The Secret Hour

She had just missed the runway, landing where thick Oklahoma scrub grass led up to its edge. There was the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, and she was dizzy, but her arms and legs all seemed able to move.

The sounds of slithers came from in front and behind, closing in on her. In the distance their shapes moved against the vast, dark moon like a haze of gnats. Jonathan was nowhere to be seen.

Her normal weight felt as heavy as lead now that she could only run, not fly.

She stood slowly. Started painfully to walk.

“Jess!”

Jonathan was skimming across the ground toward her, one hand extended.

She thrust out her right hand. As he flew past, Jonathan grasped her wrist, and she was transformed into a toy balloon again, pulled in his wake. The bruises on her hands complained, and she cried out.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just banged up.”

“I thought you were dead!”

She giggled, a little hysterically. “I thought you were halfway to Texas.”

Jonathan didn’t say anything, just grasped her wrist tighter.

“Thanks for coming back,” Jessica said. She could hear the crazed sound of her own voice and wondered if she’d bumped her head. It was hard to tell if her light-headedness was brain damage or the effect of Jonathan’s touch.

“They’re on three sides of us now,” he said.

Jessica blinked, trying to clear her mind. She could see a cloud of slithers to their right and a lone darkling to their left and assumed there were more of each behind. On the open ground they were moving quickly again, one of her ankles twinging with pain whenever they jumped. Eventually, though, they would be driven out over the badlands, and if another group of pursuers appeared in front of them, they would have nowhere left to go.

Suddenly Jessica spotted a mesh of girders off to the right. Rising into the sky a few stories, a brand-new building was going up at the edge of the complex.

“Steel,” she said.

“What?”

She pointed. “New steel, untouched by midnight.”

“Let’s hope so.”

The sounds of their pursuers came from all around now. Chirps and squeaks and caws, like being trapped inside some insane bird sanctuary. As they angled toward the new building, a flock of flying slithers drew closer.

Jessica pulled out Jurisprudence with her free hand and used her teeth to pull the ante

She spotted the slither just before it hit.

The leathery wings struck first, wrapping themselves around her face. Jessica flailed away with Jurisprudence, and blue sparks filled her vision. Then the creature was gone.

“They’re trying to separate us,” Jonathan shouted.

Jess felt a creeping cold in her shoulder. The thing had struck for their interlocked hands. It knew she couldn’t fly on her own.

Another slither approached, but she swiped at it with the still sparking ante

One last jump took them into the mesh of steel girders. They landed hard on a metal beam strung with cables.

“I’m letting go,” Jonathan warned.

Jessica gained her footing with only a second to spare. Weight crashed back onto her, and she knelt, clinging to the beam.

Jonathan pulled the necklace over his head, wrapping it around his fist.

“Splendiferous,” Jessica whispered to the steel.

“If we can just hold out a few more—,” Jonathan started, but his voice choked off in confusion. “What in the—”

The forest of steel around them bloomed with light—white, not blue. The world shifted into full color, the metal beams suddenly a dusty red. Jessica’s face and hands turned pink, Jonathan’s light brown.

Suddenly there were panicked shapes all around them, screaming past like angry rockets. Slithers were flying into the building site, screeching and leaving a trail of sparks as they struck the white light, retreating back to the edge of the steel girders.

The cloud of slithers regrouped and wrapped itself around the building, circling as if Jessica and Jonathan were caught in the eye of a tornado. Wounded sounds came from all around them, but nothing dared enter the grid of steel.

Jessica could see three darklings together at the edge of the light, their silhouettes pulsing through horrible, half-glimpsed shapes. Their eyes flashed a deep indigo.

A low growl came from one of them, long and full of varied sounds, as if it were trying to make words and meaning. But it was no more understandable than fingernails on a chalkboard.

Then the three darklings turned and flew away. The flying slithers slowly gathered themselves up into a ragged cloud, the whole mass heading back out toward the badlands.

“The moon’s setting,” Jonathan said.

Jessica nodded, unable to speak.

“We’d better get down.”

Of course, Jessica thought. In a few minutes Jonathan wouldn’t be able to fly anymore. They’d be stuck up here.

She held out her hand, and he took it. They jumped from the steel beam, falling softly to the ground. The white light around them slowly faded, returning to the placid blue light of the secret hour.

“What was that?” she said. “What saved us?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe the steel?”

“I gave it a thirteen-letter name,” she suggested.

Jonathan let out a short laugh. “The whole building?”

“I guess. The part we were standing on, at least.”

He shook his head. “You can charge up a ring or a necklace, and Dess can do bigger stuff if it’s the right shape, but not a whole building. Maybe this place is made of some kind of crazy new metal. What does your mom do here?”

“Aircraft research.”

“Hmm.” Jonathan nodded. “We should look into it. That was totally cool.” He looked up at the building over their heads. “Wouldn’t mind some brass knuckles made of that stuff. Or maybe it was just the end of the blue time coming on. Lots of steel in conjunction with moonset.”

Jessica shrugged. This was another mystery for Rex, it sounded like.

Then a terrible thought struck her.

“How long do we have?” she asked.

Jonathan glanced at the moon. “Only a minute or so until the blue time runs out. I guess we’ll be walking home tonight.”

“Not unless we get out of here.”

“What?”

“They do classified defense work here, Jonathan,” she said hurriedly. “My mom got background-checked, interviewed by the FBI, and fingerprinted twice. There are security guards all over and a big fence all around.”

“Great,” he said, sca

She nodded. “Three, two…”

They jumped, heading back toward the city.

It took several bounds just to carry them to within sight of the fence. It was at least thirty feet high.

“Oh boy,” Jonathan said.

“What? We can clear that easy.”

He swallowed, clenching her hand hard. “I usually don’t jump at all this close to moonset. It’s not fun getting a face full of gravity when you’re up high.”

“Tell me about it,” Jessica said.

“Oh, yeah.”

They neared the fence. Jessica could see the coil of razor wire that capped it now, like a long, vicious Slinky stretched along its top. The light was changing slowly, a bit of color coming back into the world.

“Not long now,” Jonathan said.

Jessica swallowed. If she were caught trespassing in here, they’d blame her mother. The new job would be in the toaster.

“Just one more jump,” she cried. “Go!”

They soared into the air and over the fence, clearing the razor wire by at least twenty feet.

“Oh no,” said Jonathan. “I think that was maybe a little…”

“Too hard?” she asked.

They continued to sail upward.

The moon was slipping behind the hills. In the distance ahead the trees were turning green. Jessica realized that it was like sunset, right on the edge of day and night, when the light moved from east to west across the planet. Moonset and normal time—and gravity—were rushing toward them.