The Secret Hour

“But what’s a day for a darkling?”

Rex pondered as he rode, recalling his precious lore. “Well, the darklings only live one hour in twenty-five, the secret hour. They’re frozen for the rest, like regular people are frozen during the blue time. So it takes them twenty-five of our days to live a single day in their life. That’s part of why they live so long.”

“Right,” Dess said. “So, a darkling probably sleeps for twenty-three of our days in a row.”

Rex’s bike wobbled. She could tell he hadn’t thought this through before. She shook her head. People’s lives would be so much simpler if every once in a while they bothered to do the math.

“And that means,” he said slowly, “that they only hunt about once a month. Like a werewolf in mythology.”

“Exactly. That must be where the whole full-moon thing comes from. Except darklings hunt once every 3.571429 weeks, not every four. But who’s counting? In any case, this means that there’s a lot more darklings than we thought, because most of them are sleeping most of the time. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. For every one hunting, another twenty-three are asleep.”

Dess let Rex soak in this information for a while.

Finally he said, “So the question isn’t, ‘Where did they all come from?’ ”

“Right,” she answered. “The question is, ‘Why did they all wake up?’ ”

When Jessica answered the knock on her window, she looked disappointed to see them.

“Expecting someone else?” Dess asked.

“Kind of,” Jessica said quietly.

Rex didn’t notice or thought she and Jess were kidding. Dess wondered exactly what had happened last night.

She had called Jonathan’s house today to see if he’d followed through on his threat to visit Jess during the blue time. But no one had answered the phone all day. She wasn’t worried—Jonathan could take care of himself better than any of them—but Dess wanted to hear the scoop.

“Well, we’ve got big news for you,” she said.

“Come on in,” Jessica said, sliding the window open. Dess jumped through and reached back to give Rex a hand up. It occurred to her that they could just use the front door, but something about the blue time made everyone want to whisper, plot, and sneak.

Jessica sat slumped on her bed. She looked tired and bummed. Apparently it hadn’t been the best first date ever. Maybe darklings had crashed the party.

Dess noticed that Jess was rubbing her right hand, as if it was a bit sore. She knew from experience what that meant: things couldn’t have gone completely wrong.

Dess put her questions aside. She could ask Jess in study period tomorrow, when Rex wasn’t around to go ballistic.

“We went to a lore site last night,” he said.

“It was a pretty hairy trip,” Dess said. “Darkling city out there.”

“But we may have found out what’s going on.”

Jessica looked up. “It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

Rex look surprised for a moment, then shrugged. “It’s not your fault, exactly.”

“But it’s because of me. Those things didn’t used to bother you guys. Since I showed up, they’re everywhere. Right?”

“That’s true,” Rex admitted. “The heavy darkling action could be related to you coming to Bixby. But only maybe.”

“Maybe definitely,” Jessica said. “You had a private world, a secret time all your own, and I messed it all up.”

“You didn’t mess it up. The darklings were already there, and we’ve tangled with them before,” Rex said. “But it’s possible you’ve got them scared.”

“Scared?”

Dess sat down next to Jessica. “Every midnighter has his or her own talent, Jessica.”

“So I noticed. Everyone but me, that is.”

Rex paced the room. “The lore says that darklings can taste it when new midnighters arrive in their territory, like Melissa can. They can feel our talents, and they know when someone new is a danger to them.”

“Me, a danger to them?” Jessica laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. So far, my major talent seems to be disaster magnet. A walking bad-luck charm.”

“That’s because they’re scared,” Dess said. “They’re still animals, in a way—wild cats.”

“And you’re stirring up their nest.”

Dess rolled her eyes. “Cats don’t have nests, Rex.”

“Well, you’re stirring up their… cathouse. But whatever your talent turns out to be, Jessica, it must be important. For us.”

She looked up at him. “Are you sure?”

“If they want you, we need you,” Dess said.

“But they want me dead.”

“That’s why we have to find out exactly what you are,” Rex said. “Will you help us do that?”

Jessica looked at them both, then stared glumly out the window at the blue time. Dess saw the careful rows of thumbtacks lining each window and wondered what it would be like to be trapped in your room for the secret hour, with the whole world waiting empty for you outside.

Jessica’s room had a crazed neatness to it, as if she’d been cleaning all day. As Dess had figured, her parents weren’t poor. Jessica had a real stereo and a ton of CDs. But the room hardly looked lived in at all. It felt like a lonely room.

Jessica sighed before she answered. “Sure. What do I have to do?”

Rex smiled. “We have to take you to a certain lore site during the secret hour. There are ways of reading your talent there, testing you to find out what you are.”

“Okay, except what happens when the darklings butt in?”

“They’ll try,” Dess said. “But I can set up defenses in advance, get everything ready in daylight. It’ll be totally safe by the time midnight rolls around. Safer than this room, at least.”

Jessica looked around, clearly unhappy with the idea that her room wasn’t totally secure. “So the only problem is getting there,” she said.

“We’ve got that covered too,” Rex said. “You can tell your parents that you’re spending the night with Dess. She lives out closer to the badlands. You can slip out and get there before—”

“Forget it.”

“Why?” Rex asked.

“I can’t spend the night with anyone, not for the next month, anyway. I’m grounded. Very.”

“Oh.” Rex looked as if he hadn’t expected anything so mundane to mess up his plans. “Well, if you slip out on your own, Melissa can pick you up and drive—”

“No.” Jessica said the word without hesitation. “I’ve lied to my parents enough. I’ve snuck around enough. Forget it.”

Rex opened his mouth, then closed it.

Dess was dying to talk to Jessica away from Rex. What had happened last night? She wondered if Jess’s grounding had anything to do with Jonathan.

“I mean,” Jessica continued, “I don’t mind going out in the secret hour, but I’m not leaving this house during regular time. If my parents found out, they’d be really upset. I don’t want to do that to them again.”

“Do you want to wait a whole month?” Rex argued. “If they’re as scared as they seem, the darklings might try something really serious soon.”

“How far away is this place?” Jessica asked.

“Pretty far out,” Rex said. “Even from Dess’s, you can barely make it there and back in an hour on a bike.”

“What about flying?”

Rex’s jaw dropped, and then his eyes turned coldly toward Dess. She sighed and spread her hands with a little shrug. There was no hope of avoiding blame. Rex knew that Melissa would never have told Jonathan where Jess lived. For that matter, if Dess hadn’t blabbed, Jonathan might not even have guessed that there was a new midnighter in town. She tried to look sheepish.

But inwardly Dess smiled. Occasionally Rex needed to be reminded that nobody had elected him seer.

He gathered himself and turned back toward Jessica.

“It’s too dangerous. You two alone, out in the badlands—you’d be flying right into a death trap.”

“Yeah,” Jessica admitted, “it was pretty bad last night. And we barely went past the edge of town.”

“You went past—?” Rex bristled again but kept himself in check. “We’ll think of something else,” he said. “Some way to get you there before midnight.”