Scott Westerfeld - Blue Noon

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Rex limped up the stairs of Madeleine’s house, trying not to think of what was going on in Jenks. There were bigger issues to consider, lots of questions to be answered before the others left. He clutched his latest letter from Angie and its accompanying sheaf of photocopies—biface spear points from a museum in Cactus Hill, Virginia. She was researching Stone Age culture there, helping Rex search for a link to ancient finds in southern Spain. Rex had serious work to do tonight, more important than watching over ritual farewells.

Besides, Madeleine needed feeding.

In his other hand he carried a thermos of hot chicken soup. Not too hot, of course; she could drink on her own now, but like a baby, she didn’t know enough not to burn her lips. Fortunately Rex knew a lot about caring for invalids.

He didn’t mind taking care of Madeleine, actually. Here inside the crepuscular contortion that had protected her for fifty years, the human presence of the outside world didn’t bother him as much. No cable TV, no cordless phone filling the air with its buzz. The place stank of thirteen-pointed steel, but rust had long ago consumed the alloy’s bite. The midnighters who had named those weapons were all dead, except for Madeleine.

Not merely alive: Melissa said that her mind was slowly repairing itself, rebuilding from what his darkling half had done to her, a survivor to the last.

When he opened the door to her room, Rex was surprised to see her sitting up, a gleam of intelligence in her eyes. The smell of weakness and death had lifted a little.

“Madeleine?”

She nodded slowly, as if remembering her name. “What day is it?”

Rex blinked. The dry, rough-edged words were her first in a month. “Samhain has come and gone. The flame-bringer stopped it.”

She let out a rattling sigh, a smile fluttering on her lips. “I knew that girl was special. I was right to call her here to Bixby.”

Rex couldn’t argue with that. Since Samhain he had been forced to admit that Madeleine’s manipulations over the years had saved a lot of lives. Her orphaned set of midnighters had done more for Bixby than all the previous generations put together. However broken the two of them were, they could congratulate themselves on that.

He sat down next to her, twisting the top from the thermos.

“Where is Melissa?” she croaked.

“She’s leaving.” The two simple words sent a spur of pain through him. But of course it was the only way.

“Where?”

He shrugged. “Eat.”

She took the thermos in trembling hands, held it to her lips, and drank. Rex watched her wrinkled throat move with each greedy swallow. Apparently rebuilding her damaged mind was hungry work. He looked down at the spear points, reading the lore symbols in Angie’s cramped handwriting. It was easier on his brain than modern letters.

Melissa found it maddening how much he enjoyed the letters from his new pen pal.

Finally Madeleine rested the thermos in her lap, catching her breath. “You’re a fool to hate me, Rex.”

“I don’t hate you. I pity you when I bother to think about it.”

“I did it all for you, Rex. Don’t you see?” Her eyes gleamed, and he could see what remained of her colossal egotism. “I wanted to make Bixby as it was in the old days.”

He shook his head. “That Bixby was a nightmare. It’s our day now.”

She snorted. “What would you know about it? A half-darkling, half-midnighter and so concerned with daylighters. It’s perverse.”

Rex smiled, glad to hear her diagnosis. She could see that the beast inside him was under control, subservient to his human side. Maybe she wasn’t the only one repairing herself.

“Did you say Melissa was leaving?”

He nodded.

“But why? I cowered in this house for fifty years rather than leave the contortion. She’ll be blind and deaf out there, without a hint of taste. A daylighter, Rex—a nothing .”

“No, she won’t be.”

He swallowed, fear moving through him again at the thought of her leaving. It wasn’t Melissa he was worried about, of course. It was Rex Greene. Would he still be able to hold himself together once his oldest friend was gone? Maybe he should join the others, leaving Dess all alone in Bixby, leaving his father and the old woman to die. They deserved whatever they got, and without Melissa’s calmness of mind, without her touch…

Rex shook his head, steeling himself. He took the thermos from Madeleine’s hand and wiped stray soup from her chin. Perhaps Melissa was right, and it was tending to his father and an old woman that had kept him sane all along. His cares kept him human.

Madeleine hadn’t heard him; she was still mewling. “Why, Rex? Why would she leave? This is Bixby, after all.”

He drew himself up and gave her a predatory smile, knowing that the news would silence her.

“Because Bixby isn’t special anymore.”

They reached Jenks without any trouble, and Jonathan drew to a halt in the same field that Rex had raged across in his mother’s pink Cadillac. As the four of them made their silent way toward the rip, he stared down the railroad tracks, which still bore the scars of Halloween—a few cross-ties were blackened from burning oil and rocket exhaust, and the soggy relics of firecracker-red paper clung to bits of gravel everywhere.

But the surrounding grass had recovered from the rip’s strange light, Jonathan noticed, a healthy green again. Maybe the dark moon wasn’t so tough after all.

There wasn’t much left of the rip anymore, just a sliver. A few more nights and it would fade into the lore completely. When they reached it, Dess pulled out Geostationary and began to make a small, precise circle of stones.

Beth stood close to him, watching her. “What’s that thing?” she said softly.

“A GPS device,” he answered. “It’s not magic or anything.”

“What’s it supposed to do?”

“It’s for finding places. You have to be in exactly the right spot for this to work.”

Beth looked at him, her stare suddenly fierce. “I’ve got my mom’s cell phone, you know.”

He blinked. “That’s… good.”

“So you guys better not try anything weird.”

Jonathan sighed. What they were about to try was, pretty much by definition, weird. “Don’t worry, okay? We’re all friends here. You said you wanted to do this.”

Beth only swallowed and for a moment looked like she was about to cry.

“She wants this too,” Jonathan added, wishing he were somewhere else. He’d been the one to break the news to Beth, to argue against her suspicions, her angry disbelief. After the hours spent convincing her to come out here, Jonathan was all out of words. He reached out and put his arm around her, drew her closer.

“Really?” she said, her voice breaking. “And this is for real?”

He smiled. “Well, I ain’t dreaming.” She felt unbelievably small and fragile, shivering in the cold.

“Come on,” Dess said. “Stand right here.”

Jonathan guided Beth up onto the tracks and into the circle of stones. The frightened expression on her face made something loosen in his throat, and his voice grew hoarse. “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

He stepped back, waiting, hoping that this would work.

Midnight fell a few moments later, the moan of the cold wind switching off like a light, the blue time sucking the color from their faces. Jonathan felt the awful weight of Flatland lift up from him.

Same old midnight—damaged, unleashed from its proper boundaries, but not destroyed.

For a moment Jonathan wondered if they’d waited too long to try this and the rip had faded out. Beth just stood there in her circle of rocks, as motionless as any stiff.