Blue Noon

10 11:49 P.M. MEMORY FIX

The mind noise of Jenks rumbled softly at this time of night. A fair percentage of the locals seemed to be awake—most watching the late-night dreck of unemployment TV—but this area was sparsely populated compared to Bixby. The thinly sprinkled minds dotted the mental landscape like lazy fireflies.

“Anybody near the tracks?”

She opened her eyes, licked her lips, and shook her head. “No, Rex. Nothing bigger than a squirrel.”

Her old Ford was parked in the same field as the night before, facing the long hump of the railroad line. Melissa couldn’t taste any human minds among the trees, which was one less thing to worry about.

Rex was almost being his old self, getting anxious over everything. He’d been worried that Cassie Flinders had told her friends everything she’d seen last night—or worse, spilled the beans to the local news channel.

Of course, Melissa had to admit, a bunch of thrill seekers showing up to dare “haunted” railroad tracks would be a pain. It was bad enough out at the snake pit, having to crawl over frozen teenagers playing games with so-called magic rocks. But this rip in the blue time was actually dangerous—they didn’t need any more Cassies crossing over and causing all kinds of inconvenience.

As Melissa cast her mind across the contortion, she realized that she could faintly taste the rip. There was something unnatural and vaguely wrong about this place, like the smell of chlorine on your own skin after swimming. She wrinkled her nose, wondering if the rip had grown since last night or if it only got bigger during eclipses.

“Maybe it’s too soon,” he said. “Any rumors Cassie started haven’t had much time to spread.”

“Well, we can come out here again tomorrow night if you want.” She flexed her fingers. “Scare the hell out of them. Of course, it does seem like a waste of effort.”

“What do you mean?”

“Saving every little kid who wanders into darkling land when all of Bixby’s fixing to get turned into one big buffet.” She saw his fists tighten, felt the tension course through him, and sighed. “Kidding, Rex. You know me, always happy to rescue people.”

He relaxed, took a breath. “Well, you rescued me.”

She smiled. The great thing about Rex was, he’d never forgotten the night she’d walked across Bixby to find him, back when they were kids. Even after all these years, all the mistakes they’d made, he was still that eight-year-old, forever grateful to her for showing him that the blue time was real, not just some recurring nightmare.

But what was he so nervous about tonight? Even with her new and improved skills, Melissa still couldn’t tease out the details sometimes. Not without physical contact, anyway, and Rex had been very edgy about touching today.

“Maybe Cassie hasn’t told anyone,” he said. “Maybe she really does think it was a dream.”

“I don’t know. She tasted really… clever.” Melissa paused, unsure if clever was what she meant. The kid was tough, and Melissa had detected a crafty streak in her that was a mile wide. Cassie Flinders might not have said much last night, acting very much like a kid in shock, but she’d listened to everything the midnighters had said in front of her, recording it all. The sooner Melissa rejiggered her memories, the better.

“Just don’t push too hard, Cowgirl.”

Rex’s guilt washed over her, sour milk mixed with battery acid, and she groaned. “That’s all behind us, Rex. No more screwups. I’ll be light as a feather in there. Just trust me, all right?”

“Okay.” He looked at his watch. “So what do we do for eight minutes?”

“Jeez, Loverboy, if you have to ask…”

He smiled and turned to her, leaning across the car seat. But his movements were tentative.

What are you hiding, Loverboy? she wondered.

As they kissed, she felt Rex’s nervous energy buzzing across his lips. She ran her tongue lightly across them, transforming their flavor from anxiety into desire, drawing him closer. Melissa’s own excitement—her anticipation of midnight, of using her new skills to manipulate Cassie’s frozen mind—began to build. It overwhelmed Rex’s tension, mixing with his arousal like two sharp tastes colliding in her mouth.

He reached to grasp her shoulders, his hands gloved against the accidental touch of steel, and pulled her closer. She ran a hand inside his jacket, feeling her mind begin to spin. She could taste the ferment of Rex’s ongoing transformation and wondered at its sweet electric taste, like Pop Rocks under her tongue, fizzing as it trickled down her throat.

Usually when they touched, her generations of mindcaster technique ensured that Melissa kept herself under control. But tonight Rex’s newfound confidence, the strength in him that grew every day, threatened to overpower her. She caught glimpses of what had happened the night before, saw through his eyes the darkling in its dance, acknowledging him as another predator. Talking to him, almost.

And then the real cause of his guilt and anxiety came through: how close he had come to letting his darkling side boil over. She wondered what would be left of Cassie Flinders if that had happened….

Her ancient memories cautioned Melissa that Rex was becoming something no mindcaster had ever kissed before. There were shadows in him, ancient and terrifying.

