The Secret Hour

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 running through her. The body under the covers felt wrong. It was hard, as unyielding as a plastic mannequin in a store window.



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.



She hugged her knees to her chest, her back to the door, promising she'd be nicer to Beth tomorrow.



Jessica waited for the dream to end.



Hopefully this time there would be nothing left of it in the real world. No frozen Beth, no soggy sweatshirts. Just morning sun and the weekend.



Slowly, gradually, Jessica's tears ran out, and the blue dream wrapped itself around her. Nothing changed or moved.



The still, cold light shone from everywhere and nowhere; the silence lay total and absolute. Not even the whispering creaks and groans of a house at night could be heard.



So when the scratching came, Jessica lifted her head at once.



There was a shape in the window, a small dark form silhouetted against the even glow from the street. It moved smoothly and sinuously, taking catlike steps back and forth across the window frame, then paused to scratch against the glass.



"Kitty?" Jessica said, her voice rough from crying.



The animal's eyes caught the light for a moment, flashing deep purple.



Jessica stood shakily, her legs all pins and needles. She moved slowly, trying not to scare the cat away. At least something else was alive here in this hideous nightmare. At least she was no longer alone with the lifeless shape in Beth's room. She crossed to the window and peered out.



It was sleek and thin, glossy and black. Muscles rippled under its midnight fur; the animal seemed as strong as a wild cat of some kind, almost like a miniature black cheetah. She wondered for a moment if it was even a pet cat at all. Her dad had said that there were bobcats and other small wild felines in the countryside around Bixby. But the beast looked very tame as it paced impatiently on the window ledge, gazing up at her with pleading indigo eyes.



"Okay, okay," she said.



She pulled open the window, giving up on what this part of the dream meant. The cat bumped heavily against her as it leapt into the room, its corded muscles solid against her thigh.



"You're a real bruiser," she muttered, wondering what breed it was. She'd never seen any cat this strong.



It jumped up onto her bed, sniffing her pillow, ran in a small circle on the rumpled covers, then jumped into one of her boxes. She heard it rummaging through the stuff in the box.



"Hey, you."



The cat sprang from the box and peered up at her, suddenly cautious. It backed away slowly, muscles tense and quivering as if it were ready to spring away.



"It's okay, kitty." Jessica began to wonder if it wasn't a wild cat after all. It wasn't acting like any domestic cat she'd ever met.



She knelt and offered one hand. The cat came closer and sniffed.



"It's all right." Jessica reached out one finger and scratched lightly at the top of its head.



"Rrrrrrrr." The low, terrible noise welled up from the creature, as deep as a tiger's growl, and it backed away with its belly pressed to the floor.



"Hey, relax," Jessica said, pulling her hand back to a safe distance.



The black cat's eyes were filled with terror. It turned and ran to the bedroom door, scratching plaintively. Jessica stood and took a few careful steps toward it, reaching out to open the door.



The cat bounded down the hall and disappeared around the corner. She heard it complaining at the front door. It didn't howl like a normal cat. The high-pitched cries sounded more like those of a wounded bird.



Jessica looked back at her open window in puzzlement. "Why didn't you just...?" she started, then shook her head. Wild or not, this cat was nutty.



Careful not to look into Beth's room, she followed the creature's anguished noises down the hall and to the front door. The cat cringed as she approached but didn't bolt. Jessica gingerly reached out and turned the knob. The second the door was open a crack, the cat squeezed itself through and took off.



"See you later," she said softly, sighing. This was perfect. The only other living thing in this nightmare was terrified of her.



Jessica pulled the door the rest of the way open and went out onto the porch. The old wood creaked under her feet, the sound reassuring in this silent world. She took a deep breath, then stepped onto the walk, glad to leave the lifeless, alien house behind her. The blue light seemed cleaner, somehow healthier out here. She missed the diamonds, though. She looked around for anything - a falling leaf, a drop of rain - suspended in the air. Nothing. She glanced up to the sky to check for clouds.



A giant moon was rising.



Jessica swallowed, her mind spinning as she tried to make sense of the awesome sight. The huge half orb consumed almost a quarter of the sky, stretching across the horizon as big as a sunset. But it wasn't red or yellow or any other hue Jessica could name. It felt like a dark spot burned into her vision, as if she had looked at the sun too long. It hung colorlessly in the sky, coal black and blindingly bright at the same time, merciless against her eyes.



She shielded her face, then looked down toward the ground, head aching and eyes watering fiercely. As she blinked away the tears, Jessica saw that the normal color of the grass had returned. For a few seconds the lawn looked green and alive, but then the cold blue rushed back into it, like a drop of dark ink spreading through a glass of water.



Her head still pounded, and Jessica thought of eclipses, in which the sun was darkened but still powerful, blinding people who unknowingly stared at it. An afterimage of the huge moon still burned in her eyes, changing the hues of the whole street. Glimpses of normal colors - greens, yellows, red - flickered in the corners of her vision. Then slowly her headache subsided, and calm blue tones settled over the street again.



Jessica glanced up at the moon again and with a flash of realization saw its true color: a bright darkness, a hungry blankness, a sucking up of light. The blue light in this dream didn't come from objects themselves, as she'd thought at first. And it didn't come directly from the giant moon above. Rather, the cold, lifeless blue was a leftover, the last remnant of light that remained after the dark moon had leached all the other colors from the spectrum.



