Touching Darkness m-2

by Scott Westerfeld

  “Home sweet home,” he said.

  As Jessica’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, a few titles came into focus. Pretty much what she would have expected, but more. There were histories of Oklahoma, settlers’ diaries and accounts of the displacements and the Trail of Tears, when Native Americans had been crowded into the Oklahoma Territory more than a hundred years before. Stretching farther back, there were books on prehistoric peoples of the New World and on Stone Age tools and animals. She and Jonathan stepped over stacks of paper handwritten documents bearing the Bixby town seal and old pages from the Bixby Register.

  As far as Jessica could tell, Rex had photocopied about half the local library and piled the results in his room. Even his bed was covered with papers. On a few were inscribed the spindly figures that recorded midnighter lore. She recognized the torchlike rune for her own talent—flame-bringer. A few lunches ago Rex had tried to teach her the symbols for the other talents: polymath, acrobat, seer, and mindcaster. But she could hardly make anything out on the densely scrawled pages.

  A backpack was slung on the only chair in the room. Rex took a seat and cleared his throat.

  “Dess told you about Bixby, right?”

  Jessica looked at the stacks and shelves around her. “Maybe not everything about it. What exactly?”

  “The signs of midnight. The staircases with thirteen steps, the symbols.”

  “Sure.” Dess had hinted about Bixby’s oddities the first time they’d met, before Jessica had realized that the secret hour was anything but a dream. Since then she’d seen the signs everywhere: the thirteen-pointed stars in the town seal, on the high school emblem, on the antique plaques that people hung on their houses. Even the words Bixby, Oklahoma, totalled thirteen letters.

  “Did you ever wonder who put all those signs in place?”

  Jess frowned. “Haven’t there been midnighters here for a long time? You said they’d been fighting the darklings for ten thousand years. Since the blue time was created.”

  “True. But the struggle wasn’t always as secret as it is now. In the old days it wasn’t just us midnighters who knew what was going on.”

  Jessica nodded slowly. According to Dess, the whole town had been built to antidarkling specifications. It stood to reason that a handful of midnighters would need help pulling off something like that. Unless there was some sort of architect talent that no one had told her about yet.

  Rex continued. “Every small town has its secrets, things that outsiders don’t need to know. A long time ago Bixby was a much smaller town, with much bigger secrets than most.”

  “It’s still a weird place, even if you don’t ever see the secret hour,” Jonathan said. “I could tell that the moment I moved here.”

  “All you have to do is taste the water,” Jessica said.

  Rex nodded and placed one hand on a pile of photocopies. “If you know what to look for in these old papers, it’s easy to read between the lines. It wasn’t just local superstitions that made this town the way it is. The building codes are designed to repel darklings, newspapers report strange animal sightings that could only have been made at midnight, and there are an awful lot of clubs and societies dedicated to ‘the preservation of Bixby.’ This one’s my favorite.”

  He lifted a well-worn piece of paper from the top of the stack and handed it to Jessica. She read:

  LADIES’ ANTI-TENEBROSITY LEAGUE

  ICE-CREAM SOCIAL AND PIE AUCTION

  5 CENTS ADMISSION

  LEAGUE MEETING TO FOLLOW (MEMBERS ONLY)

  Jessica lifted an eyebrow. “What’s tenebrosity?”

  “It’s an old word for darkness.”

  “Okay. But an ice-cream social?”

  Rex smiled. “It’s one way to fight evil. They had bake sales too. Practically everybody must have known what was going on.”

  “There’s always someone who doesn’t know what’s going on,” Jonathan said.

  Rex looked at him directly for the first time since they’d arrived, peeking over his glasses to gauge Jonathan’s expression. Then he shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right. For most it was probably just a social thing, like going to church is for a lot of people. But back then midnighters were supported by the community.” He took the paper back from Jessica and muttered, “More than we’ll ever be.”

  “But what changed?” she asked. “I mean, how could everyone just forget?”

