The Secret Hour

“They made the blue time?” Jessica asked.

Rex nodded. “The lore says that they took one hour from the day and collapsed it down to an instant so that human beings couldn’t see it anymore.”

Jessica said softly, “Except those who were born at exactly that instant.”

“You got it,” Dess said. “It has to happen to some people, you know? Only so many seconds in the day.”

Dess was looking at Jessica expectantly.

“What?” Jess asked.

Rex sighed. “She wants you to tell her how many seconds are in a day.”

Jessica shrugged. “A lot?”

“Sixty seconds per minute,” Dess supplied. “Sixty minutes per hour. Twenty-four hours per day.”

“That would be…” Jessica looked up at the ceiling in rapt concentration. “A whole lot?”

“Eighty-six thousand, four hundred,” Dess said quietly. “I thought maybe you were, you know, really good at math. You are in trig, after all.”

Jessica snorted. “That was my mom’s idea. When we changed schools, she decided to promote me to misunderstood genius.”

“Tough luck,” said Dess. She shrugged at Rex.

Melissa giggled again, singing along softly with her headphones. Rex barely caught the words.

“Tastes like… vanilla.”

13

11:55 P.M.

ACROBAT

Last year at PS 141 there’d been this really gross experiment in biology….

Jessica’s class had raised two bunches of flatworms in terrariums, which were basically aquariums but full of dirt instead of water. The flatworms really were flat, with little triangular heads kind of like the spear points that Rex was so fond of. They had two little spots that looked like eyes but weren’t. They could detect light, though.

In one terrarium the class always put the worm food in the same corner, under a little light that they switched on at feeding time. The light was like a restaurant sign: Come In, We’re Open.

In the other terrarium the class just sprinkled the food randomly on top of the dirt.

The flatworms in the first terrarium weren’t stupid. Pretty soon they figured out what the light meant. You could point a flashlight at any side of that terrarium, and the worms would come looking for food. They would even follow the light around in circles, if worm racing was what you were into.

Then, as it did in every biology class, the time came for the gross part.

Using the flashlight as bait, the class collected all the clever light-loving worms from the first terrarium. Then the teacher, Mrs. Hardaway, put them into a bowl and squished them into worm paste. Nobody was forced to watch, but a few kids did. Not Jessica.

In case that wasn’t gross enough, Mrs. Hardaway then fed the squished worms to the other worms. Apparently flatworms would eat anything, even other worms.

The next day the class gathered around, and for the first time ever Mrs. Hardaway moved the little restaurant light to the second terrarium. She let Jessica herself switch on the light. One by one the worms popped their little flat heads up, hungry for food. They had learned about the restaurant light by eating the worms from the other terrarium, like learning French by eating french fries, except infinitely grosser.

Tonight, sitting on her bed, waiting for midnight, surrounded by unpacked boxes, Jessica Day had the aftertaste of midnighter in her mouth.

Rex and Dess had kept her at the museum for hours, cramming her brain with everything they knew about the darklings, the blue time, midnighters and their talents, and the secret history of Bixby, Oklahoma. They’d ground up years of incredible experiences and unbelievable discoveries and served them all as one gigantic meal. And of course Jessica had no choice but to eat every bite. The secret hour was dangerous. What she didn’t know could really hurt her.

In the end, even Melissa had taken off her headphones to join in, explaining her own weird talent. It turned out that she, not Dess, was the psychic—a real psychic, not the psychosomatic kind—but in a way that sounded completely awful. She’d described it as being in a room with fifty radios blasting, all tuned to different stations. And Rex had warned Jessica not to touch her; physical contact turned the volume up way too high.

No wonder Melissa was so much fun to be around.

As Jessica watched the clock’s second hand slowly sweep out the remaining minutes, she rested one hand on her churning stomach. She had the feeling she always got before a test. This was quite a test. It included math, mythology, metallurgy, science, and ancient history. And getting a single question wrong could mean becoming worm food herself.

The day had probably been a lot more fun for Rex, Dess, and Melissa. For years the three of them had kept an entire world secret. They’d had to face the terrors and joys of midnight alone. So of course they’d been anxious to share them with someone new.

Jessica just wished she could remember more of what they’d said. After the first hour or three her sleepless night had started to take its toll, their voices turning into competing drones. Finally she’d told them she was going home.

It was amazing how quickly a new and mysterious world could go from totally unbelievable to completely unbearable.

She’d gotten back home just in time for di

“Oh, sweetheart. You’ve been doing homework all day, haven’t you? This is my fault for putting you in all those advanced classes, isn’t it?”

Jessica hadn’t bothered to disagree. She’d half dozed through di

Although she couldn’t remember half of what the other midnighters had tried to teach her, she hadn’t forgotten the important stuff. Jessica was armed with three new weapons: Deliciousness, Fossilization, and Jurisprudence, which were a coil of wire, a long screw, and a broken car-radio ante

In addition, there was no way she was going outside tonight.

The other three midnighters were headed for what Rex had called a “lore site.” Apparently there had been midnighters in Bixby for as long as there had been a secret hour, some born here and some, like Jessica, who’d stumbled into town. Generations of seers like Rex had slowly collected knowledge about the blue time and the darklings and recorded their discoveries where only other seers could find them. Out in the unchanging badlands huge, ancient rocks were marked with invisible runes that told the ancient stories.

Rex said that he would search until he discovered why the darklings were so interested in Jessica. “But maybe last night was a coincidence,” he’d said unconvincingly.

“Maybe they just like you,” Melissa had said, smacking her lips. “As in, ‘I like pizza.’ ”

Two minutes to go.

Jessica swallowed and lifted her feet off the floor. The slithers couldn’t possibly be here yet, but last night had brought all her childhood fears back to her. There were things under the bed. Maybe at the moment they were psychosomatic things, but she could still feel them down there.

She looked at her clock, which was set to Bixby time now. Dess had explained that “real midnight” happened at a different moment in every city. Time zones just kind of faked it. But now when her clock hit twelve, Jessica Day would be as far away from the sun as you could get.