19
6:23 P.M.
SPAGHETTI SITUATION
“The rule is in force tonight,” Beth announced.
Jessica glanced up from her physics textbook. “Um, Beth? I’d like to point out that I am in my own bedroom, not in the kitchen. Therefore there is no possible way that I can be found in violation of the rule.”
“I’m just warning you,” Beth answered.
“Warning me?” Jessica said with a look of annoyance.
It was Beth Spaghetti Night, which meant that her little sister was cooking dinner. Over the last four years, since Beth had turned nine, the ritual had been held every Wednesday night, interrupted only in the first few tumultuous weeks after the family had arrived in Bixby.
The one rule of Beth Spaghetti Night was simple: Beth cooked, and everyone else had to stay away from the food.
Even now, the scent of reducing onions was already drifting through Jessica’s open door. The familiar smell had been making her happy until this interruption.
“Warning me about what exactly?”
“That I am enforcing the rule in its maximum form tonight,” Beth said.
“What does that mean? That we all have to leave the house while you cook?”
“No, but just…” Beth wrinkled her nose and checked over her shoulder, as if the smell of something burning had reached her. “Just stay in here. Okay, Jess?”
“Why?”
Beth smiled. “It’s a surprise.”
Jessica considered getting Mom to pass judgment on this new and irksome interpretation of the rule, but it probably wasn’t worth the effort. Jessica had been planning on studying until dinner anyway, and maybe the threat of Beth’s irritation would keep her from winding up in front of the TV.
Physics was Jessica’s only test scheduled before Halloween, and it seemed a shame for the world to end on a D+.
“Please?”
“Sure. Whatever,” Jessica said, making sure to roll her eyes.
“Good. You’ll like my little surprise.”
“Okay.” Beth’s smug expression didn’t reassure Jessica. “Can’t wait for it.”
“Can I close your door?”
Jessica groaned. “Don’t I smell something burning, Beth?”
Her little sister spun on one heel, an expression of alarm crossing her face. Something really was burning. But she still managed to slam the door closed behind her as she fled.
Jessica listened to her footsteps thundering back toward the kitchen, wondering what this “surprise” was. Beth had been much easier to get along with in the last week, snooping a lot less, talking about her new friends at marching band, and practicing her twirls. Maybe she really did want to surprise them all with something special.
And even if she wanted to make trouble, Beth could hardly have anything up her sleeve that would really make things worse.
There hadn’t been any more eclipses—or timequakes, or whatevers of the prime whatever—since lunchtime a week ago. But as far as Melissa could tell, the darklings were expecting another one soon. After the last eclipse the rip in Jenks had grown to roughly the size of an oval-shaped tennis court. One of them checked it every midnight now, just to make sure that no more normal people had fallen through. Along with the usual blue glow everything inside it was tinged with red and nothing was frozen—autumn leaves fell, earthworms crawled, mosquitoes buzzed and bit. Too weird for words.
According to Dess, every eclipse would make the rip larger, like a tear traveling down a set of old stockings. Finally on Halloween the fabric of the secret hour would fall apart, and everyone for miles in all directions would find themselves engulfed in a world of red-blue.
As Jessica scanned her physics textbook, trying to focus on a chapter called “Waves and You,” images of last Wednesday night kept popping into her mind—the way Rex had looked as he stumbled back across the desert, as pale as a prisoner released after years in a tiny, lightless cell. The way he had transformed into something inhuman in his anger.
Rex said he still couldn’t remember what had happened to him out in the desert, and even Melissa hadn’t gotten far enough down into his mind to dredge up anything. He said he was having weird dreams, though, like ancient darkling memories running through his head in high definition. All from one conversation with the old ones in the desert.
It had been more of a brainwashing session than a conversation, as far as Jessica could tell. Or maybe a whole body washing—his freaky transformation seemed to make Angie’s accusations come true, as if Rex really was a monster now.
Jessica shivered at the image and gave up trying to concentrate on toroidal and sinusoidal waves. Instead she closed her eyes and drew in the smell of tomato sauce filtering under her door. If everything was about to change, Jessica wanted to relish these few last slices of normality.
Only two more Wednesdays before Samhain. She might as well enjoy Beth Spaghetti Night while it lasted.
“Dinnertime!” Beth shouted from right outside the door.
Jessica jerked out of her reverie, blinking. “Thanks for scaring me.”
“No problem.” Footsteps scampered down the hall.
Jessica smiled. Spastically enthusiastic Beth she could deal with. Rolling off the bed and to her feet, she paused to stretch away the muscle kinks of too much studying, then opened her door.
The mouthwatering scent of Beth’s tomato sauce rolled toward her from the kitchen, and the house echoed with the sounds of her whole family in animated conversation. Just for tonight, she could pretend that everything was normal here in Bixby.
But as Jessica made her way down the hall, a stranger’s voice spoke up, gentle but certain of itself—and somehow vaguely familiar.
“No way,” she said softly. Beth was talking again now; she must have misheard.
But dread grew in Jessica as she reached the kitchen doorway and looked down at the empty table—for the first time since they’d arrived in Bixby, the dining table had been set.
Which meant that company was here.
She went through the kitchen and into the dining room until she found herself facing the four of them: Beth, Mom, Dad…
And Cassie Flinders.
“Hey, Jess!” Mom said. “Beth brought a friend home from school today.”
Jessica managed only a zombified, “Oh, yeah?”
