Jessica smiled. It was the oddest gift she’d ever gotten, but she had to admit it felt good in her hand.

The secret hour arrived.

The overhead light seemed to wink out, replaced by the familiar blue glow from every corner of the room. The sound of wind among the trees ceased abruptly. Her first time completely awake for the change, Jessica could feel as well as see and hear it. Something invisible seemed to pull at her, tugging her forward, as if she were finishing a roller-coaster ride, the car gradually coming to a halt. A sense of lightness came over her, and she felt a subtle flutter of arrested motion throughout her body.

The tingle of the whole world, stopping around her.

“Okay,” Jessica said to herself. “Here we go again.”

However real she knew it was, the blue time still seemed like a dream.

She walked around her room, touching things to reassure herself. The rough edges of cardboard boxes felt the same, the pinewood boards of the floor were as smooth and cool as always.

“Real, real, and real,” she affirmed quietly as her fingers brushed clothing, desk, the spines of books.

Now that midnight was here, Jessica found herself wondering what she was going to do with this extra hour. A few minutes ago she had heard her parents talking in the kitchen. But she didn’t want to see them pale and frozen; she was staying in her own room.

There was plenty of unpacking to do. She opened a few of the boxes and looked into their chaotic depths. But the blue, shadowless light seemed too alien for anything so mundane. She sat on her bed, picked up the dictionary she’d unpacked when she got home, and opened it to look for tridecalogisms.

She’d found only one—splendiferous—when her head started to hurt from the light. The other midnighters could probably read in the blue time just fine. Maybe Melissa was right; Jessica’s eyes did feel wrong, at least here in the secret hour.

She glanced out the window at the motionless world but shivered and looked away. The thought of something looking back in at her was too frightening.

She picked her feet up off the floor, lay back, and stared at the ceiling.

Jessica sighed. This could get very boring.

Not much later, she heard the noise.

It was a very soft thud, barely audible even in the absolute silence. Jessica immediately thought of panther paws and jumped off her bed.

She picked up Jurisprudence and jingled Fossilization and Deliciousness to check that they were still in her pocket. From the end of the bed Jessica couldn’t see very much of the street, but she was too scared to get any closer to the windows. She maneuvered around her bedroom, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was outside.