The Secret Hour

Jessica sighed. Another advanced class she was already behind in.

“So,” Jonathan continued, “I guess I’m a little bit more out of time than the rest of you. Midnight gravity doesn’t have a real hold on me. I weigh something but not much.”

Jessica tried to get her head around his words. She supposed that if raindrops could hover in the air, it made sense that a person could too. Why should any of the midnighters fall? she wondered.

“So you can fly.”

“Not Superman fly,” Jonathan said. “But I can jump a long way and fall any dista—hey!”

Without thinking, Jessica had let go of his hand. Normal weight hit her all at once, as if someone had suddenly dropped a necklace of bricks around her head. The house reared up under her, and she collapsed onto its instantly treacherous slope. She was no longer made of feathers but solid bone and flesh. A sudden terror of heights struck her like a punch in the stomach.

Her hands reached out instinctively as she slid downward, fingernails grasping at the slate roof tiles. She half rolled and half skidded toward the edge of the roof.

“Jonathan!”

The edge loomed up toward her. One foot went off into space. The toe of her other sneaker caught in the rain gutter, and she halted for a second. But she had only a tenuous grasp on the roof tiles. Her fingers, her foot, everything was slipping….

Then gravity let go again.

Jessica felt Jonathan’s hands gently grasping both shoulders. The two of them floated down to the ground together.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

Her heart still pounded, but she wasn’t scared anymore. The featherlight feeling had returned so quickly, like a wave of relief when some horrible test was over.

Their feet settled onto the ground.

“Are you okay?” Jonathan said. “I should have warned you.”

“It’s all right,” she said, shaking her head. “I should have realized. I was just thinking that it’s too bad we can’t all fly.”

“No, just me. Although when you turned up, I was kind of hoping.”

She looked at Jonathan. His eyes were still wide with alarm. And Jessica could also see his disappointment that she had fallen, that she wasn’t like him.

“Yeah, I was kind of hoping too, I guess.” She took his hand firmly. “But take me up again. Please?”

“You’re not scared?”

“Kind of,” she admitted. “So unscare me.”

They flew.

It was true, Jonathan wasn’t Superman. Flying was hard work. Jessica found that they went much higher if she jumped with him, pushing off as hard as she could. The timing was tricky—if one of them pushed too soon and too hard, they would fly apart and be jerked to a halt at arm’s length, then spin helplessly around each other, laughing until the ground caught them again. But they got better with every jump, coordinating their leaps to soar higher and higher.

She gripped Jonathan’s hand hard, nervous and excited, terrified of darklings and thrilled to be in the sky.

Flying was beautiful. The pale blue streets glinted like rivers beneath them as they crashed through high, wind-borne columns of autumn leaves. There were birds up here, too, their wings outstretched in arrested flight and angled to catch the frozen winds. The dark moon glowered over them, almost risen all the way, but it didn’t seem to crowd the sky as oppressively as it had last night. From up here Jessica could see the band of stars that stretched around the horizon, bright pinpoints whose white light hadn’t been leached blue by the moon.

The layout of Bixby was still unfamiliar to her, but now that Jessica could see the town from above, laid out like a map, it started to make sense. From the highest jumps the houses and trees looked small and perfect, a city of doll-houses. Jonathan must see the world completely differently from everyone else, she realized.

They drew closer to the edge of town, where the houses thi

The badlands.

As they got closer to the desert, her eyes nervously sca

Jonathan really was faster than the bullies.

He took her to one of the big water towers outside of town. They alighted on it, the city on one side, the black badlands on the other. It was flat on top, with a low guardrail around the edge.

“Okay, hand-rest time,” he said.

They let go of each other. Jessica was prepared this time, bending her knees as normal weight settled back onto her.

“Ow,” she said, rubbing her fingers. She realized that every muscle in her hand was sore. Jonathan stretched his own hand with a pained expression. “Oops, sorry. Didn’t mean to be all clingy.”

He laughed. “Better clingy than splatty.”

“Yeah, totally.” She stepped carefully to the edge of the tower, keeping one hand on the rail. As she looked down, her stomach did a back flip. “Okay, fear of heights still in working order.”

“Good,” Jonathan said. “I worry that one day I’ll forget that it’s not midnight and jump off a roof or something. Or I’ll forget what time it is and still be flying around when gravity comes back.”

Jessica turned toward him, put one hand on his shoulder, and the lightness returned. “Please don’t.”

She blushed and let go. Her voice had sounded so serious.

He smiled. “I won’t, Jessica. Really.”

“Call me Jess.”

“Sure. Jess.” His smile grew broader.

“Thanks for taking me flying.”

“You’re welcome.”

Jessica turned away shyly.

She heard a crunch. Jonathan was eating an apple.

“Want one?”

“Uh, that’s okay.”

“I’ve got four.”

She blinked. “Do you ever stop eating?”

Jonathan shrugged. “Like I said, I’ve got to eat my own body weight every day.”

“Really?”

“No. But flying makes me hungry.”

Jessica smiled and looked out over the town, feeling secure for the first time since last night’s “dream” had gone all wrong.

Her eyes followed a bird flying along the horizon, back-lit by the moon, which had just begun to set. She was so happy, still featherlight inside, that it took a moment for her stomach to sink.

The bird was moving.

“Jonathan, what’s wrong with this picture?”

He followed her gaze. “Oh, that. It’s just a flying slither.”

She nodded, swallowing. “I saw some last night.”

“That’s what Dess calls them, anyway,” Jonathan said. “Although ‘flying slither’ kind of sounds like a contradiction to me. But the winged ones and the crawly ones are the same creature. They change their shape, did you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” She remembered the kitty-shaped slither that had led her so far from home before turning into a snake. The flying slither was circling them slowly, its leathery wings transparent against the cold moon. “It’s creeping me out.”

“Don’t worry. Those things never bother anyone.” He reached into his shirt and pulled up a necklace of thick steel links. “And if that one decides to, I’ve got all thirty-nine links of Obstructively to protect us.”

Jessica shivered. “A slither bit me last night. Or whatever you’d call it. Tongued me.”

“Ouch. Were you messing with a nest or something?”

She looked at Jonathan sourly. “No, I wasn’t doing anything stupid. A bunch of them were helping the darkling hunt me. It snuck up on me in the grass and gave me this slither hickey.” She showed him the mark.