July 22, Monday

WHEN I jarred awake Monday morning, the house was quiet.

Too quiet.

No humming of lights, no buzzing of appliances.

I dragged myself up to investigate and found my laptop was dead. After a blip of panic, I realized that everything was dead. The electricity was off.

I found Kelly's number and connected the call.

"This is Kelly."

"Hi, Kelly. This is Josephine at Whisper House. The electricity is off."

"Yeah, figured that was coming."

I frowned. "This happens regularly?"

"Pretty much, always after a full moon."

I shook my head. "What does a full moon have to do with it?"

"You tell me. It takes a lot of power to take out a transformer."

"But we haven't had any storms."

"I didn't say it was lightning."

"But what else could it be?"

Kelly sighed. "I'll call Buck at the power company and tell him to send someone out. They know the drill."

"Okay," I murmured. "How long will it take? I need to use my laptop." Yesterday I'd written the first six pages of my book—a monumental feat.

Kelly made a sucking sound through their teeth. "Yeah, I wouldn't count on your computer working when things come back up. It's probably been zapped. Sorry about that."

Kelly ended the call, and I balled my hands into fists. "Ooh!"

My anger over the pages I'd bled evaporating was surpassed only by my incredulity that during the full moon something around the Whisper House had generated so much power, it had zapped a transformer. My mind went back to the ritual I'd witnessed.

Something… or someone?