  “That’s a good question.” He waved his hand at the bookshelves, the stacks of paper. “One I’ve been working on. As near as I can figure, it all changed about sixty years ago. First there was the oil boom, a lot of new people coming in to work the fields. Folks who wouldn’t understand.”

  “So the old-timers kept quiet about Bixby’s little darkling problem,” Jonathan said.

  “Yeah. Wouldn’t you?” Rex picked up a stack of papers from his bed. “The town went from a few hundred to twelve thousand in ten years. Boom time. Hang on, I’ve got the exact numbers somewhere in here.”

  Jessica and Jonathan waited silently while he leafed through the papers. She tried to imagine a town where a hundred or so people knew the truth about midnight while thousands more remained in the dark. Of course, even if someone leaked the secret, it seemed unlikely the newcomers would believe them, except for the few born at the stroke of midnight who could see it with their own eyes.

  And sharing the secret with a hundred people would be a whole lot easier than being just one among five…

  The tomcat pushed its way into the room and rubbed itself along Jessica’s ankles, slinking through the piles to disappear under Rex’s bed. She wondered where the old man’s spiders had gone, and her bare legs tingled.

  Finally Rex shrugged, placing the papers atop a stack on the floor. “Can’t find it, but that’s pretty much what happened. The obvious part.”

  Still tingling from imaginary spiders, Jessica asked, “What’s the not-so-obvious part?”

  He pulled off his glasses and looked up at her. “The midnighters disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  He nodded. “There’s no lore after 1956. No marks or recordings of any kind that I’ve found. And when Melissa and I were kids, there were no midnighters older than us, no one to tell us what was going on. She had to find me on her own, back when we were eight years old. Before that night, I thought I was the only one.”

  He sighed and lowered one hand almost to the floor. The cat emerged to sniff it, then allowed itself to be scratched.

  “In the old days it was different. There was always at least one mindcaster, someone to find the new midnighters. When they got old enough to understand the blue time, there were initiation ceremonies, teachers. You knew you belonged to something.” He put his glasses back on. “But that all disappeared around fifty years ago, as far as I can tell.”

  “So something happened to them?” Jonathan said.

  Rex nodded. “Something bad, we can assume.”

  “But the guy last night…” Jessica said. “Maybe he’s left over from the old days or something. Like he moved out of town way back then and just got back?”

  “He looked that old?” Rex asked.

  “I don’t think so.” She looked at Jonathan, who nodded.

  “Young.” He shifted uneasily on one foot. “He jumped an eight-foot fence a lot easier than I did. Rich, too. His watch had jewels on it.”

  “So how does he know?” Rex said softly. “Melissa’s never felt another midnighter besides us five, and she’s never tasted a daylight mind that knew the truth. Of course, she hasn’t been looking out for any lately. But when we were little kids…”

  He fell into silence, and Jessica found herself gazing at the four walls of books surrounding them. The room was its own little world, an imaginary slice of the past. Suddenly she understood Rex a little better. No wonder he always seemed misplaced, unhappy with the world he found himself in. He wished he’d been born in the old days, when there were rules and meetings and initiations, even icecream soci
als. When a seer was probably the boss of the whole thing.

  “I got the guy’s license plate number,” Jonathan said.

  Rex smirked. “Maybe Sheriff St. Claire can help you with that.”

  Jonathan’s face darkened, and he glared down at the cat, which was rubbing its head against his feet. “Well, it’s something, anyway.”

  Jessica sighed. “So what are we going to do, Rex?”

  “Melissa’s coming by tonight, after I get my dad to bed. I’ll tell her what you saw. Maybe she can do a little mindcasting and find out what’s new in Bixby. We’ll take a drive around your neighborhood tonight, see if we run into any stray thoughts. If your stalker’s there late, when most everyone else has gone to sleep, he should be easy to find.”

  “What should we do?” Jessica asked.

  “Be careful.”

  “That’s it?” Jonathan said. “Be careful?”

