morning. In a more appeasing tone, Lucy said, “The school nurse already looked at it. I’m good to go.”
Her mother exhaled a long breath.
“All right. But you haven’t skipped your pills, have you?”
“Of course not,” she replied automatically. Then it hit her.
Lucy had forgotten to take her meds. All weekend. A fleeting hope kindled inside her. Could that be it? She wanted to believe the solution could be that easy. Take her medication and all her freaky abilities would vanish.
Her scientific mind couldn’t accept that hypothesis. Either way, Lucy wouldn’t miss any more doses. She needed her brain as stable as possible at a time like this.
Lucy circled her gaze around the study. It was a total contrast to her dad’s. Neat rows of IKEA bookcases were stacked against the walls, the titles organized by subject and then in alphabetical order. Atop the filing cabinets were neatly arranged figurines, reproductions of ancient Greek and Roman statues: the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Elgin marbles, the Venus de Milo, as well as an Egyptian scarab.
Finally she dragged her eyes back to her mother. Her careworn face made Lucy ache. “You don’t have to worry, Mom. I’m okay.”
“I’m your mother—it comes with job.” She squeezed Lucy’s elbow. “Don’t forget to eat something with your pills.”
“I won’t.” Lucy pivoted in the direction of the trapdoor.
“And Lucy?”
She craned her neck over her shoulder.
“Try not to break the phone. It’s your third since school started.”
Lucy swallowed. “Okay,” she said, beginning to descend. Definitely not the best time to mention the French-fried iPad. Oh. She paused midstep.
Oh no. Lucy gripped the ladder for dear life as her mother’s words replayed in her head.
She could blame the latest busted phone on the acne-prone skater boy, but the one before that had mysteriously died. Kaput. Refused to turn on one day—the day Lucy first slept with Cole. She’d nearly jumped out of her skin in anticipation. Surely that resulted in a surge of adrenaline.
Was it possible she’d seared her phone like she had the iPad?
But that was months ago. Lucy felt the distinct yank of a rug being pulled out from underneath her. Again.
She also had yet to formulate an adequate explanation for the reaction of the plasma Tesla lamp. It fell under the fourth category of freakiness she’d established, but it occurred before Lucy found the egg or the lab.
She was willing to—maybe—accept that she’d had a Peter Parker radioactive-spider experience in Tesla’s lab. She was unwilling to entertain the idea that she’d possessed any of these abilities prior to entering the room.
Fisting her hands, Lucy dismissed any further speculation.
Time to put on her virtual lab coat.
Tonight, she would put her theories to the test.