Vivian Van Tassel and the Secret of Midnight Lake by Michael Witwer

Author:Michael Witwer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2023-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

That’s why the light had worked so well, Vivian thought. At least according to this game book, these little wolfish men called canimen hated light. She realized right then that she needed to take this “game” book more seriously than she thought.

But how had she gotten home with no memory of it? Was it the gray man? If so, how had he not been seen?

By now, she couldn’t stop shaking; her breath was shallow. She needed to do something—to move—so she rushed across the room to her dresser to change into clothes more suitable for school. She picked a long-sleeve shirt that would hide her bandaged arm. Just as she finished getting dressed, she noticed the clatter of kitchen activity downstairs. Her dad! What had become of him last night? Did he know she’d been out?

Convinced that she was slated for the grounding of a lifetime, she tiptoed out of her room and carefully edged down the back stairs to the kitchen. There, she found a pair of legs dangling out from below the sink, the sound of wrench work, and the hummed tune of “This Is Halloween” in her father’s baritone voice.

“Good mornin’—Ouch!” he said as his head popped up and banged against the drainpipe.

For whatever her dad was “fixing” on the sink, the last impact seemed to undo his work and then some as the side sprayer began to shower the counter and cabinets. Mr. Van Tassel quickly retreated back below, fiercely twisting the water valve. The pipes whined and the water finally stopped.

“Huh… must’ve been a bad seal,” he remarked, rubbing his head as he emerged from the cabinet. “Anyway, I made your favorite, stuffed French toast!” he continued, gesturing to the stove.

He doesn’t seem mad, she thought, astounded. He doesn’t seem to know…

“Dad! About last night—”

“I know, I know. I am so sorry, Vivy! I really am—I didn’t mean to leave you on your own for Halloween! The interview really got out of hand—”

“But Dad! I’ve got to tell you somethi—”

“First, he made me wait for almost an hour until he felt satisfied that ‘they weren’t listening,’ then he brings me to this cluttered director’s office and starts ranting and raving about some kind of portal beneath the lake—a gateway to another world! It was nuts. He then goes on to explain that these animal attacks are actually creatures that have emerged from this other world and that Darkham Observatory itself was built by the government to not look up but look down—to study the portal and find a way to ‘harness its energy.’ That’s why people like Einstein visited. Ridiculous, right? This guy was a total loon! Too bad those sanitariums are closed these days ’cause I’ve got them a great candidate!”

“Dad?!” Vivian tried again.

He was so caught up in his telling, that Mr. Van Tassel didn’t seem to hear her.

“The only reason I stayed was how incredibly elaborate his fiction was. He had diagrams, schematics, the works. It was crazy!”

He finally stopped for a moment, realizing that he had been ranting, or rambling, or maybe both.

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