The Secret Hour

4



8:02 A.M.



MELISSA



As Melissa got closer, the taste of school began to foul her mouth.



This far away it was acidic and cold, like coffee held under the tongue for a solid minute. She could taste first-week anxiety and inescapable boredom mixed together into a dull blur, along with the sour bile of wasted time that seeped out of the walls of the place. But Melissa knew the taste would change as school grew nearer. In another mile she would be able to distinguish the individual flavors of resentments, petty victories, rejections, and angry little skirmishes for dominance. A couple of miles after that and Bixby High would become almost unbearable, a buzz saw in her mind.



But for now she just grimaced and turned her music up.



Rex was standing in front of his father's house, tall and skinny, his black coat wrapped around him, the lawn under his feet dying. Even the tufts of weeds seemed to be battling some malign, invisible force. Every year since the old man's accident, the house had fallen further into disrepair.



Served the old guy right.



Melissa pulled her car up to the curb. Between the brown grass of the yard and Rex's long coat, she half expected cold winter air to rush into the car when he opened the door. But the hideous sun had already burned away the brief chill of last night's storm.



It was still early fall, still the beginning of the school year. Three months to go before winter, nine more months of junior year.



He jumped in and shut the door, careful not to get too close. When Rex scowled at the music's volume, Melissa sighed and turned it back down a notch. Human beings had no right to complain about music of any kind. The pandemonium that went on in their heads every waking hour was a hundred times noisier than any thrash-metal band, more chaotic than a bunch of sugar-rushing ten-year-olds with trumpets. If only they could hear themselves.



But Rex wasn't that bad. He was different, on a separate channel, free from the commotion of the daylight crowd. His had been the first individual thoughts she'd ever filtered from among the hideous mass, and she could still read him better than anyone.



Melissa could feel his excitement clearly, his hunger to know. She could taste his impatience, sharp and insistent over his usual calm.



She decided to keep him waiting. "Nice storm last night."



"Yeah. I went looking for lightning for a while."



"Me too, kind of. Just got soggy, though."



"Some night we'll get one, Cowgirl."



She snorted at the childhood nickname but muttered, "Sure. Some night."



Back when they were little kids, when it was just the two of them, they had always tried to find a streak of lightning. A bolt that had struck at exactly the right moment and gone to ground close enough to reach before time ran out. Once, years ago, they'd spent the whole hour biking toward a bright, jagged spur on the horizon. But they hadn't made it all the way, not even close. It'd been a lot farther away than it had looked. Riding back in the falling rain took much longer, of course, and by the time they'd made it home they were soaking.



Melissa had never been quite sure what they were supposed to do with a streak once they found one. Rex never said much about that. She could sense he wasn't totally sure about it himself. But he'd read something somewhere on one of his trips.



School grew nearer, the early morning collision of struggle and apprehension building from taste to clamor, the bitterness on her tongue expanding to a cacophony that assaulted her entire mind. Melissa knew she'd have to put her headphones on soon just to make it until classes started. She slowed the old Ford. It was always hard to drive this close, especially at the beginning of the year. She hoped her usual spot was free, behind a Dumpster in the vacant lot across the street from Bixby High. Parking anywhere else would take thinking. The school parking lot itself was too close to the maelstrom for her to drive safely.



"I hate that place," she managed.



Rex looked at her. His plain, focused thoughts made things better for a moment, and she was able to take a deep breath.



"There's a reason for all this," he said.



A reason for the way she was? For the agony she felt every day? "Yeah. To make my life suck."



"No. Something really important."



"Thanks." The Ford's suspension squealed beneath them as she took a turn too sharply. Rex's mind flinched, but not because of her driving. He hated hurting her, she knew.



"I didn't mean that your life wasn't - "



"Whatever," Melissa interrupted. "Don't worry about it, Rex. I just can't stand the beginning of the year. Too many melodramas all turned up to max."



"Yeah. I know what you mean."



"No, you don't."



The parking place was empty, and she pulled in, switching off the radio as she slowed. Melissa could tell that they were almost late - the crowd flowing into the building was harried, nervous. A bottle burst under one of her tires as the Ford ground to a halt. People snuck over here to drink beer at lunch sometimes.



