“Well, I like you,” Hailey offered, stroking Giselle’s hair. “And look.” She held a golden lock in her hand, staring at it with one eyebrow up. “Your hair’s turning blonde.”
Giselle rolled her eyes.
“And I saw David staring at you in class today. Like, staring in a good way.”
“You’re lying.”
Hailey shook her head.
“Don’t you remember, when you almost laughed…after I said the thing about Professors Mum, Loon, and Starr, and the whole class turned to see who the idiot was, only you werealreadystaring at me with daggers, like normal—that’s why you didn’t notice—and then you stifled a laugh and everyone looked away, except for David. He kept looking at you not me, and he even moved his head a little to see more of you.”
Giselle went silent, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore.
“Anyway,” said Hailey, getting to her point, “I think someone’s being a little hard on herself,” she peeped as if she were encouraging a three-year old. “You’re not useless. In fact, I could sure use your help.”
“How?”
“The gazebo gave me an idea. Tell me more about these vibrations.”
Giselle shrugged. “Every creature has a death frequency, and I know it instantly—it vibrates inside me. A real banshee would know when someone wasabout to bite it and could wail out their frequency.” She looked tentatively over at Hailey.
“Do you get a vibe on ghosts, too?”
“Yeah. Ghosts are easy. They all have the same frequency. Why?”
Hailey pressed her brow down. “If there’s a frequency that repels all ghosts, could there be one that attracts them?”
“How would I know?” she yelled.
“Can you control it—you know…the vibrations you give off?”
Giselle whirled around. “What good is it if I can control it? I can’t tell when to wail—I’m useless,” she spat. “Just ask my mother.”
“If you can control it, I can measure it,” Hailey said excitedly. “I know a friendly poltergeist we could use as a test subject. You throw different frequencies at him, and we’ll observe his response…see if he’s attracted to one. Then I could reproduce that very frequency in a crystalline matrix, so a ghost would be drawn into the trap, surrounded by vibration, stuck there forever, and there you have it—ghost trap,” she concluded, looking sunnily to her roommate.
“You want me to sing to a ghost.”
“Well, yeah,” Hailey said brightly. “So?” she sang. “Whaddya say? Will you help me?” she begged, lightly touching Giselle’s arm.
Stopping dead in her tracks, Giselle glared at Hailey’s hand for what seemed like an eternity before she sniffed loudly.
“Fine,” she snarled.
With Giselle’s cooperation, it took less than a month to figure out which frequency to use for the new Hook-a-Haunt (that was what she was calling it). She even had time to design a Boo-Be-Gone, which would very effectively repel a poltergeist, though Giselle didn’t want her name associated with that one.
Growing the crystals proved a bit more challenging, but with Asher’s guidance, she was making great progress. And that progress did not escape the attention of the mostly free and healthy population of specters at Bear Towne, who quite liked the ineffective golden ghost traps currently in use.
As Hailey worked late into a chilly October night, alone inside Asher’s lab at Olde Main, she got the feeling someone was watching her. More than once she got up from her work station to investigate, but the place seemed deserted.
After her third security check, Hailey threw down her goggles and rubbed her eyes, deciding it was time to call it a night.
It was just after midnight when she stood up to go. She didn’t know Asher had left campus. She didn’t know the poltergeists knew that, and she sure didn’t know that Asher kept in his lab no fewer than five desktop staplers and two staple guns.
But when she turned toward the door, she found, hovering in midair and blocking her path, all seven— locked, loaded, and unhinged.
She stared at them for a good three seconds as two of them flanked her left side and a roll of tape moved on her right. Poltergeists—too many to count—swooped across the ceiling, sharp wisps of wind-swept fog, and, ironically, they had her trapped.
Hailey broke for the exit, batting down one stapler as six others stung her in the back and arms.