She wondered if the moon - or dark sun, or star, or whatever it was - had been in the sky in her last dream, hidden behind the clouds. And what did it mean? So far, Jessica had thought these dreams were adding up to something. But this was just bizarre.



A howl came from down the street.



Jessica whirled toward the sound. It was the cat again, this time screeching the high-pitched call of a monkey. It stood at the end of the street, glaring back at her.



"You again?" she said, shivering at the sound. "You're pretty loud for such a little kitty."



The cat yowled once more, almost sounding like a cat now. An unhappy one. Outside in the moonlight its eyes flashed indigo and its fur was even blacker, as rich and dark as an empty night sky.



It yowled again.



"All right, I'm coming," Jessica muttered. "Don't get all psychosomatic on me."



She walked after the creature. It waited until it was sure she was following, then padded away. As they walked, it kept looking over its shoulder at her, making shrieking or barking or growling noises in turn. It stayed well ahead, too scared of Jessica to let her get close but taking care not to lose sight of her.



The cat led her through an otherwise empty world. There were no clouds in the sky, no cars or people, just the vast moon slowly rising. The streetlights were dark, except for the uniform blue glow that came from everything. The houses looked abandoned and still, dead silence hovering over them, pierced only by the weird menagerie of noises from the anxious cat.



At first Jessica recognized some of the houses from her route to school, but the neighborhood looked alien in this light, and she quickly forgot how many turns she and the cat had taken.



"I hope you know where you're going," she called to the animal.



As if in answer, it stopped and sniffed at the air, making a gurgling sound almost like that of a small human child. Its tail was high in the air, flicking nervously from side to side.



Jessica approached the cat slowly. It sat in the middle of the street, shivering, the muscles under its fur twitching with tiny spasms.



"Are you okay?" Jess asked.



She knelt next to it and put one hand out carefully. It turned to her with wide, frantic eyes, and Jessica pulled away.



"Okay. No touching."



Its fur was rippling now, as if there were snakes crawling under its skin. The cat's legs curled up tightly against its shivering body, its tail sticking out stiffly behind.



"Oh, you poor thing." She looked around, instinctively searching for help. But of course there was no one.



Then the change began in earnest.



As Jessica watched in transfixed horror, the cat's body grew longer and thinner, the tail thicker, as if the cat were being squeezed into its own tail. Its legs were absorbed into the body. The head began to shrink and flatten, teeth protruding from its mouth as if they couldn't fit inside its head anymore. It stretched and stretched, until finally the creature was one long column of muscle.



It twisted around to face her, long fangs glistening in the dark moon's light.



It had become a snake. Its sleek black fur still shone, and it still possessed the large, expressive eyes of a mammal, but that was all that was left of the cat she had trustingly followed here.



It blinked its cat eyes at her and hissed, and Jess was finally released from her paralyzing terror. She cried out and scrabbled away backward on hands and bare feet. The thing was still shivering, as if not yet fully in control of its new body, but its gaze followed her.



Jessica leapt to her feet and backed away further. The creature began to writhe now, twisting around in circles and making horrible noises that sounded halfway between a hiss and the noise of a cat being strangled. It sounded as if the cat were inside the snake, trying to fight its way out.



A chill passed through Jessica's whole body. She hated snakes. Tearing her gaze from the creature, she frantically scanned the surrounding houses, trying to remember where she was. She had to get home and back into bed. She'd had enough of this dream. Everything in it transformed into something horrible and foul. She had to end the nightmare before it got any worse.



Then another hiss came from behind her, and Jessica's heart began to pound.



Black, almost invisible shapes slithered from the grass onto the street around her. More snakes, dozens of them, all like the creature she had followed here. They took up positions in a circle around her.



In moments she was surrounded.



"I don't believe this," she said aloud slowly and clearly, trying to make the words true. She took a few steps toward where she thought home was, trying not to look at the slithering forms on the street in her path. The snakes hissed and backed away nervously. Like the cat, they were wary of her.



For a crazy moment Jessica remembered her mom's lecture about wild animals before they'd left the city. "Remember, they're more scared of you than you are of them."



"Yeah, right," she muttered. There wasn't room in a snake's brain for how scared she was.



But she kept walking, taking slow, deliberate steps, and the snakes parted for her. Maybe they really were more scared than she was.



A few more steps and she was out of the circle. She walked away quickly, until she had left the snakes half a block behind.



She turned and called, "No wonder you taste like chicken. You are chicken."



The new sound came from behind her.



It was a deep rumble, like the elevated train that had passed a block away from their old house. Jessica didn't so much hear it as feel it through the soles of her feet. The sound seemed to travel up her spine before it broke into an audible growl.



"What now?" she said, turning around.



She froze when she saw it at the end of the street.



It looked like the cat but much larger, its shoulders almost at Jessica's eye level. Its black fur rippled with huge muscles, as if a hundred crawling snakes lived under the midnight coat.



A black panther. She remembered Jen's story in the library, but this creature didn't look as if it had escaped from any circus.



Jessica heard the snakes behind her, a growing chorus of hisses. She turned to glance back at them. The wriggling black forms were fanning out, as if herding her toward the cat.



They didn't look afraid of her anymore.