Rex started to ask, so she beat him to it.



"I felt her last night. The new girl."



"I knew it," he said, hitting the dashboard in front of him, his excitement cutting through the school noise with a clean, pure note.



Melissa smiled. "No, you didn't."



"Okay," Rex admitted. "But I was 99 percent sure."



Melissa nodded, getting out and pulling her bag after her. "You were totally scared that you might be wrong. That's how I knew how sure you were." Rex blinked, not understanding her logic. Melissa sighed. After years of listening to his thoughts she understood a few things about Rex that he didn't know himself. Things, it seemed, that he would never figure out.



"But yeah, she was out there last night," she continued. "Awake and..." Something else. She wasn't sure what else. This new girl was different.



As they walked toward Bixby High, the late bell rang. The sound always quieted the roar in Melissa's head, softening it to a low rumble as teachers established control and at least some students tried to concentrate. During classes she could almost think normally.



She remembered the night before, in the awesome silence of the blue time. Even in the dead of normal night she had to put up with the noise of dreams and night terrors, but the blue hour was absolutely still. That was the only time Melissa felt whole, completely free of daylight's chaos. For that one slice of each day she actually felt like she possessed a talent, a gift rather than a curse.



Melissa had known what Rex wanted her to do from the moment he'd come into the cafeteria on the first day of school. Every night this week she had crawled out of her window and up onto the roof. Searching.



It could take a few days to wake up for the first time. And she didn't know where the new girl lived. Dess had taken a long time to track down, out on the wild edge of the badlands.



Last night there hadn't been any lightning, not that she could see. Just one frozen flicker behind the motionless clouds. So Melissa had cleared her high perch of water splashes and sat down.



She had calmed her mind - so simple to do at midnight - and reached out across Bixby. The others were easy enough to feel. Melissa knew their signatures, the way they each met the secret hour, with relief, excitement, or calm. All of them were in their usual places, and the other things that lived in the blue time were in hiding, cowed by the energies of the storm.



A perfect night for casting.



Last night it hadn't taken long. The new girl lived close to her or was very strong. Melissa could feel her clearly, her new shape bright against the empty night. Melissa tasted a flicker of surprise at first, then long moments of wariness, then a slowly building torrent of joy that had lasted deep into the hour. Finally the girl had gone back to sleep, unworried by disbelief.



Some people had it so easy.



Melissa didn't know exactly what to think of the new girl. Below her shifting emotions was an unexpected flavor, a sharp metal taste, like a coin pressed against the tip of Melissa's tongue. The scent of unbridled energy was everywhere, but maybe that had just been the storm. And of course someone new was always full of unfamiliar flavors, unexpected faculties. Each of Melissa's friends felt different to her, after all.



But Jessica Day felt... more than different.



Melissa remembered to pull her headphones from her bag. She would need them to get through the halls to homeroom. As they crossed the street, Rex put a hand on her forearm, careful not to touch bare skin, steadying her as he always did this close to the distractions of school.



He pulled her to a stop as a car shot past.



"Careful."



"She's freaky, Rex."



"The new girl?"



"Yeah. Weird, even for one of us. Or maybe she's worse."



"Worse how?"



"Normal."



Melissa switched on her disc player as they continued, edging the volume up to push away the massive, approaching roar of school, pulling her sleeves down to cover her hands.



Rex turned to her as they reached the front door. He squeezed her shoulder and waited until she was looking at him. Rex alone knew that Melissa could read lips.



"Can you find her?"



She answered with deliberate softness - she hated people who yelled over the music in their headphones. "No problem."



"Soon," his lips formed. Was that a question or a command? she wondered. Something about his expression, and the worry in his mind, disturbed her.



"What's the big rush?"



"I think there's danger. More than usual. There are signs."



Melissa frowned, then shrugged.



"Don't worry. I'll track her down."



She turned away from Rex, missing his reply, unable to concentrate as the school - with its noisy squall of anxiety, boredom, desire, misdirected energy, worry, competition, cheerleader pep, stifled anger, a little joy, and too much outright fear - swallowed her.