Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

Elijah never really got used to referring to Father in the past tense.
    I mopped my brow with a handkerchief and set the letter in the growing stack of marked pages. The moist summer heat was suffocating in the room. And reading these letters one after the other made all the strange references more obvious than when I’d read them with months in between.
    I skimmed the next letter in my hand; it had been sent several months ago from New York.
    ... The missing pages from Cairo are in a museum here, but the curators are not cooperative. These are such exciting times, my dear sister! I have begun experiments which I believe will impress you. Unfortunately, they have impressed others as well, and they are not the sort of people I want around....
    People. He’d attracted negative attention from people—plural. Necromancer... or necromancers.
    Curious, and quite a coincidence, though, don’t you think? Mr. Peger had said to me only hours ago. These Spirit-Hunters leave New York, and the trouble ends. They show up here, and the trouble begins.
    I swallowed over a tight lump in my throat, and with trembling hands I yanked up the next letter. It was dated May 20, 1876.
    I am coming home on the train scheduled for next Friday (May 26). These people continue to harass me, and I feel my research will run more smoothly in Philadelphia....
    Oh no. What had I done by overlooking these words? I had whooped with joy and tossed the letter in the air after the words I’m coming home .
    It was the last letter in my stack, but there should be one more correspondence: a telegram we’d received that I had never read. Mary had relayed its message to me; and without a doubt, I knew, knew this telegram mattered.
    I shot off the bed and scrambled to the door. My feet banged full speed down the stairs, and I raced to the back of the house. I burst into the kitchen to find Mary hunched over the stove and stew.
    â€œElijah’s telegram from a week and a half ago! Do you still have it?” In three long steps I crossed the old wooden floorboards to stand next to her. Salty steam billowed up from the pot, mixing with the sweat on my face. “Well, do you?”
    â€œMaybe,” she said slowly, her gaze distant. “It’d be in the calling card bowl, if we—”
    I didn’t wait for her answer. I rushed to the foyer and lunged at the bowl beside our front door. It held those rare cards left when we had callers. Beneath two elegant envelopes, I found a wispy scrap of paper.
    It was a crumpled telegram dated May twenty-fifth, 1876.
    Delayed. Will arrive June 2. Much love. Elijah.
    And in a scribbled mess on the Received From line was written: Philadelphia.
    He’d already been in Philadelphia when he sent this. A fresh wave of heat washed over me.
    Then another horrifying realization hit. I staggered to the front door and heaved it open, gasping for air and leaning against the frame for support.
    May twenty-fifth was also the day the Spirit-Hunters had arrived in Philadelphia.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
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    C HAPTER N INE
    T he next morning I rose at dawn to help Mary with breakfast. I worked quickly and snuck away again before Mama awoke. Simply because I had her tentative permission to wander the Exhibition alone did not mean I ought to tempt her.
    I reached the Exhibition right as the gates opened and all the church bells rang nine o’clock. It turned out I could use my ticket from days before and the frazzled men at the turnstiles didn’t even notice, so I marched in, more determination in my posture than was actually in my heart. I reached the Spirit-Hunters’ door and hovered nervously outside.
    Oh, don’t be a coward.
    Sucking in a fortifying breath, I tapped my knuckles against the door.
    It swung open a heartbeat later.
    â€œMiss Fitt.” Daniel looked at me blankly. His