“Oh, it’s the plumbing,” said Mrs. Shins, dark skin looking as thin as tissue paper with a voice to match, as she let them into the house. It was a detached house painted a cheery yellow, and as they had approached the shutters started banging open and closed and the lights began flickering from room to room.

The neighborhood was quiet, as Mac had predicted, with most of the cars gone from the driveways since people were at work. Less likely that others would witness what looked like a fairly major haunting. Joey was shrinking in on himself the longer they stood in the hallway: it was even clearer from inside that something was awry, with various crashing noises sounding from other rooms and the buzz of electric devices turning on and off.

“It might be more than the plumbing, Mrs. Shins,” said Indira gently, a hand on Mrs. Shins’ elbow. “We’re here about a possible carbon monoxide leak. Have you been hearing strange noises?”

“Don’t hear much of anything nowadays. I just thought that loud knocking was the pipes.”

“Do you have somewhere we can sit down while the team investigates?” asked Indira.

“Oh, my sitting room.” Mrs. Shins led the way into a formal living space and laboriously sat on a loveseat. Indira joined her, and Caden immediately started pacing the perimeter of the room making subtle gestures at the crown molding while he put up a protective spell. As he went, a few objects that had been floating settled back down on various surfaces.

Frankie leaned over to Joey, who was enraptured watching Caden at his work. “What kind of haunting is it?” she asked under her breath, and Joey remembered that he was afraid.

“Oh. It’s, um.” He ducked out into the hallway again, where a vase full of dried flowers went hovering past his face then turned upside-down, dropping the flowers onto the runner. “Class-A poltergeist.” Anxiety filled his voice.

“Oof,” said Frankie. “Poor you on your first haunting.”

“Yeah,” husked Joey.

Caden rejoined them. “Set.”

“Mrs. Shins,” Frankie said, raising her voice. Mrs. Shins looked vaguely in Frankie’s direction through her coke-bottle glasses, interrupted from where she’d engaged Indira in conversation about Mrs. Shin’s grandchildren. “We’re going to go investigate for carbon monoxide now. Please stay in here, all right?”

Distracted, Mrs. Shins waved them away, already turning back to Indira.

“We’ll start down the hall,” said Frankie.

The kitchen was full of flying tableware and cutlery. Caden, Joey, and Frankie observed the display from the doorway for a moment before a butcher knife flung itself at Joey’s head. He ducked and the knife stuck firmly in the wall behind him. For a moment Joey just stared at the quivering knife, horrified, before Frankie spoke up again.

“Okay, upstairs, away from the others.”

The stairs creaked and groaned under their feet as they trooped upstairs. The hallway on the second floor was empty of loose, flying objects, but the doors to the bedrooms and bathroom were scraping open and shut and the lights in every room were flicking on and off.

The three of them stood in a triangle, back-to-back-to-back, and Frankie said to Joey, “Okay, rookie. What do your fancy books say about class-A poltergeists?”

Joey racked his brain, which was still stuck on the knife that could have lodged itself in his head downstairs. “It’s not like a regular haunting,” he remembered, finally. “It’s more like the house is possessed. We’ve got to lure it out.”

“It’s all stirred up because we’ve got a Channeler with us,” she said. “Caden, anything you can do to draw it out of the house?”

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“I can try a few things,” said Caden, stepping forward, and they followed him into a bedroom.

“Got your brush?” Frankie asked Joey, and he pulled it out. “Give me the Box.”

Handing it over, Joey mentally braced himself. The bed and nightstand were both rattling against the floor and walls, so he shifted away from them. “Ready,” he managed, brush at his hip.

“Great, our Channeler here will lure it out, you grab it with your brush, and I’ll Box it up. Easy-peasy.”

Somehow, Joey wasn’t sure it actually would be that easy-peasy. A poltergeist was huge, filling an entire building. Pulling it down to one concentrated area with one burst of magic didn’t seem that likely. But Frankie was the expert, and Mac had put her in charge. Joey kept his mouth shut.

After affirming that Joey and Frankie were ready with quick glances at each of them, Caden started twirling a finger in the air in front of him. As his circles got wider and wider, a blue mist started forming at the center of the rings he created. This was the first time Joey had seen Caden’s magic visually, and it was fascinating.

