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shift”: a radical mental makeover that could inspire people to jump off bridges or drive cars into seawalls. Eddy would never crash a car, though. She’d be afraid of surviving and getting a ticket.
    And sure enough, as the cliffs between Gloucester and Kingsport forced the road into climbing curves, she didn’t let the Civic swerve an inch from its lane. “Some people would go into denial about magic, though,” Sean said.
    She snorted. “That’s hard where ‘magic’ equals a monster almost eating you.”
    â€œWell, kind of.”
    â€œAnd if you were in denial about magic, I guess you wouldn’t be going to Arkham to study it.”
    â€œAnd you wouldn’t be going to work in the Archives. Whatever you tell your mom and dad about deciding whether to major in Library Science.”
    â€œI don’t tell them that.”
    â€œBut you said—”
    â€œThat was my story before Helen came last week. We decided I better tell them the truth.”
    â€œYou told them about the Servitor ?”
    Eddy’s hands had slipped from the three and nine o’clock positions on the steering wheel. She quickly corrected the Driver’s Ed infraction. “We told them everything. Professor Marvell even joined in over Skype. Next day they went to Arkham to meet Dr. Benetutti.”
    â€œShe did magic for them? They must have freaked.”
    â€œNot as much as I thought they would. And Mom’s all into the link between magic and math, which is one of Dr. Benetutti’s things.”
    â€œAnd they’re still letting you go.”
    Eddy nodded at the cresting road. “They know I’ve got to learn to deal with this.”
    â€œMan, Eddy, you did deal with it. Better than me.”
    â€œYou got rid of the Servitor. You didn’t go over to Nyarlathotep.”
    â€œBarely.”
    â€œAnd you’re not too scared to study with the Order.”
    â€œI’d be more scared not to.”
    â€œMe, too, exactly,” Eddy said. “So shut up about me going normal on you.”
    â€œMouth officially shut. You’re deeply abnormal.”
    Eddy pulled a huge fake smile, as if she were accepting a third-runner-up trophy. She accelerated over the crest, and summer dropped into place below them: antique Kingsport climbing the leafy westward hills, sailboats plying the harbor and ducking under the long bridge that spanned its mouth. Across the bridge, the coastal highway leaped up the cliffs between Kingsport and Arkham. Perched on the tallest was the cottage Lovecraft had called the Strange High House; below it, on Orange Point, was the Witches’ Burial Ground and a parking lot that glinted with excursion buses.
    Beyond the lot was an overgrown path that led to Patience Orne’s grave. Last year he and Eddy had laughed about how crazy people used to be, thinking Patience was such a badass witch that she had to be buried apart from the others. They didn’t know anything yet about her husband, Redemption, but maybe his aether-newt had already been hovering around them, listening to their snark.
    Sean hoped not, but maybe they’d better not stop at the Witches’ Burial Ground to use the restrooms, just go straight on to the Arkwright House, where, Helen claimed, the wards could bar a lot more than peeping newts.
    *   *   *
    The Arkwright House was on the corner of West and College Streets, facing the Miskatonic University Green. It stood on a walled terrace six feet above the sidewalk, a mansion of reddish brown stone three floors and an attic high. Eddy’s Arkham guidebook said it exemplified the Italianate style, what with its hipped roof and square cupola, its bracketed eaves and pedimented windows. Sean wasn’t sure which thingies were brackets and which pediments, but anyone could see the place was crazy historical, even if they missed the plaque on the gate that read:
    THE ENDECOTT C. ARKWRIGHT