She closed the book and whacked herself on the head with it. Dess had played with the zip code, the population, the angles of the architecture, but it had never occurred to her to look up Bixby’s coordinates before.
Maybe it wasn’t just the mystical stones and untouched desert that made Bixby different; maybe it was the spot on the globe itself. Just like the thirteen-pointed stars everywhere, the clue had been hidden right out in the open, on every map in the world.
Dess’s heart beat faster as the numbers roiled through her. If she was right, this discovery might also answer the other trillion-dollar question: Were there other blue times in the world? Dess closed her eyes, picturing a globe in her mind. The seas and landmasses disappeared until only navigational lines remained, a glowing wire-frame sphere. When you switched around the directions, there would be seven more places with the same numbers as Bixby: thirty-six south by ninety-six west, thirty-six west by ninety-six north, etc. And probably more combinations with other numbers. Forty-eight by eighty-four followed the same pattern, as did twenty-four by twenty-four. Of course, most of these places would be in the middle of an ocean, but some of them were bound to be on land.
There might be another dozen Bixbys out there.
Or the whole thing might be a coincidence.
Dess bit her lip. There might be a way to check the theory.
She opened the social studies book again and stared at the map of Oklahoma, willing her eyes to become microscopes, to expand the map until she could see Bixby and the surrounding badlands. Where exactly did the two lines intersect?
Her dad could find out. As a rig foreman, he had detailed survey maps of the oil fields surrounding town, including the badlands.
Dess looked out the window. Nothing. Sitting here waiting was driving her insane. She had to find out where the center of midnight was. If her theory was right, she had a pretty good idea of where the lines would intersect.
She stood up and crept to her door, opening it a crack. The usual flicker of TV light was absent down the hall, the house silent and still. Dad was working tomorrow, like he did most weekends, so her parents were already in bed. Dess stepped out into the hall, careful not to put any weight on the long-memorized pattern of squeaky boards, moving slowly toward the living room. She left the door open behind her, listening with one ear for the sound of impatient tapping on her window.
This was really stupid, she realized. It could wait until tomorrow. Things were behind schedule enough without a parental confrontation.
But she had to know for sure.
Dad kept his maps in the wide flat file that doubled as a coffee table in the living room. Dess knelt before it and pulled out the top drawer, a yard across. Just folders, pens, and crap in this one. The next one down opened onto maps on thin paper that tried to curl up as she pulled out the drawer, bearing black fingerprints and giving off the familiar smell of Oklahoma crude.
She heard a sound outside and froze, holding her breath.
The car passed by, rattling on the unpaved road and off into the distance.
Dess rifled through the maps, peering at the coordinates in the streetlight glow angling through the front window. The maps were incredibly detailed, showing individual houses and oil rigs. She realized that all of Bixby was contained within a single degree of latitude and longitude, which was subdivided into smaller units called “minutes,” about a mile across. Her fingers raced to find the exact point of intersection.
The maps weren’t in any particular order. “Thanks, Dad,” she whispered to herself.
A sound came from her parents’ bedroom, and Dess closed her eyes, heart pounding. Dad hated anyone touching his stuff. But no light went on, and silence slowly settled across the house again.
Finally she found it.
Dess pulled the map out slowly, letting it curl up into a scroll, and carried it with quick, silent steps back to her room.
After a glance out the window at the still empty street, she unrolled the map on her floor, pinning its corners down with four pieces of steel. Her shaking fingers followed the dotted lines to their intersection.
“I knew it,” she said.
Thirty-six north by ninety-six west was right in the middle of Rustle’s Bottom.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. The snake pit really was darkling central. And if a certain longitude and latitude was all it took, there were probably other places in the world where the blue time came at midnight.
A horn sounded outside her window.
“Don’t honk at me!” she hissed, grabbing her duffel bag.
Morons. Dess was keeping this to herself for the moment. She could check it out on her own. If nothing else, she’d make Rex wish he listened to her more.
Before Dess pulled herself out the window, she glanced at the clock: 11:24.
They weren’t going to make it in time.
24
11:25 P.M.
RUSTLE’S BOTTOM
The party was just getting started.
Rustle’s Bottom was a broad, flat plain, stretching as far as Jessica could see. It seemed blank and featureless all the way to the mountains, a range of low peaks dimly silhouetted against the dark horizon. It was completely barren, except for the cars parked on the hard-packed dirt. According to Dess, it was the bed of a lake that had dried up hundreds of years ago. Jessica kicked at the dry ground. There was no hint that it had ever been anything but cold, windy desert.
She gathered herself up in the jacket, which wasn’t nearly as warm as her own back at Constanza’s house. Out here there was nothing to block the wind. The reason why Oklahoma was so windy was its flatness: the air just kept building up speed as it moved across the plain, like a lead-footed driver alone on a long, straight highway. It blew without any change in speed or direction, cutting through the unlined jacket. At least her feet were warm. Constanza had tried to lend her shoes with heels, but she had stuck with a pair of old, reliable boots, which she hoped were snakeproof.
Pulling the coat around her, Jessica looked up, and her eyes widened with awe. The sky in Chicago had never been filled with so many stars. This far from the lights of town, there seemed to be millions of them. For the first time Jessica could see how the Milky Way had gotten its name. It was a winding river of white that ran from east to west (she’d checked her compass as they’d gotten out of the car), full of bright stars and mushy swirls of light.
“Brrr. It’s practically winter already,” Constanza said. “Come on. Let’s go get warm.”
A couple of miles back they had driven off the road and right across the lake bed, which was like driving across a huge parking lot. Constanza had navigated toward a flickering light, finally pulling up to where a dozen or so cars and pickups were already parked in a ragged line. A hundred feet away was a group of people clustered around a bonfire. The shallow pit was ringed with stones that showed the marks of many previous fires. Someone had dumped in a pile of kindling, a few tree stumps, and what looked like some broken furniture. The fire was still sputtering to life, popping and hissing as new wood dried out.
Jessica followed Constanza over toward the fire.
A big spark popped and flew into the air and was carried away by the wind. The crowd laughed as the flaming projectile bounced crazily across the desert before burning itself out a few seconds later. Music played from a small CD player sitting on the dirt.
“Isn’t this excellent?” Constanza said.
“Yeah.” The night was beautiful, Jessica had to admit, and dramatic. She wished that a bonfire and a desert sky were the only dramas she would be facing tonight.
“Hey, Constanza.” A boy detached himself from the crowd.