Scott Westerfeld - Touching Darkness

Of course, if Beth saw her disappear, she might start talking about it. Mom and Dad wouldn’t believe her, but if she told someone at school, the story might eventually get back to the other midnighters. Rex wouldn’t be very happy about that.

Even worse, instead of being terrified, Beth would probably decide to start showing up every night at midnight, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice how love-happy you are all the time?” Beth continued. “Or were, at least until you got all paranoid Saturday night. And now you’re waving that thing around.” Beth pointed at the bicycle lock, still in Jessica’s hand. “That guy you got busted with, Jonathan—he’s been in trouble with the police a bunch, right?”

“Beth, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s right, I don’t. I’ve never met this guy; he could be a total psycho for all I know.” Her eyes fell to the floor. “Jess, I’m worried about you.”

Jessica blinked. “You’re what?”

“Worried. About. You.” Beth pulled her knees up onto the bed and hugged them. The superior smile had faded from her face. “You never got brought home by the cops before, or snuck around, or lied to me.”

“Beth, I don’t—”

“You lie to me all the time now, Jessica. I can tell.” Beth looked straight at her, daring her to disagree. “You weren’t like this before we came to this stupid town. I knew all your friends back then.”

Jessica swallowed. It seemed so long ago, like another life, but she did remember. Before Mom and Dad had announced the big move to Bixby and the packing and goodbyes had turned Beth into a full-time whiner, the two of them had always talked. Teased and argued mostly, but never lied to each other.

“Beth. I don’t mean to keep secrets from you. It’s just that…” Jessica’s voice caught. Beth’s eyes were so full of longing; she needed something to cling to here in Bixby.

It would be so easy to tell her.

Guiltily, Jessica allowed herself to imagine the look of awe on her little sister’s face. Beth wouldn’t believe it at first, but Jessica could prove it in another two minutes, flitting from one spot to another in the blink of an eye. Beth would have to accept the truth, and Jessica would have an ally when she had to cover things up. There would be one less person in the world to deceive.

“Beth…”

“What?”

The words didn’t come, of course. She would hate herself if she said them. For years the others had kept the secret from everyone—friends, family, the police who enforced Bixby’s merciless curfew. It wasn’t convenient, but what else could they do? Rex said that lots of people used to know about midnight, but look what had happened—one day the midnighters had all just disappeared. Secrecy was their only real protection. Her shades were drawn and windows locked right now because someone out there knew.

And there were worse things than the man with the camera. Jessica’s imagined vision of the half-thing came into her mind. Midnight wasn’t just secret; it was full of horrors. She couldn’t dump her nightmares on her little sister—it wasn’t fair. The whole idea was stupid and selfish.

Jessica sighed and looked at her watch again. Forty seconds. “Let me show you something.”

Beth’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Jessica smiled—just one more lie tonight. “Really. Come here.”

She opened the door to her closet, pointing into the darkness. All she really had to do was distract Beth for a few seconds; as long as she wasn’t looking at Jessica at the stroke of midnight, her little sister shouldn’t notice a thing.

Beth stood and crossed the room, a little suspicious now. “No one’s in there, right?”

“Yeah, sure. I keep my new psycho boyfriend in the closet. Don’t be a wimp. Look.” Her watch said twenty-four seconds now.

Beth frowned warily but came. “Turn on a light or something?”

“Sure.” She flicked the overhead light on, but Beth only frowned harder, like this was all too easy. “Come on.” Jessica took her sister’s shoulder and pulled her toward the closet. Fifteen, fourteen…

“What?” Beth stared into the darkness.

“Just look. Let your eyes adjust.” Ten. Jessica took her hand from Beth’s shoulder, stepped back out of her view. Beth turned to track her movement.

“You better not be pulling some—”

“Look there!” Jessica snapped. This was turning out to be trickier than she’d expected; maneuvering Beth was like herding a cat. And her watch wasn’t always perfect to the second. There was only one way to be sure…

“Jess, there’s nothing in there but—”

Her little sister squawked as Jessica shoved her into the closet, stumbling against the hanging clothes with a clatter. She swung the door closed behind Beth until it clicked.

“Jess!” came a muffled roar. A solid thump followed, probably a kick.

Jessica leaned her weight against the door, watching the stroke of midnight come and go. That was the problem with quartz watches, Rex always said. They tended to lose a few seconds every day.

“You are so dead! If you don’t open this door in five seconds, I’m going to scream.”

Five seconds should be fine, Jessica thought.

“One, two, thr—”

The familiar shudder came, a ripple in the wooden solidity of the floor beneath her feet and the door against her shoulder, a simultaneous choking off of little sister and moaning Oklahoma wind. A distortion passed through the room, leaving everything still and flat and lit from within by a soft blue glow.

Jessica sighed. The coming scream was almost certainly unavoidable, and her parents might have already heard the ruckus. But it was Beth who had invaded her room, after all, refusing to leave. In any case, explanations and recriminations were all on the other side of midnight.

She left the closet door closed, unable to imagine a worse sight than a frozen prescream Beth face, deathly pale and furious. Arming herself with Explosiveness and Demonstration and pulling on her sneakers, Jessica unlocked and opened a window, swinging one leg across the sill.

Looking back at the room, she was momentarily proud of herself for resisting the temptation to tell secrets. She had done the adult thing and protected Beth from the truth. Maybe she would even apologize when her little sister emerged from the closet.

“See you in an hour, sweetie,” Jessica called, and dropped to the ground outside.

“There!” Jessica pointed with her free hand, the motion sending the two of them into a slow spin.

Jonathan looked down. “I can’t see Rex and Melissa anywhere.”

“Me either. Just the car. Kind of hard to miss it.”

Jonathan laughed. “Must take some kind of mindcaster voodoo, keeping an old piece of crap like that running.”

He tugged her closer, taking her free hand in his. Their drifting rotation slowed as they descended, somehow canceled out by his motion. A flash of annoyance went through Jessica. That equal-and-opposite-reaction thing again. Jonathan understood it automatically, though that particular law of motion always seemed to leave her adrift.

Her irritation passed quickly, though. The moment felt too good to stay angry—falling like this, her head resting against his chest. She closed her eyes, sensing when they were about to land from the tightening of his muscles. Their legs intertwined for a moment as the ground caught them, knees bending and bodies pressing against each other for support.

They jumped again, Jessica following Jonathan’s lead, keeping both of his hands in hers. She opened her eyes: the leap had been just high enough to clear the house between their last landing and the parked Ford.