She sat up, looking around the bedroom in confusion. She didn’t know what had woken her—it took a few seconds just to remember where she was. The dark room was a jumble of familiar and unfamiliar things. Her old writing desk was in the wrong corner, and someone had added a skylight to the ceiling. There were too many windows, and they were bigger than they should have been.

But then the shapes of boxes piled everywhere, clothing and books spilling out of their half-open maws, brought it all back. Jessica Day and her belongings were strangers here, barely settled, like pioneers on a bare plain. This was her new room, her family’s new house. She lived in Bixby, Oklahoma, now.

“Oh, yeah,” she said sadly.

Jessica took a deep breath. It smelled like rain. That was right—it had been raining hard all night…but now it was suddenly quiet.

Moonlight filled the room. Jessica lay awake, transfixed by how strange everything looked. It wasn’t just the unfamiliar house; the Oklahoma night itself felt somehow wrong. The windows and skylight glowed, but the light seemed to come from everywhere, blue and cold. There were no shadows, and the room looked flat, like an old and faded photograph.

Jessica still wondered what had awakened her. Her heart beat quickly, as if something surprising had happened a moment ago. But she couldn’t remember what.

She shook her head and lay back down, closing her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. Her old bed seemed uncomfortable, somehow wrong, as if it didn’t like being here in Bixby.

“Great,” Jessica muttered. Just what she needed: a sleepless night to go with her exhausting days of unpacking, fighting with her little sister, Beth, and trying to find her way around the Bixby High maze. At least her first week at school was almost over. It would finally be Friday tomorrow.

She looked at the clock. It said 12:07, but it was set fast, to Jessica time. It was probably just about midnight. Friday at last.

A blue radiance filled the room, almost as bright as when the light was on. When had the moon come out? High, dark clouds had rolled over Bixby all day, obscuring the sun. Even under the roof of clouds the sky was huge here in Oklahoma, the whole state as flat as a piece of paper. That afternoon her dad had said that the lightning flashes on the horizon were striking all the way down in Texas. (Being unemployed in Bixby had started him watching the Weather Channel.)

The cold, blue moonlight seemed brighter every minute.

Jessica slid out of bed. The rough timbers of the floor felt warm under her feet. She stepped carefully over the clutter, the moonlight picking out every half-unpacked box clearly. The window glowed like a neon sign.

When she looked outside, Jessica’s fingers clenched and she uttered a soft cry.