The Secret Hour

“I’m not sure it was just a trick,” Jonathan said. “I mean, she really seemed to help Julio. When he was about to do something stupid, he wouldn’t listen to anyone else, but she could always talk sense into him. Like when he’d decided to run away from home one time, she was the one who talked him out of it.”

Jessica put down her fork. “So she wasn’t just ripping him off.”

“Well, the fu

Jessica smiled, taking a thoughtful bite of her salad. The woman Jonathan had described sounded a lot like Dess. Her weird, probing questions and random statements, all delivered with total authority, had almost started Jessica believing that Dess had some kind of special power. Or at least they had fooled her enough to creep her out. Maybe it was all in her head. If Jessica believed that Dess had some special power, then in a way she did.

In any case, Dess certainly put the psycho back in psychosomatic.

“So it’s possible,” Jonathan continued, “that this girl you know isn’t completely nuts. She might have a different way of communicating, but maybe she does have something important to say.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jessica said. “But whatever it is, I kind of wish she’d just come out and say it.”

“Maybe you’re not ready to hear it.”

Jessica looked at Jonathan with surprise. He blinked his sleepy brown eyes at her i

“Well, maybe you’re right,” she said, shrugging. “But until then, I’m not going to worry about it.”

“That makes sense.”

Jessica smiled at those three words as Jonathan attacked his final sandwich. It was about time something made sense.

7

12:00 A.M.

DARK MOON

That night the blue dream came again.

Jessica had been lying awake and staring at the ceiling, relieved that it was finally the weekend. Tomorrow she was determined to finish unpacking. Searching through the fourteen boxes piled around her room was getting old. Maybe organizing her stuff would make her life feel a little bit more under control.

She must have been more tired than she’d realized. Sleep stole up on her so quietly that dreaming seemed to collide with consciousness. It was as if she blinked, and everything changed. Suddenly the world was blue, the low hum of the Oklahoma wind swallowed by silence.

She sat up, suddenly alert. The room was filled with the familiar blue light.

“Great,” she said softly. “This again.”

Tonight Jessica didn’t waste time trying to go back to sleep. If this was a dream, she was already asleep. And it was a dream. Probably.

Except for the matter of that soggy sweatshirt, of course.

She slipped out from under the covers and got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. The motionless rain had been wonderful, so she might as well see what wonders her subconscious had cooked up this time.

Jessica looked around carefully. Everything was sharp and clear. She felt very calm, without any dreamy muzzy-headedness. She remembered from a psych class she’d taken last year that this was called “lucid dreaming.”

The light was exactly the same as in her dream the night before, a deep indigo that shone from every surface. There were no shadows, no dark corners. She peered into one of her moving boxes and could see everything inside it with equal and perfect clarity. Every object seemed to glow softly from within.

She looked out the window. There were no floating diamonds this time, just a quiet street, as still and flat as a painting.

“That’s boring,” she muttered.

Jessica crept to her door and opened it carefully. Something in this dream made her want to respect the deep silence; in the blue light the world seemed secretive and mysterious. A place to sneak through.

Halfway down the hall Beth’s door was ajar. Jess pushed it open tentatively. Her sister’s room was lit in the same deep blue as her own. It was wrapped in the same silence and flatness, though it was definitely Beth’s clothing strewn chaotically around the floor. Her sister had accomplished even less on the unpacking front than Jessica.

A shape filled the bed. The small form was tangled uncomfortably in the covers. Since the move Beth hadn’t been sleeping well, which kept her in a state of constant crankiness.

Jessica crossed to the bed and sat down gently, thinking about how little time she’d spent with Beth since they’d arrived in Bixby. Even in the months before the move her little sister’s tantrums had made her impossible to hang out with. Beth had fought the idea of leaving Chicago every step of the way, and everyone in the family had gotten into the habit of avoiding her when she was in a bad mood.

Maybe that was why this dream had led her here. Having to get used to Bixby herself, Jessica hadn’t thought much about her sister’s problems.

She reached out and rested one hand softly on Beth’s sleeping form.

Jessica jerked back, a chill ru

Suddenly the blue light seemed cold around her.

“Beth?” Her sister didn’t move. Jessica couldn’t see any sign of breathing.

“Beth, wake up.” Her voice broke from a whisper into a cry. “Quit fooling around. Please?”

She shook her sister with both hands.

The shape under the covers didn’t move. It felt heavy and stiff.

Jessica reached for the covers again, not sure that she wanted to reveal what was underneath but unable to stop herself. She stood up, taking a nervous step away from the bedside even as she reached out and pulled the bedclothes away with a frantic jerk.

“Beth?”

Her sister’s face was chalk white, as motionless as a statue. The half-opened eyes glimmered like green glass marbles. One white and frozen hand clutched the tangled sheets like a pale claw.

“Beth!” Jessica sobbed.

Her sister didn’t move.

She reached out and touched Beth’s cheek. It was as cold and hard as stone.

Jessica turned and ran across the room, almost tripping on the piles of clothing. She threw open the door and ran down the hallway toward her parents’ room.

“Mom! Dad!” she screamed. But as Jessica stumbled to a halt in front of her parents’ room, the cry died in her throat. The closed door stood cold and blank before her.

There was no sound from inside. They must have heard her.

“Mom!”

There was no response.

What if she opened it and her parents were like Beth? The image of her mother and father as white, frozen statues—dead things—paralyzed her. Her hand had almost reached the doorknob, but she couldn’t bring her fingers to close on it.

“Mommy?” she called softly.

No sound came from inside the room.

Jess backed away from the door, suddenly terrified that it would open, that something might come out. This nightmare might have anything in store for her. The unfamiliar house seemed completely alien now, blue and cold and empty of anything alive.

She turned and ran back toward her own room. Halfway there, she passed Beth’s door, still open wide. Jessica turned her eyes away too late and saw in a terrible flash the exposed, lifeless white shape of her sister on the bed.

Jessica bolted into her room and shut the door tightly behind her, collapsing in a sobbing heap onto the floor. The first dream had been so beautiful, but this nightmare was completely awful. She just wanted to wake up.

Fighting back her terror, she tried to think through what the dream must mean. Jessica had been so wrapped up in her own problems, she hadn’t seen the obvious. Beth needed her. She had to stop acting as if her sister’s anger were just an inconvenience.