But she ignored the warnings—this was Rex, after all. He was the only reason she had survived this long. All through those years while her mind had been untutored and undefended, this was all she’d wanted: to be able to touch him. Melissa felt herself let go of everything Madeleine had given her, all mastery and control, and allowed herself to sink into the darkness inside him.

Like the old minds across the desert, the things down there didn’t have words, just images she could barely grasp—lore signs, a pile of bones, the smell of burning… the glorious rush of taking prey.

There was a moment of sharp pain, and then he pulled away, his body shuddering.

Melissa sat for a moment, watching his eyes flash violet in the moonlight, the echoes of what she’d felt in him subsiding slowly. She tasted salt and wondered for a moment what sort of mind noise it was, then realized that the taste was real—blood in her mouth.

“Crap,” she said, putting a hand to her lips. “I bit my lip. How lame is that?”

“It wasn’t you.” He turned away. “Sorry… if that was weird.”

“It’s okay, Rex.” Melissa touched her wounded lip tenderly. “I had some spooky stuff in me too the first few times we touched. Remember?”

He turned back to her and pulled off one glove. He reached out, his fingertips lightly touching her mouth.

A shudder traveled through the car at that moment, all the random mind noise around them extinguished at once. Blue light swept across the world, and against the suddenly quiet mental landscape, the visions she’d taken from Rex’s mind grew clearer.

She saw a piece of paper covered with the spindly symbols of the lore and knew that those unreadable signs were what had made him so edgy tonight.

Melissa squinted in the dark moon’s light. “What the hell?”

“I found it this morning.” Rex’s voice was rough.

He reached into his jacket, pulling out a folded piece of paper. He opened it, revealing the same scrawled symbols she’d seen in his mind.

“So this is what’s got you spooked?” She settled back onto the driver’s side, sighing. “Ancient seer wisdom about the end of the world?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly ancient. Look.”

She peered closer. The symbols were written on lined paper, three-hole punched, with a confettied edge from being torn out of a spiral notebook.

“I don’t understand. These are your notes?”

“I didn’t write that. I found it on my kitchen table this morning.”

“Wait a second.” Melissa’s mind spun. “But it’s written in lore signs, Rex.”

He nodded. “That’s right, Cowgirl. A slightly odd dialect, but readable.”

“And it just showed up on your kitchen table? But no one knows how to write the lore besides you. And… oh, crap.” Melissa placed the nail of her ring finger between her front teeth and bit down on it furiously. Her teeth slipped from the fingernail with a jarring snap. “Those dominoes that the Grayfoots used to communicate with the darklings—they had lore symbols on them.”

“That’s right. With the same slight differences as this one. It’s even signed.” He pointed to the bottom right-hand corner of the page, where a cell phone number was written next to three spindly symbols grouped by a circle. “Ah-nu-gee.”

“What the hell is ah-nu-gee?”

“Each lore sign usually stands for a word, but when you put a circle around them, they turn into sounds, like using the alphabet. It’s a way to spell out names and write about objects that didn’t exist a few thousand years ago.”

She raised her eyebrows. “And people back then didn’t have ah-nu-gee? I repeat: what the hell?”

He laughed softly. “What they didn’t have back then were certain sounds. It was a Stone Age language, after all. ‘Ah-nu-gee’ is as close as they could get to ‘Angie.’ ”

“Angie.” Melissa’s blood ran cold at the name. Angie, last name unknown, was one of the Grayfoots’ agents. She’d translated the darklings’ messages, had been in the desert that night Anathea had died, and it was her—Melissa was certain—leading the party that had kidnapped Rex. “She wrote to you?”

He nodded. “She wants to meet me.”

“Meet you? What the—?” Melissa pressed herself back against the car seat and growled, fists tightly clenched. “Is she crazy?”

Rex gave that question a shrug. “More scared than crazy, sounds like. The Grayfoots are up to something, and she doesn’t know what. She says that after Anathea died, they cut her out of the loop because she’s not family.”

“Oh, poor Angie,” Melissa hissed, her fingernails cutting into her palms. “This is such crap. They just want to kidnap you again!”

He shook his head. “Why? The darklings can’t turn me into anything. Jessica burned away their special halfling-making spot.”

“So they just want to kill you, then. Spiteful little creeps. Finish what they started fifty years ago.”

“Melissa,” he said with maddening calm. “They left it on my kitchen table, while I was sleeping. If they wanted to kill me, I’d be dead, right? What she wants is to exchange information. Like I said, she’s scared.”