As the blue mist grew, the furniture slowly stopped rattling, and a bright yellow glow started to descend from the ceiling, looking like a tornado made of light.

“Brush, brush,” prompted Frankie, voice quiet. Joey held his brush at the ready. “Now,” she said, as the yellow light expanded, almost subsuming the blue mist from Caden’s swirls.

Brushing upward twice, Joey aimed at the center of the yellow glow and actually hit it on the first try. Lost in triumph, he didn’t realize at first that the yellow light wasn’t staying put. Suddenly, a few seconds after Joey’s lightning had locked on, the yellow light seemed to burst, sending out a magical shockwave and knocking Frankie and Joey off their feet. As they fell, the furniture in the room went crashing upward into the ceiling.

“Clear out!” cried Caden, and Joey scrambled to his feet, following the other two back onto the landing. Frankie slammed the door behind them, and Joey, embarrassingly, fell to the floor and curled into a ball, hands over his head.

“We’re good, Wilson,” said Frankie above him, and it was a testament to how close they had actually been to getting hurt that she didn’t even sound amused at his cowering. “Stand up. Downstairs, we’ll regroup.”

Caden helped Joey up, a sympathetic look on his face. Of course the others weren’t scared, Joey thought, ashamed. Just spineless Joey.

“Okay, there must be a better epicenter of this ‘geist,” said Frankie when they were far enough away from the bedroom. “Caden, can you do that lure again?”

“I, uh—I thought maybe,” Joey began, then shut up when they both turned to him.

“Go ahead,” urged Caden.

Clearing his throat, Joey said, “Well, I think since the haunting is covering such a wide area that we’ll need to draw it from more than one point in the house. Then we can bring the lures together and gather the whole poltergeist in one place and Box it. Maybe?” he finished, unsure.

Frankie considered this for a moment. Joey glanced at Caden, who seemed a little impressed. “Yeah, okay,” said Frankie. “We’ll need the lures from the van, though. I’ll grab ‘em.”

Then it was just Joey, Caden, and an irritated poltergeist in Mrs. Shins’ hallway. Joey felt pressure on his legs, and when he looked the rug had started to curl up on one end and was pressing up against him. Awkwardly, he shuffled towards the end of the hall, pressing the rug down with his feet as he went. Looking back up at Caden, he found him watching him inscrutably.

“You’re really smart,” Caden said finally.

Ducking his head, Joey folded his lips in and watched the runner fight against his sneakers. “I’m a wuss,” he countered. “You’re the one who knows how to fight these things.”

When Joey looked up Caden was shaking his head. “I’ve never fought a poltergeist before.”

“Great, now I feel even worse,” exclaimed Joey, and covered his face with his hands.

“Hey, no,” Caden said, a lot closer. Joey felt a gentle hand touch his forearm, and he peeled his hands away from his face. “Look. I’m just putting a brave face on it. I was just as scared as you when I saw those knives flying around. You came up with a good plan; it’ll work. Take a deep breath.”

It was a struggle to take a deep breath when Caden’s fingers were still resting lightly on Joey’s sleeve, but Joey managed. “Thanks.”

The skin by Caden’s eyes crinkled again with his smile. “No problem.”

Just then Frankie burst back in through the front door, immediately throwing something vaguely spherical Joey’s way. “Heads up!”

Catching the ball, Joey stopped to examine it: gold with blue lacquer on the outside, split in two with a clasp in the middle. A snuffbox. Frankie was holding a rectangular-shaped one with red lacquer.

“It imitates a Channeler’s power when it’s open.”

“And poltergeists like strong sources of magic,” Joey concluded. “You just open it?”

“Yeah, and wave it around. Right, I’ll take the kitchen, Joey, you’re upstairs, and Caden, you stay here at the base of the stairs. Once you’ve got its interest, Joey, give a yell and we’ll both drag it to Caden. I’ve got the Box. If you’ve gotta, zap it with your brush to weaken it. Okay.” Frankie grinned manically at them. “Let’s piss off a poltergeist.”