The Secret Hour

She hugged her knees to her chest, her back to the door, promising she’d be nicer to Beth tomorrow.

Jessica waited for the dream to end.

Hopefully this time there would be nothing left of it in the real world. No frozen Beth, no soggy sweatshirts. Just morning sun and the weekend.

Slowly, gradually, Jessica’s tears ran out, and the blue dream wrapped itself around her. Nothing changed or moved.

The still, cold light shone from everywhere and nowhere; the silence lay total and absolute. Not even the whispering creaks and groans of a house at night could be heard.

So when the scratching came, Jessica lifted her head at once.

There was a shape in the window, a small dark form silhouetted against the even glow from the street. It moved smoothly and sinuously, taking catlike steps back and forth across the window frame, then paused to scratch against the glass.

“Kitty?” Jessica said, her voice rough from crying.

The animal’s eyes caught the light for a moment, flashing deep purple.

Jessica stood shakily, her legs all pins and needles. She moved slowly, trying not to scare the cat away. At least something else was alive here in this hideous nightmare. At least she was no longer alone with the lifeless shape in Beth’s room. She crossed to the window and peered out.

It was sleek and thin, glossy and black. Muscles rippled under its midnight fur; the animal seemed as strong as a wild cat of some kind, almost like a miniature black cheetah. She wondered for a moment if it was even a pet cat at all. Her dad had said that there were bobcats and other small wild felines in the countryside around Bixby. But the beast looked very tame as it paced impatiently on the window ledge, gazing up at her with pleading indigo eyes.

“Okay, okay,” she said.

She pulled open the window, giving up on what this part of the dream meant. The cat bumped heavily against her as it leapt into the room, its corded muscles solid against her thigh.

“You’re a real bruiser,” she muttered, wondering what breed it was. She’d never seen any cat this strong.

It jumped up onto her bed, sniffing her pillow, ran in a small circle on the rumpled covers, then jumped into one of her boxes. She heard it rummaging through the stuff in the box.

“Hey, you.”

The cat sprang from the box and peered up at her, suddenly cautious. It backed away slowly, muscles tense and quivering as if it were ready to spring away.

“It’s okay, kitty.” Jessica began to wonder if it wasn’t a wild cat after all. It wasn’t acting like any domestic cat she’d ever met.

She knelt and offered one hand. The cat came closer and sniffed.

“It’s all right.” Jessica reached out one finger and scratched lightly at the top of its head.

“Rrrrrrrr.” The low, terrible noise welled up from the creature, as deep as a tiger’s growl, and it backed away with its belly pressed to the floor.

“Hey, relax,” Jessica said, pulling her hand back to a safe distance.

The black cat’s eyes were filled with terror. It turned and ran to the bedroom door, scratching plaintively. Jessica stood and took a few careful steps toward it, reaching out to open the door.

The cat bounded down the hall and disappeared around the corner. She heard it complaining at the front door. It didn’t howl like a normal cat. The high-pitched cries sounded more like those of a wounded bird.

Jessica looked back at her open window in puzzlement. “Why didn’t you just…?” she started, then shook her head. Wild or not, this cat was nutty.

Careful not to look into Beth’s room, she followed the creature’s anguished noises down the hall and to the front door. The cat cringed as she approached but didn’t bolt. Jessica gingerly reached out and turned the knob. The second the door was open a crack, the cat squeezed itself through and took off.

“See you later,” she said softly, sighing. This was perfect. The only other living thing in this nightmare was terrified of her.

Jessica pulled the door the rest of the way open and went out onto the porch. The old wood creaked under her feet, the sound reassuring in this silent world. She took a deep breath, then stepped onto the walk, glad to leave the lifeless, alien house behind her. The blue light seemed cleaner, somehow healthier out here. She missed the diamonds, though. She looked around for anything—a falling leaf, a drop of rain—suspended in the air. Nothing. She glanced up to the sky to check for clouds.

A giant moon was rising.

Jessica swallowed, her mind spi

She shielded her face, then looked down toward the ground, head aching and eyes watering fiercely. As she blinked away the tears, Jessica saw that the normal color of the grass had returned. For a few seconds the lawn looked green and alive, but then the cold blue rushed back into it, like a drop of dark ink spreading through a glass of water.

Her head still pounded, and Jessica thought of eclipses, in which the sun was darkened but still powerful, blinding people who unknowingly stared at it. An afterimage of the huge moon still burned in her eyes, changing the hues of the whole street. Glimpses of normal colors—greens, yellows, red—flickered in the corners of her vision. Then slowly her headache subsided, and calm blue tones settled over the street again.

Jessica glanced up at the moon again and with a flash of realization saw its true color: a bright darkness, a hungry blankness, a sucking up of light. The blue light in this dream didn’t come from objects themselves, as she’d thought at first. And it didn’t come directly from the giant moon above. Rather, the cold, lifeless blue was a leftover, the last remnant of light that remained after the dark moon had leached all the other colors from the spectrum.

She wondered if the moon—or dark sun, or star, or whatever it was—had been in the sky in her last dream, hidden behind the clouds. And what did it mean? So far, Jessica had thought these dreams were adding up to something. But this was just bizarre.

A howl came from down the street.

Jessica whirled toward the sound. It was the cat again, this time screeching the high-pitched call of a monkey. It stood at the end of the street, glaring back at her.

“You again?” she said, shivering at the sound. “You’re pretty loud for such a little kitty.”

The cat yowled once more, almost sounding like a cat now. An unhappy one. Outside in the moonlight its eyes flashed indigo and its fur was even blacker, as rich and dark as an empty night sky.

It yowled again.

“All right, I’m coming,” Jessica muttered. “Don’t get all psychosomatic on me.”

She walked after the creature. It waited until it was sure she was following, then padded away. As they walked, it kept looking over its shoulder at her, making shrieking or barking or growling noises in turn. It stayed well ahead, too scared of Jessica to let her get close but taking care not to lose sight of her.

The cat led her through an otherwise empty world. There were no clouds in the sky, no cars or people, just the vast moon slowly rising. The streetlights were dark, except for the uniform blue glow that came from everything. The houses looked abandoned and still, dead silence hovering over them, pierced only by the weird menagerie of noises from the anxious cat.

At first Jessica recognized some of the houses from her route to school, but the neighborhood looked alien in this light, and she quickly forgot how many turns she and the cat had taken.