  Rex nodded. “Very careful. That’s what history seems to recommend. When the old midnighters vanished, it happened all at once, so quickly that nothing was recorded in the lore. Something got rid of them in one fell swoop.”

  “Like darklings, right?” Jess felt the reassuring weight of Demonstration in her pocket.

  Rex shrugged. “Maybe it was darklings… or maybe it happened in broad daylight.”

  6

  11:02 p.m.

  TOUCH

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  Melissa stared at him across the front seat of the old Ford, a wry look on her face. “Well, it is an awfully big step.”

  Rex felt himself flush. After eight years he was used to the idea that Melissa could sense his emotions and read him better than anybody had a right to, but none of that made it any easier when she used her power to embarrass him.

  “I mean,” she continued, “I only want to do this if you think you’re ready.”

  “I thought that you…”

  His jaw tightened. The whole thing had been her idea, and now he was getting mocked for his trouble. This was just like Melissa: she took midnight and its lore seriously—more seriously than any of the rest of them—but sometimes she had to demonstrate that everything was still a big joke to her. A waste of the precious little energy she had left over from merely existing in the world.

  Even when he’d repeated the news that Jessica had delivered this morning, Melissa hadn’t seemed very alarmed, as if no mere human threat could unnerve the unflappable bitch goddess.

  She nodded, pulling at the fingers of one glove. “Yeah, it was my idea. But maybe we’re rushing things. I’d hate to ruin a beautiful friendship.”

  At those words Rex felt a clenched laugh escape him. He looked up from her hands and saw that her smile had softened. His anger faded, taking with it the anxiety that had gradually built all day.

  He cleared his throat. “I’ll still respect you in the morning.”

  She laughed, radiant for a moment. But then her face turned serious, and she stared out the front windshield. “We’ll see about that.”

  Rex could see now that she was nervous too. Of course, if the lore was right, he was about to feel exactly how nervous. The touch of normal people disgusted Melissa, redoubling their usual intrusions into her mind—she could barely stand visits to the doctor. But with other midnighters the connection went both ways and was much more intense. He swallowed, some of his own apprehension returning, and reminded himself that he had wanted this for a long time. It was a test of the lore, a way to find out more about how the talents worked together. Maybe it was even a way to break through Melissa’s shell and finally connect her with the rest of the group.

  And perhaps, Rex allowed himself to hope, he might make his own connection to Melissa, as he’d always wanted to and never could. He quenched that thought.

  “Let’s just get it over with,” she said.

  “Okay. Any cops around?”

  “Gee, not since I checked three minutes ago.” But she sighed, dutifully closing her eyes. They were pretty far from the center of town, out where Melissa’s casting was clearest. The blasting mind noise of Bixby was miles behind them, and at this hour most of the population had already succumbed to sleep. The beings out in the desert that filled her mind with their alien tastes and ancient fears—the midnight things—hadn’t awoken yet.

  After a moment she shook her head. “Still no cops.”

  “Okay. Let’s do it, then.” He took a deep breath.

  Slowly Melissa pulled off her right glove. Her pale hand was luminous in the darkness; there were no streetlights this far out, and the moon was only a glowing smear on the high, fish-scale clouds.

  Rex laid his own right hand on the car seat, palm up. He saw it trembling but didn’t bother to hold still. With Melissa it was pointless to pretend.

  “Remember the first time?”

  Rex swallowed. “Sure, Cowgirl.”

  It had all happened long ago, but he recalled their early experiences in the secret hour with a marvelous clarity. They had taken a long walk through the blue and empty streets of Bixby. Melissa was showing him how her talent worked, pointing at a house to say, “An old woman died slowly in there; I can still taste it.” Or, “A child drowned in their swimming pool; they dream about it every night.” Once she stopped to stare at a normal-looking house for a solid minute, Rex conjuring horrible images as he waited. But finally Melissa said, “They’re happy in there. I think that’s what it is, anyway.”

  At some point when he was eight years old, Rex had reached out—unknowingly and innocently to take her hand, that first and last time.

