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7

12:00 AM

DARK MOON

That night the blue drea awake and staring at the ceiling, relieved that it was finally the weekend To through the fourteen boxes piled around her roo her stuff would make her life feel a little bit more under control

She must have been more tired than she&039;d realized Sleep stole up on her so quietly that drea seemed to collide with consciousness It was as if she blinked, and everything changed Suddenly the world was blue, the low hum of the Oklahoma wind sed by silence

She sat up, suddenly alert The rooht

"Great," she said softly "This again"

Tonight Jessica didn&039;t waste tio back to sleep If this was a dream, she was already asleep And it was a dreay sweatshirt, of course

She slipped out froot dressed in jeans and a T-shirt The ht as well see onders her subconscious had cooked up this ti was sharp and clear She felt very calm, without any dreamy muzzy-headedness She remembered from a psych class she&039;d taken last year that this was called "lucid dreaht was exactly the sao that shone from every surface There were no shadows, no dark corners She peered into one of herinside it with equal and perfect clarity Every object seelow softly from within

She looked out theThere were no floating diamonds this ti

"That&039;s boring," she muttered

Jessica crept to her door and opened it carefully So in this dreaht the world seeh

Halfway down the hall Beth&039;s door was ajar Jess pushed it open tentatively Her sister&039;s room was lit in the same deep blue as her own It rapped in the sah it was definitely Beth&039;s clothing strewn chaotically around the floor Her sister had acco front than Jessica

A shape filled the bed The sled uncomfortably in the covers Since thewell, which kept her in a state of constant crankiness

Jessica crossed to the bed and sat down gently, thinking about how little time she&039;d spent with Beth since they&039;d arrived in Bixby Even in the months before the move her little sister&039;s tantruht the idea of leaving Chicago every step of the way, and everyone in the fa her when she was in a bad mood

Maybe that hy this dreaet used to Bixby herself, Jessica hadn&039;t thought much about her sister&039;s problems

She reached out and rested one hand softly on Beth&039;s sleeping forh her The body under the covers felt wrong It was hard, as unyielding as a plastic mannequin in a store

Suddenly the blue light seemed cold around her

"Beth?" Her sister didn&039;t

"Beth, wake up" Her voice broke fro around Please?"

She shook her sister with both hands

The shape under the covers didn&039;t move It felt heavy and stiff

Jessica reached for the covers again, not sure that she wanted to reveal as underneath but unable to stop herself She stood up, taking a nervous step away from the bedside even as she reached out and pulled the bedclothes aith a frantic jerk

"Beth?"

Her sister&039;s face was chalk white, as reen glass led sheets like a pale claw

"Beth!" Jessica sobbed

Her sister didn&039;t move

She reached out and touched Beth&039;s cheek It was as cold and hard as stone

Jessica turned and ran across the roo She threw open the door and ran down the hallway toward her parents&039; room

"Mom! Dad!" she screamed But as Jessica stumbled to a halt in front of her parents&039; room, the cry died in her throat The closed door stood cold and blank before her

There was no sound from inside They must have heard her

"Mom!"

There was no response

What if she opened it and her parents were like Beth? The ie of her s - paralyzed her Her hand had al her fingers to close on it

"Mommy?" she called softly

No sound came from inside the room

Jess backed away from the door, suddenly terrified that it would open, that so in store for her The unfamiliar house see alive

She turned and ran back toward her own room Halfway there, she passed Beth&039;s door, still open wide Jessica turned her eyes away too late and saw in a terrible flash the exposed, lifeless white shape of her sister on the bed

Jessica bolted into her roo in a sobbing heap onto the floor The first dreahtmare was cohting back her terror, she tried to think through what the dream must mean Jessica had been so wrapped up in her own problems, she hadn&039;t seen the obvious Beth needed her She had to stop acting as if her sister&039;s anger were just an inconvenience

She hugged her knees to her chest, her back to the door, pro she&039;d be nicer to Beth tomorrow

Jessica waited for the dream to end

Hopefully this ti left of it in the real world No frozen Beth, no soggy sweatshirts Just radually, Jessica&039;s tears ran out, and the blue dreaed or ht shone from everywhere and nowhere; the silence lay total and absolute Not even the whispering creaks and groans of a house at night could be heard

So when the scratching came, Jessica lifted her head at once

There was a shape in the , a slow fro catlike steps back and forth across thefralass

"Kitty?" Jessica said, her voice rough froht for adeep purple

Jessica stood shakily, her legs all pins and needles Shenot to scare the cat away At least sohter alone with the lifeless shape in Beth&039;s room She crossed to theand peered out

It was sleek and thin, glossy and black Muscles rippled under itsas a wild cat of some kind, almost like a miniature black cheetah She wondered for a moment if it was even a pet cat at all Her dad had said that there were bobcats and other small wild felines in the countryside around Bixby But the beast looked very ta up at her with pleading indigo eyes

"Okay, okay," she said

She pulled open the , giving up on what this part of the dreaainst her as it leapt into the rooh

"You&039;re a real bruiser," shewhat breed it was She&039;d never seen any cat this strong

It ju her pillow, ran in a small circle on the rumpled covers, then juh the stuff in the box

"Hey, you"

The cat sprang from the box and peered up at her, suddenly cautious It backed away slowly,away