“Midnighters don’t see ghosts, Jessica,” Rex continued. “What we see is a whole secret hour, the blue time, that zooms right past everyone else.”

“Midnighters,” Jessica repeated.

“That’s the word for us. Midnight is ours alone. We can walk around while everything else in the whole world is frozen.”

“Not everything,” Jessica said.

“True,” Rex admitted. “The darklings and slithers, and some other stuff, live in the blue time. For them the blue time is like normal daylight and vice versa. They can’t get into the other twenty-four hours, like most humans can’t get into the twenty-fifth.”

“Only us midnighters get to live in both,” Dess said happily.

“Yay,” Jess said. “I’m thrilled.”

“Come on, haven’t you ever wished for an extra hour in the day?” Rex asked.

“Not an extra totally weird hour! Not an extra hour where everything tries to kill me! No, I don’t think I ever wished for that.”

“Wow, you are so daylight,” Melissa said.

“I’ve got to admit, things have been bad for you,” Rex said, using his Mr. Calm voice again. “But it’s usually not like this. Normally the slithers only watch us, and darklings don’t care much about us at all. They’re like wild animals. They can be dangerous if you do something stupid, but they don’t go out of their way to mess with humans. A midnighter being attacked for no reason is new to me.”

“It’s pretty much new to me too!” Jessica said. “And I didn’t do anything stupid, all right? One of those…slithers led me out here on purpose. Then the big cat thing tried to kill me. Twice.”

“Yeah, we should try to figure this out,” Rex said mildly, as if Jessica had been assigned a locker at school that wouldn’t open. She guessed that none of those darklings had ever come after him.

“I knew you were different,” Melissa said, “even before psychokitty tried to eat you.” She closed her eyes, tipping back her head as if smelling the wind. “There’s something funny about the way you taste.”

Melissa’s face went blank, almost as lifeless as Beth or the woman driving the car. Jessica rolled her eyes. Melissa was calling her different?

“But right now we should get you home,” Rex said, glancing up at the sky. “There’s only about five minutes left.”

Jessica started to speak, a million questions on her tongue. But she just sighed. Nothing was getting explained. Everything these people said confused her more.

“Fine.” As she said the word, Jessica realized how good home sounded. The panther must still be around somewhere.

Rex and Melissa pushed their bikes, walking next to Jessica. Dess rode in slow circles around them, like a bored kid forced to travel too slowly.

“Tomorrow we’ll have time to tell you more,” Rex said. “Meet us at the Clovis Museum? Noon?”