“Cassie’s in marching band with me,” Beth said, an amused smile playing on her lips. She turned to the girl. “I told you about my sister Jessica.”
Cassie Flinders looked her up and down, as if comparing her with some mental checklist.
“Hi,” Jessica squeaked, her voice gone all tinny and her mind racing.
Hadn’t Rex and Melissa gone back out to Jenks and dealt with Cassie’s memories? Wasn’t this kid supposed to have only the vaguest recollections of her moments in the blue time?
“I think we’ve met,” Cassie finally said.
“Really?” Mom said, all smiles. “Where was that?”
“Yeah, where?” Jessica said, taking her seat in front of the empty plate, trying to keep her voice normal and her expression only mildly puzzled instead of totally flabbergasted. “I don’t think I remember.”
“I don’t remember either, exactly.” Cassie’s eyes were still scanning Jessica’s face, as if recording her features in great detail. “But I drew a picture of you.”
“You did what?”
Cassie shrugged. “Drew a picture, with a pencil. The other day when I was sick.”
“Yeah,” Beth said. “And it’s a really good one. She brought it in to show around. You can really tell it’s you, Jess. Cassie draws all the time.”
“But you two don’t remember meeting?” Mom asked.
“No, not at all,” Jessica said. “I mean, I’ve never even been to Jenks.”
“Jenks?” Beth said, smiling radiantly. “How did you know Cassie lived out there?”
“I don’t know…how I knew that,” Jessica said slowly. Now even Mom and Dad were looking at her funny. She realized that it would be better if the conversation moved along. “So, um, are you a majorette too?”
“No. I play clarinet.”
“And she’s a really good artist,” Beth repeated.
“Yes,” Jessica said. “I got that.”
“She also has this other drawing of this guy,” Beth said. “What was the name you wrote on it? Jonath—”
“Oh, hang on!” Jessica said, playing the only card she could be certain would change the subject. “Aren’t you, like, Cassie Flinders?”
No one answered for a second, then Cassie nodded slowly.
“Now, Jess,” her mother said. “I’m sure Cassie doesn’t want to talk about that stuff last week, okay?”
“Sorry.” She shrugged. “But I mean, it was on the news and everything.”
“Jessica.”
She didn’t say anything more, just let Beth serve the pasta, slithering spaghetti onto their plates and glopping sauce on top of it as the awkwardness stretched out.
Uncomfortable silences were fine with Jessica, definitely better than the uncomfortable noises coming out of Beth’s mouth. The pause in the conversation gave her a few minutes to figure out what had happened.
According to Rex, Melissa had checked Cassie’s brain to make sure she hadn’t spilled the beans. But maybe instead of blabbing about what she’d seen, she’d drawn it.
Jessica wondered what other pictures Cassie had made before her memory had been erased. One of Jonathan, apparently, and probably she’d sketched the other midnighters as well. And she might have written their names down too.
Had she drawn the black cat slither or the darkling she’d seen?
Everyone started eating, and soon Beth and Cassie were telling stories about how geeky the rest of the marching band was, acting like nothing weird or unexplained had been mentioned at the table.
Jessica wondered if the drawings would jog Cassie’s memories, pulling them out of whatever corner of her mind Melissa had stuffed them into. Or if seeing Jessica in person would make her recall more of what had happened that night.
Still, Cassie didn’t have much to go on—just a few names and half-remembered faces and maybe a black cat or monstrous spider straight out of a nightmare. She had no way to connect Jessica and Jonathan to the other midnighters, no more clues about what had really happened that day.
Cassie Flinders wasn’t really the problem.
As usual, Beth was.
She had already recognized Jonathan’s face and probably remembered from taking phone messages that Jessica had friends named Rex and Dess and Melissa. Worst of all, Beth knew that Jessica liked to sneak out at midnight—the time when the growing rip in Jenks was at its most dangerous.
And—as Jessica knew from long experience—if anyone could turn a small amount of information into a big pain in the ass, Beth could.
Jessica wondered about Rex’s new policy against mindcasting. He hadn’t let Melissa mess with Angie’s brain, but Angie had known all about the secret hour for years. This was a different matter entirely. If rumors started to spread around Bixby Junior High that weird things happened near the Jenks railroad line at midnight, Rex might make an exception for little sisters.
Jessica decided not to mention any of this to him or even think about it too hard around Melissa. A quick look into Beth’s brain would reveal that she knew more about midnight than was safe.
Way more, now that she was friends with Cassie Flinders.
Jessica kept eating, trying to enjoy the mingled tastes of long-simmered tomatoes, number 18 spaghetti, and almost-too-many reduced onions. But as dinner continued—Beth glancing at Jessica knowingly whenever she got a chance—the familiar flavors turned bitter in her mouth.
“Mom?” Beth said as the meal drew to a close.
“Yeah?”
“Can I go spend the night with Cassie sometime?”
Jessica watched as her parents’ faces broke into smiles. Marching band had paid off, big time. Beth had finally made a friend here in the new town. Everything would be much easier from now on.
“Of course you can,” Mom said.
Beth smiled, and her gaze turned to her older sister, making sure to show that she knew there were more clues to find, more trouble to make, out there in Jenks.
Jessica tried to put on an innocent expression, as if nothing tonight had disturbed her, but she felt the smile wither on her face.
It was just too depressing. Even Beth Spaghetti Night had been touched by the blue time.