Melissa got herself under control, concentrating on her heartbeat until it slowed. “Okay, then, Rex, an exchange of information sounds like fun. Why don’t you offer to meet her at your house, say, around eleven fifty-five at night?” She felt her lips curl back from her teeth. “I’ll show her what scared really means.”

“I thought you were all featherlight these days.”

She snorted. “Come on, Rex. It’s a win-win situation. We’ll know everything about the Grayfoots that she does, and she’ll be left a drooling vegetable.”

He just stared at her, the old guilt of what they’d done to his father spreading through the car like a gas leak.

Melissa held his gaze for a moment but then let out a sigh. “Sorry.” She turned away. “Why did you keep this a secret from me, anyway?”

“Because it gave me an idea. Something you won’t like.”

“You are not going to meet with her, Rex,” she hissed. “Not unless it’s in the middle of Bixby right before midnight and I’m there to rip that bitch’s mind inside out. I don’t care if the darklings can’t make you a halfling anymore—Angie’s a psycho. What’s to stop her from trussing you up and giving you to the Grayfoots just to get back on their good side!”

“Don’t worry. Meeting with her wasn’t the idea I’m talking about.” He scratched his chin. “I’m not even tempted to call. But something big is happening. And the information we need isn’t in the lore. I may have to go directly to the source.”

“You’re going to talk to Grandpa Grayfoot himself? He’s an even bigger psycho than Angie. This is a guy who had a hundred people killed in one night!”

“Not him. When Anathea died, he was cut off from the darklings. He’s probably panicking too.”

“So who else is left, Rex?”

He reached out and let his fingers stray across her lips again. She felt them glide across the sticky trickle of blood, tugging at the wounded skin beneath. Then an appalling thought drifted into her mind from his. She saw the desert, the light cool and flat and blue….

“No,” she said.

“They know what’s going on. You said so yourself.”

“They’ll eat you, Rex.”

He shook his head slowly. “Wolves don’t eat other wolves.”

“Um, Rex?” She cleared her throat. “Maybe you’re right. But I’m pretty sure that wolves do kill other wolves.”

“Hmm, good point.” He took a breath. “But you felt what happened last night. It talked to me.”

She shuddered, recalling the images that had come from Rex’s mind during their kiss—that huge spider practically doing the two-step with him, like they were old friends. The taste of its forelegs in their sinuous salute was still in her mouth. “That was one darkling, Rex. You’re talking about the deep desert. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds. We don’t even know how many.”

“I haven’t decided yet, okay?”

She looked out at the sliver of dark moon on the horizon, checking for winged shapes against it. When Rex had first suggested coming out here tonight without Jessica, she’d wondered if it was a good idea. They’d faced darklings on their own together, but this place had drawn huge clouds of slithers, and the taste of old minds lingered here.

But during their kiss Melissa had realized that she was safe here with Rex. Safe from darklings, anyway. He had become as much one of them as he was human.

Suddenly something odd caught her eye—a few leaves were falling near the tracks, giving off a soft red glow that looked completely strange here in the blue time. It was the rip, the sliver of unfrozen time. It must have been there that Cassie Flinders had been standing the morning before.

Melissa sighed. They had to deal with that girl tonight, not sit around talking. “Okay, Rex, maybe you really can talk to darklings. But tell me before you do anything.”

He laughed. “Think you can change my mind?”

“I’d never do that to you, Rex.”

“Do you swear, Cowgirl? No more of that, on me or anyone else, unless I’m there.”

“Absolutely.”

He took her hand, and Melissa let the surety of her promise flow into him. Whatever Rex was turning into, whatever crazy risks he decided to take, she would never twist or change a single thought in his brain…

Not even to save your life.

They crossed the tracks, pausing to look at the rip in the blue time. A red glimmer ran along its boundaries. It was about the size of an eighteen-wheeler now, much bigger than when Cassie had stepped through while her grandmother, only a few yards away, had remained frozen. The leaves from two trees caught within it were drifting down.

Rex stepped into the rip and caught a leaf. He dropped it, and it fell again.

“Feels different in here somehow.” “Is it spreading all the time? Like, right now?” He shook his head. “Only during the eclipse, Dess says. It’s like a fault line shifting during an earthquake.”

She pulled him away. This whole rip business gave her the creeps. The last thing Melissa needed was a bunch of annoying human minds invading midnight. “Come on.”

Cassie Flinders’s house was an old double-wide trailer, its concrete teeth sunk deep into the hard soil, gripping tenaciously against the Oklahoma wind. Halloween decorations were already up on the door—a grinning paper skeleton with swinging joints, orange and black bunting that glowed blue.

Rex stared at the skeleton for a moment.

“Friend of yours?” Melissa asked.

