“Well,” I prompted, “when can we start?” I didn’t trust Barrons, but he’d had plenty of opportunities to use Voice on me in the past, and hadn’t. I didn’t believe he’d use it to harm me now. At least not much. The potential gain was worth the risk.

“I’ll be there at ten.” He hung up.

It was nine-fifteen by the time I finished my invention, forty-five minutes before Barrons was due to arrive.

I turned it on, sat back, scrutinized it a few moments, then nodded.

It looked good.

Well, it didn’t really. It looked . . . strange, like something out of a sci-fi movie. But it worked, and that was all that mattered to me. I was sick of not being safe in the dark. I was sick of watching my flashlights go spinning away from me. This couldn’t spin away. And if I was right about its capabilities, I’d be able to walk straight through a Shade-wall with it on.

There was one final test I needed to perform.

It was a great invention and I was proud of it. The idea had come to me this afternoon, during a slow spell. I’d been stressing over the enormous Shade outside the bookstore, when suddenly a light had gone off in my head, or rather, several dozen.

I’d flipped the sign and locked up at seven on the dot, raced down the street to the sporting goods store on the corner, and bought everything I needed, from the biking helmet, to batteries, to brackets and caving lights, to tubes of superglue, to Velcro bands as an added precaution.

Then I’d come back to the bookstore, dialed my iPod to the latest playlist I was crazy about, cranked it up to a smidge below deafening, and gone to work.

I shook my invention. I dropped it. I kicked it, and still all parts remained intact. Superglue: after duct tape, a girl’s best friend.

I was satisfied. With three quarters of an hour until my Voice lessons, I had time to test the device, and still make it upstairs to freshen up a bit, not that I cared how I looked around Barrons. It’s just that in the Deep South, women learn at a young age that when the world is falling apart around you, it’s time to take down the drapes and make a new dress.

Every truly inspired invention needed a catchy name, and I had just the right one for mine. Who needed the Cuff of Cruce to walk among the Shades?

I slipped the biking helmet on my head and strapped it securely beneath my chin. It fit snugly so it couldn’t fall off in the heat of battle. I could do a flip (if I could do a flip) and the thing would stay stuck to my head. I’d superglued dozens of Click-It lights all over the surface of the helmet. Brackets stuck out several inches from both sides and the rear, with spelunker lights attached, pointing downward.

I swept my arms out and took a deep bow: Presenting the MacHalo!

With all the lights turned on, the helmet created a perfect halo of light around my entire body, down to my feet. I loved it. If it hadn’t been so bulky, I might have tried sleeping in it. As an added precaution, I strapped on the Velcro wrist and ankle bands I’d cut little pouches in, and sewn Click-It lights into. All I had to do was hit my wrists and ankles together and the lights clicked on.

I was ready.

But first, I wanted a test run inside the store before I went outside.

I clicked myself on from head to toe, hurried to the panel, and began flipping off the interior lights in the front part of the bookstore. Not the exterior ones, just the interior. Even though I knew the building was still surrounded in light outside, it was hard to make myself do it. My fear of the darkness had grown beyond a rational thing. That happens when you know a shadow can eat you alive if you touch it.

My hand hesitated over the last row of switches for a long, difficult moment.

But I had my MacHalo, and I knew it would work. If I gave fear a toehold, it would screw me. I’d learned that lesson from Barrons, and had it driven home by Mallucé: Hope strengthens. Fear kills.

I flipped off the last row, plunging the bookstore into complete darkness.

I blazed as bright as a small sun in the room!

I laughed. I should have thought of it before. There wasn’t an inch of me, not a centimeter, that wasn’t lit up. My halo radiated outward a good ten feet in all directions. And I was right; if I had the courage, I could walk right through a Shade-wall. None of the vampiric life-suckers could get close to me in this getup!

My iPod began playing “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and I did a little dance, giddy with success. I had one more weapon in my arsenal to make me safer, and I’d thought of it myself.

I whirled around the bookstore, miming the epic fighter I was now going to be, armed with my clever MacHalo, no longer afraid of dark alleys in the night. I leapt chairs and darted around bookcases. I pounced sofas, I hurdled ottomans. I stabbed imaginary enemies, immune to Shade-danger by the brilliance of my own invention. There’s not much room in my life for good, plain, stupid fun, and there hasn’t been much to celebrate lately. I take advantage of both when I can.