  “I was real sorry about that, Cowgirl.”

  “I got over it. It’s not your fault I’m like this.”

  “Yours either.”

  Melissa just smiled at him and reached out slowly, her hand trembling as much as his. In that moment Rex knew that she wanted this too. No mind reading required.

  He didn’t dare move, so he just closed his eyes.

  Their fingers brushed, and it was fiercer, more intense than Rex remembered. He felt the wild hunger first, her animal need to consume his thoughts, and he almost pulled his hand back but fought to keep it still. Her mind came then, entering his in a bold, unstoppable surge of energy, rushing into corners and crannies and uprooting long-buried memories. The car spun around Rex, his hands clenching to take hold of anything real and solid, but his fingernails only sank into her flesh, making the contact stronger.

  Melissa’s own emotions followed the first onslaught, carried along like bitter backwash. Rex could sense her constant phobia of being touched, as well as her new misgivings about the sudden and overwhelming intimacy between them. Rex felt his throat tighten, his stomach lurching as he recognized her long-simmering fear of this moment, suddenly understanding how much greater her anxiety had been than his.

  But still, she’d trusted him enough to reach out her hand…

  Pieces of dark knowledge came through then: the way a darkling’s mind tasted when it was very old, as bitter as a rusty nail held under a dry tongue; the chaos of Bixby High just before the late bell rang, almost loud enough to break her mind; the terror that with one touch, one of the clamoring minds that harassed her every daylight moment would invade and trespass on hers; and finally the sweet onset of the blue hour, a silence so glorious, it was as if everyone in the world had been exterminated, their petty thoughts all finally extinguished.

  Then, suddenly, it was over.

  He looked down at his hand, empty and slick with sweat. Melissa had somehow managed to pull away. Rex stared dumbly at his palm, watching four red half-moons appear, the marks of his own fingernails digging in after she had slipped out of his grasp.

  But at least it was silent now. He was alone again inside his head.

  He turned away from her to look out the window, feeling as bleak as the charcoal desert stretched out before him. Strange. Rex had expected to feel full once it was over. This was new information, like the wisdom of his books or the surety
of lore, things that always made some part of him feel larger. This was something he’d wanted from her as long as he could remember. But somehow the knowledge of Melissa, of what it was like to be her, had emptied him.

  “Maybe next time,” she said.

  He blinked at her. “What?”

  “Maybe it’ll be better next time.” She tore her eyes from his and turned over the engine, the car springing to life beneath them.

  Rex tried to offer reassurances and say something hopeful. Perhaps she would build up resistance. Or they would gain more control, sharing thoughts and ideas instead of raw sensations and blind fears. Maybe one day they could do more than touch for a few moments—maybe anything was possible. But Melissa shook her head at every thought that crossed Rex’s mind, never taking her gaze from the road. This wasn’t just her usual sensitivity, he realized. Melissa had been inside him every moment of the maelstrom and felt the desolation she had left in him.

  There was nothing he could say that she didn’t already know.

  He watched the signs of midnight pass. It was better than thinking about what had happened between him and his oldest friend.

  The midnight invasion had stopped, that much was for sure. When Jessica Day had first appeared in town, the marks had been everywhere, swaths of sharp Focus across the blur of Rex’s vision, revealing where darklings and their foot soldiers had disturbed the daylight world. They had pushed farther into town every night, despite the clean metal and thirteen-pointed stars that protected Bixby, emboldened by their hatred of Jessica.

  But now the marks were fading. Since she had discovered her talent, the darklings were powerless to attack Jessica directly. The town was softening again, losing the Focus. The darklings were in retreat.

  Melissa made a turn. Rex frowned, unsure of where they were headed but unwilling to disturb the silence that had fallen between them since they’d touched. The plan had been to drive around Jessica’s neighborhood and try to catch the thoughts of her human stalker. But they weren’t headed into town. The desert was still in view, a black horizon stretching away toward Rustle’s Bottom and the snake pit.