“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.