“Constanza Grayfoot. You haven’t heard of her?”

Melissa sighed, shaking her head. Even Rex didn’t completely understand how unbearable school was for her. Melissa didn’t know the names of half her teachers, much less every social big wheel.

“Anyway, her name doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just as long as you get the general idea across. Clear the way, and it’ll happen by itself.”

“No problem.”

Melissa looked at her watch again, calmed herself, and closed her eyes. The buzzing of a waking mind was close by, some brainless wonder soaking in late night TV. But sweet relief was coming in sixty seconds.

“Make sure to get both of them in sync. We don’t want to miss Friday while they’re doing parental negotiations.”

“Rex, it’s going to be easy. Just show me the stiffs.” She felt a twinge from him. Rex hated when she used that word. “Sorry,” she said sarcastically. “Just show me the midnight-impaired persons, and I’ll get it done.”

Rex turned away from her and stared out the window, giving off unhappy vibes.

She sighed and reached out to stroke one of his hands. He looked down in surprise, then remembered that her flesh was protected by the gloves. He smiled, but for a moment she caught a taste of his old bitterness. He shared every thought with her, along with terrible secrets and a hidden world, but they would never touch.

“Rex, really, this is simple. Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

“You always say that.”

“The blue time is a breeze, Rex. It’s the rest of reality that’s hard.”

He turned to her, reached across, his fingertips stopping just inches from her. “I know.”

“I did the toughest thing I’ll ever do eight years ago.”

He laughed. “So you always tell me.”

That search had been the hardest, finding Rex the first time. Melissa had felt him for as long as she could remember, since before she could talk. When the blue time came and the maddening noise would finally stop, only a single voice would remain. A lone taste out there in the suddenly empty world, as tenuous as an imaginary friend. The idea that he was a real person had taken years to form, another year to act on. Finally she had run the miles to his house in the secret hour, eight years old and wearing pajamas covered with pictures of cowgirls, half thinking it was a dream. But finding each other had made the whole thing real.

It had been a close call, she realized now. Much longer alone and she would have gone crazy.

Melissa tried to settle her mind, preparing for midnight, for the task ahead. Taking deep breaths, she waited for the moment when all the noise and clutter, restless dreams and nightmares, half-conscious anxieties and outright night terrors would finally be…

Silenced.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “That’s the stuff.”

She could taste Rex’s smile.