Jonathan perched at the window, evidently a bit reluctant to come inside. He seemed to think that Jessica was going to take another swing at him. Jurisprudence was still in her grip, passed nervously from hand to hand.
Jonathan sat with one leg folded under him, his other knee drawn up under his chin. He certainly didn’t seem very scary now.
He hadn’t said much since arriving at the window. He seemed to be waiting for her to calm down. Unlike in the lunchroom at school, Jonathan’s eyes were open wide. He didn’t look sleepy at all. Maybe he was photophobic in the daylight too.
She was glad he didn’t hide his eyes behind dark glasses, though. They were very pretty eyes.
He watched as Jessica slowly gained control of her breathing, his gaze intent but silent.
“I didn’t know you were a midnighter,” she finally managed.
“They didn’t tell you?” He laughed. “That figures.”
“They know about you?”
“Sure. Since the day I moved here.”
Jessica shook her head in disbelief. Six hours of midnighter lore and neither Rex, Dess, nor Melissa had bothered to mention the fifth midnighter in town.
“Wait a second,” Jess said as something occurred to her. “Are you the only one they didn’t tell me about? How many of you are there?”
Jonathan grinned. “Just one of me,” he said.
She stared back at him, still too overwhelmed to make sense of anything.
“No, there aren’t any others,” he said, more seriously. “I’m the only person they didn’t mention.”
“What, don’t they like you?”
He shrugged. “I’m not in the club, you know? I mean, Rex is okay, I guess, and Dess is actually pretty cool.” He paused, obviously not wanting to get started on Melissa. “But they take the whole thing way too seriously.”
“Too seriously?”
“Yeah. They act like they’re on a mission from the Midnighters World Council or something.”
“There’s a Midnighters World Council?” Jessica asked.
He laughed. “No, but I bet Rex wishes there was. He thinks this whole midnight thing has some deep and mysterious meaning.”
Jessica blinked. It had never occurred to her to doubt that there were deep and mysterious forces at work. It all seemed pretty deep and mysterious to her.
“So what do you think, Jonathan?”
“I think we’re lucky to have a whole world to ourselves. To play in, explore, do whatever we want. Why mess it up with some big purpose?”
Jessica nodded. Since the darkling had attacked her, the secret hour had become a crisis, a deadly challenge. But that first, beautiful dream had been something else entirely. Something… easy.
“For Rex,” Jonathan continued, “the blue time is like some big textbook, and he’s always studying for the final exam. For me, it’s recess.”
She gave him a sour look. “There are some pretty big bullies on the playground.”
He shrugged. “I’m faster than the bullies. Always have been.”
Jessica wondered how that could be true. But Jonathan seemed perfectly at ease. He dangled his foot outside the window, never checking over his shoulder, unafraid.
“You guys all seem to enjoy the secret hour,” she said sadly. “You all think it’s exciting, for one reason or another. For me, it’s just been a nightmare. This thing—these things—tried to kill me last night.”
“That’s what Dess told me.”
“She told you about me?”
“Yeah, back when Rex first spotted you. And this morning she gave me your address. What, did you think I used superpowers to find you?”
“The phone book, actually.”
He smiled. “You’re not in information yet. I checked. But Melissa got the psychic 411 on you last night, so Dess called me.”
“Dess gave you my address, but she didn’t tell me about you?”
“She would have, but not in front of Rex. He and I have this… personality conflict. Namely, I think he should get a new one. But Dess prefers to stay out of it.”
“Oh.” Jessica leaned back against the wall. “This gets more complicated every minute.”
“Yeah, it’s awful that you ran into a darkling so soon,” Jonathan said. “But last night was weird all over town. It was probably just darkling New Year’s Eve or something. Was that your first time out?”
She started to nod, then shook her head. She’d almost forgotten the first night. With Rex and Dess cramming her head with midnighter lore and history all day, she’d only thought about the dangers of the blue time, not the splendor of the frozen storm.
“It must be nice,” she said quietly, “being happy to be a midnighter.”
“Quit calling me that,” he softly chided. “I’m not a ‘midnighter.’ That’s Rex’s word.”
Jessica frowned. “It seems pretty appropriate to me. Kind of makes the point and sounds better than ‘twelve o’clocker.’ ”
“I guess it does,” Jonathan admitted with a smile. “And I do like the word midnight. Since I moved to Bixby, anyway.”
Jessica took a breath and dared to look past him to the blue-lit street. Even before the secret hour had come, it had been a beautiful night, gusty and dramatic. She could see falling autumn leaves trailing from the giant oak trees like flocks of dark and frozen birds. Their brilliant reds and yellows had turned black in the blue light.
She remembered the raindrops that first night, how her fingertips had released them from midnight’s hold. Would the leaves also fall at her touch? She wanted to run through them, knocking handfuls out of the air. Back in Chicago she had never been able to resist snapping off icicles, breaking winter’s spell.
But among the black leaves Jessica could still imagine the darkling that had attacked her. Its cruel form might be lurking anywhere among the frozen shapes outside. She shuddered and turned away from the window.
Her bedroom still seemed alien. It looked wan in the blue light, like a fading memory. Motionless dust hung in the air.
“Midnight is beautiful,” she said. “But cold, too.”
Jonathan frowned. “It never feels cold to me. Or hot, either. It’s more like a perfect summer night.”
Jessica shook her head. “I didn’t mean that kind of cold.”
“Oh, I see,” Jonathan said. “Yeah. It feels kind of empty sometimes. Like we’re the last people on earth.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel much better.”
“You shouldn’t be scared of midnight, Jessica.”
“I’m only scared of being eaten.”
“That was just bad luck.”
“But Rex said—”
“Don’t worry about what Rex says,” Jonathan interrupted. “He’s way too paranoid. He thinks no one should explore the blue time until they know all ten thousand years of midnighter lore. That’s like reading a whole VCR manual just to watch a movie. Which I’ve seen Rex actually do, by the way.”
“You should’ve seen the darkling that attacked me,” Jessica said.
“I’ve seen darklings. Lots of them.”
“But—”
Jonathan disappeared from the window, and Jessica’s breath caught short. He had slipped out of sight so quickly, so gracefully, rolling backward like a scuba diver off a boat. A moment later his head and shoulders reappeared.
He extended his hand through the window. “Come on. Let me unscare you.”
Jessica hesitated. She looked at the row of thirteen thumbtacks that Dess had told her to line up under the window. As Jessica had stuck them into the window frames and door of her bedroom, she’d felt incredibly stupid. Thumbtacks were supposed to protect her from the forces of evil?
But the kind of object didn’t matter, Dess had explained, only the number.
Jonathan saw where she was looking. “Let me guess. You’re protected by the mighty power of paper clips?”