But maybe it didn’t have to be that way.
“This is a pretty crappy dream, huh?” she said to the girl, rubbing her slither-bitten hand.
Jonathan raised an eyebrow, and even Rex, who still looked pretty shaky, snorted out a short laugh.
“What?” Jessica shrugged. “I’m just saying, as nightmares go, this one’s on the weird side. Right, Cassie?”
The look of dazed confusion gradually faded from the girl’s face, her expression turning more thoughtful. “Well, I was kind of wondering: what’s going on here?” She looked up at the dark moon. “What happened to everything? And who are you guys?”
“You’ve got a fever, right?” Jessica asked.
“Not a fever. My grandma said it’s just a cold.”
“Oh. Right. Okay,” Jessica said slowly and deliberately. “But sometimes when we’re sick, we have funny dreams.”
Cassie crossed her arms. “Yeah, maybe. But people in those funny dreams don’t usually bring it up that I’m dreaming.”
Jonathan laughed. “Nice try, Jess.”
“Yeah, this kid’s smarter than that,” Rex said. “And tougher than she looks too.”
“Smarter?” Jessica cried. “What’s that supposed to mean? I thought the blue time was all a dream, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Rex chuckled. “Well, feel free to tell her whatever you want until Melissa gets here.”
Jessica frowned and glanced at Jonathan, who shrugged, a helpless look on his face. He didn’t much like the idea either, but he clearly couldn’t see any other way of keeping the secret hour secret.
A crashing sound reached them through the trees.
“Speaking of which,” Rex said.
Dess emerged first, a long metal pipe balanced over one shoulder, like a spear ready to be thrown. She stumbled into the clearing and came to a halt, looking at them one by one. Then she lowered the spear with a disgusted noise. “No monsters left, are there?”
“All under control,” Rex said.
“Rats,” Dess said. “Jessica, I haven’t slain jack squat since you became the flame-bringer.”
Jessica sighed. “Yeah. My bad.”
Melissa came into view, yanking on her long black dress, the hem of which was tangled with twigs and trailing branches.
“Jeez, Rex. That was freaky,” she announced.
“You tasted it?” he asked quietly.
“It was pretty hard to miss,” Melissa said, running a finger along one of her scars. “I mean, I already knew you were having an identity crisis. But I didn’t think a darkling would agree with you!”
Jessica glanced from one of them to the other. Rex had a funny look on his face, and she noticed that his hands were still shaking, his fingers bent stiffly into claws. Melissa was staring at him like he’d grown antlers.
“Are we missing something here?” Dess asked aloud.
“Yeah, what happened?” Jessica said. “I saw a darkling running away.”
Melissa took a step closer to Rex and the girl. “The darkling was here, but it seemed to think Rex was a—”
“Don’t!” Rex interrupted.
There was a long silence, the two of them staring at each other.
“Not now,” he hissed.
“Wow,” Cassie Flinders said. “Maybe I am dreaming because you guys are really weird.”
Everyone looked at the girl. She stood there, staring defiantly back at them. Jessica decided that she had a point.
“Okay, kiddo,” Melissa said after another awkward moment of silence. “I think it’s past your bedtime.”
“But it’s morning,” Cassie answered, then looked up at the sky and frowned. “Or it was…”
“Either way, I can’t believe your grandma let you out of bed,” Rex said. “You being sick and all.”
“She always lets me play in the backyard,” Cassie said huffily. “Says it’s good for a cold to get out in the cold.”
“Well, I’m putting you back under the covers,” Melissa said, reaching out a hand. “Come with me.”
“Said the spider to the fly,” Dess muttered.
Jessica looked across the clearing at Jonathan. There had to be some other way to keep the secret than messing with people’s brains. She was just a kid, after all. Who would believe her?
As Melissa’s hand closed around Cassie’s, the girl seemed to relax. Then she yawned, her eyes growing sleepy.
Melissa turned to the others. “Chill, guys. I’m a lot better at this than I used to be.” She shrugged. “Besides, I’m only going to calm her down and put her to sleep and maybe suggest that this all was a nightmare. When it comes to radical memory overhaul, I only work on stiffs. Which, you may have noticed, Cassie isn’t. Anything else will have to wait.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Cassie asked sleepily.
Melissa smiled, leading Cassie back toward the railroad tracks. “We’re discussing how you’re going to remember this crazy dream tomorrow.” She winked at Rex. “But probably not the next day.”
“So she’ll tell people about it?” Jonathan asked. “And then just forget the next day? Won’t that seem funny to everyone else? I mean, she’ll probably be on the news tomorrow.”
Rex shrugged. “She’s a kid, she’s sick, she wandered off. So what if she talks crazy for a day? And after we pay her a visit tomorrow at midnight—” He raised his fingers and snapped.
The sound sent a shiver through Jessica. Maybe they were right, and mindcasting was the only way to keep the secret. In the old days, when Bixby had practically been ruled by midnighters, they’d probably done it all the time. But still, the idea didn’t make her very happy.
“So, Rex, should I leave her out in the sun?” Melissa asked from the edge of the clearing.
“No reason to,” he said. “Jessica already gave us both a blinding dose of white light. It worked for me when I was half-darkling; it should work for her. Meet you at the car?”
“Sure thing, Spider-Man,” Melissa called, waving goodbye.
Jessica watched the two of them disappear into the trees, wondering at how pliant and sleepy Cassie had become after Melissa had taken her hand. Maybe it was only shock, the poor girl overwhelmed after everything that happened. But Madeleine had suppressed Dess’s memories with only a touch too.
Melissa was growing in power every day. Jessica wondered what she could do if she got really pissed off at someone.
“So, Jessica, you ready to fly home?” Jonathan asked.
She looked at Rex. He still seemed shaky, as if it had been a close thing tonight.
“Will you guys be safe, Rex?”
He nodded. “Sure. I’ll stick around and see if there’s any lore sites around here. Or any other clues about this place. I think you ruined the darklings’ party, for the rest of the hour at least. And Dess here has…”
“Magisterially Supernumerary Mathematician,” she said, hefting the spear proudly.
“But what about your car, Jonathan?” Jessica said.
He shrugged. “I’ll get it tomorrow.”
“I can drive it into town!” Dess offered.
“I don’t think so,” Jonathan said.
Dess snorted and prodded his ribs with the point of Supernumerary.
Jessica stood there, rubbing her wounded hand and thinking glum thoughts. They had saved a young girl tonight, but in payment for the rescue the memory of the most amazing experience in Cassie’s life would be erased forever. And Cassie Flinders was only the beginning. If the blue time was tearing, more unlucky people were likely to step into the secret hour, where hungry monsters waited for them. And possibly normal time itself was coming to an end.