“Don’t think so.” He pushed open the screen door, and its rusty hinges rang out in the blue time. The wooden door inside was unlocked. Rex smiled. “Good country folk.”

They pushed into the blue-lit home, the floorboards creaking as they walked. Melissa wondered if the old wood stayed pressed down until the end of the secret hour, then popped up with a final complaint—letting out a sudden chorus of creaking just after the stroke of midnight. Flyboy was always wondering about stuff like that. If she was ever on normal speaking terms with the rest of them again, she’d have to ask him.

An old woman sat at a kitchen table, a bowl of something glowing an unappetizing blue in front of her. Her eyes were locked on a blank-screened TV. Melissa avoided her and the motionless cloud of smoke that rose from the cigarette clutched in her fingers.

Cassie’s room was in one corner, the door plastered with drawings and more Halloween decorations. Rex pointed at the black cat. “Funny, even after last night she didn’t take that down.”

“Cats.” Melissa snorted. “Smug, self-centered little beasts.” Then she remembered to add, “Except yours, of course.”

“Daguerreotype’s smugness is part of his charm.” He pushed the door open.

The room didn’t reek of thirteen-year-old. No boy band posters, no dolls. The walls were covered with more drawings, crayon landscapes of Jenks, the Bixby skyline, and oil derricks, all drained of their color.

“Not bad,” Rex said. He pointed to a music stand, a clarinet leaning against it. “Creative kid.”

“Good. Nobody believes the artistic ones.”

Cassie was lying on her bed, eyes closed and sheets tangled around her—a bad night of sleep in the making. Melissa wondered if being frozen for fifteen hours had given the girl some sort of jet lag and cracked her knuckles. She could fix that.

Even Rex’s crazy plan to visit the darklings hadn’t taken the edge off her excitement. This was her first serious mindcasting since Madeleine had started tutoring her.

“Featherlight,” she murmured softly.

She rested her fingers lightly on Cassie’s waxy skin, her hands like a pair of pale blue spiders splayed across the girl’s face. Melissa closed her eyes, entering the cool domain of a mind frozen in time.

Low-level nerves were scattered throughout Cassie, lingering shock from her trip into the secret hour. The taste of dread stung Melissa’s lips, anxiety that the black cat would return, terror that the spider thing was still out there in the woods.

The girl had an artist’s eye, Melissa had to admit. The slithers, the old darkling, the midnighters’ faces were all in there, as crisp as if she’d snapped photographs. As she soothed the fears away, Melissa blurred the memories into shadowy figments.

This was so easy now, she thought. Not like the clumsy attempts she’d once called mindcasting. Thoughts and memories stood before her like chess pieces awaiting her command.

She remolded the images trapped in Cassie’s mind, erasing the words they’d said in front of her, turning everything into the sort of nonsense mush remembered from a dream. Melissa softened the sense of danger, made it all vague and formless, divorced it from the reality outside the double-wide’s doors.

But she left intact one perfectly shaped bit of terror, a phobia a few yards across and a thousand miles deep…

Stay away from the railroad tracks at midnight. Something nasty lives under them.

“Done.” Melissa smiled as she withdrew her hands from Cassie’s face. “Now, that was some awesome, featherlight mindcasting.”

“That’s it?” Rex asked. “You were so fast. Like thirty seconds.”

Melissa smiled. It had seemed like long minutes. “Bada-bing, bada-boom.”

“Has she talked to anyone? Told anyone what she saw?”

Melissa took a breath, stretching her muscles. “She’s been right here since I put her down, sleeping it off and doodling. Grandma didn’t even let her talk on the phone. Her whole day was bedsores and boredom.”

“But what if she told—”

“Relax, Rex. Even if Cassie made a full report to the National Guard, when she wakes up tomorrow morning, she won’t remember what she was babbling about. This is a done deal.”

“Maybe you should check her grandmother.”

“Rex, it’s not a problem. Trust me. We’ve been doing this for thousands of years.”

His breath caught, and Melissa felt a twinge of jealousy from him; she had reminded him of all the knowledge she’d received from Madeleine. He’d finally gotten over that time when she’d touched Jonathan, and he understood about Dess, but when Melissa and the older mindcaster went up to the attic, he lost all rationality.

Funny, he was the one who knew the history. How mindcasters used to pass on information with a handshake, silently spreading midnighter news and gossip throughout Bixby. Compared to those days, Melissa was hardly some sort of mind slut.

She took a step closer to him. “Come on. Let’s go back to the car. I’ll show you everything.”

“She saw what I almost became last night. Are you sure she—”

“Everything.” She drew him closer, silencing his lips with hers.