Last time we met local SEES. This time I should see if I can make a DRYH reference instead.

4
8:02 A.M.
MELISSAMelissa is a telepath. The noise of the crowd’s thoughts almost physically hurts her, hence the headphones with loud music. It helps a bit. That aspect of her power makes her everyday life in a school a living hell. Though being heavily distracted doesn’t stop her from driving to school, which looks like an accident waiting to happen to me.

On her way, she picks up Rex, and we have a moment of character interaction between them. Apparently, they knew each other from childhood and once chased frozen lightnings, though they were unable to reach any. That’s a pretty cool image, if still confusing considering the physics of the process.

We also learn that Rex was the first person Melissa could read clearly, standing apart from the rest of people, and even now she reads them best of all. I’ll ascribe it to Rex being one of the Awaken.

Yeah, so far her portrayal is a mixed bag. Telepaths are hard to write sympathetically in general due to the inherent disregard for privacy of one’s mind.

 “School grew nearer, the early morning collision of struggle and apprehension
building from taste to clamor, the bitterness on her tongue expanding to a
cacophony that assaulted her entire mind. Melissa knew she’d have to put her
headphones on soon just to make it until classes started.”

“She remembered the night before, in the awesome silence of the blue time.
Even in the dead of normal night she had to put up with the noise of dreams and
night terrors, but the blue hour was absolutely still. That was the only time
Melissa felt whole, completely free of daylight’s chaos. For that one slice of
each day she actually felt like she possessed a talent, a gift rather than a
curse.”

“Melissa remembered to pull her headphones from her bag. She would need them
to get through the halls to homeroom. As they crossed the street, Rex put a hand
on her forearm, careful not to touch bare skin, steadying her as he always did
this close to the distractions of school.”

Lines like those help to build sympathy for Melissa. Her power sucks, and she is removing herself from the crowd not so much because she wants to, but because she physically can’t stand it. That makes her a rather tragic figure, and it’s easy to feel sympathy for someone suffering from things outside of their control.

“She could taste first-week anxiety and inescapable boredom mixed
together into a dull blur, along with the sour bile of wasted time that seeped
out of the walls of the place. But Melissa knew the taste would change as school
grew nearer. In another mile she would be able to distinguish the individual
flavors of resentments, petty victories, rejections, and angry little skirmishes
for dominance.”

“She turned away from Rex, missing his reply, unable to concentrate as the
school—with its noisy squall of anxiety, boredom, desire, misdirected energy,
worry, competition, cheerleader pep, stifled anger, a little joy, and too much
outright fear—swallowed her.”

Lines like those, however, imply she detests the content of people’s thoughts, which is quite different. Because, well, feeling those feelings, thinking those thoughts is natural. To begrudge people it is to begrudge them their humanity, which reminds me rather uncomfortably of Twilight.

So far, Melissa’s attitude is understandable, given how her power assaults her mind, but it’s a thin line to thread. So, I’ll watch out how it’s going to be presented through the novel.

My main concern here is that the book can very easily slide into “special people are cool, mundane people are morons not deserving our – I mean, special people’s – attention.” It’s an appealing fantasy to those who feel rejected by the society, but ultimately toxic. There is a difference between sympathizing with ostracized people and proclaiming them the only ones who matter, and I am not sure where the book falls on this scale.

My concerns could be unfounded, of course. If nothing else, Jessica seems to provide a counterpoint to the Awaken nonconformism, so we’ll see how that theme is going to be explored.

Now, let’s continue with the story.

Melissa and Rex talk about Jessica, and Melissa confirms she’s one of them since her presence could be felt during the secret hour. It also appears that her range is enormous and covers about the whole town as she could feel the rest of the group from her home. Judging by her feeling worse as she got closer to school, though, it seems that the clarity of her readings decreases with distance.

The chapter ends with Rex ominously saying they should get to Jessica soon as there are signs of approaching danger around.

5
11:34 A.M
RURAL LEGENDS

This chapter is about Jessica sitting in a library with a bunch of other girls and discussing “ten things that are weird about Bixby.” One of the girls, Constanza Grayfoot, is doing an article for a school newspaper on this theme, which she uses as an excuse to talk freely in the library.

While she is distracted with explaining this to the librarian, Jessica thinks about the previous night:

“Her dream the night before had done something to her. She wasn’t sure
what. She wasn’t even positive it had been a dream. Had she actually gone
sleepwalking? Jessica’s sweatshirt had gotten wet somehow. But could you really
walk around in driving rain without waking up? Maybe was she just going mildly
nuts.”

Ffffff! I really, really hate that whole “maybe it was a dream” thing. Every time it comes up in a novel, it’s nothing more than a waste of time. The only exceptions are stories where reality being indistinguishable from dream is a plot point. Here, it isn’t.

But, you know, it could have been. The secret hour is a bullshit magic mystery. It could have been affecting how Jessica felt inside of it. It could have filled her with a sense of unreality, like what you feel when you are awake for two days straight and walk through the crowd, and the footsteps of people suddenly form a rhythm that sounds almost as if there is a mind guiding it, and their voices break apart, random syllables you manage to catch forming words of an alien language, and the distance becomes a matter of perception, with you suddenly being trapped in an endless march, your goal never coming closer only to suddenly appear right before you.

If the secret hour was like that, I wouldn’t be asking questions about how it works and I wouldn’t harp as much on Jessica’s refusal to accept its reality. As it is, her reasoning just irritates me.

I don’t have objections to her thinking she may be crazy. That’s a reasonable fear to have, though she doesn’t really dwell on it, which is a shame.

So, we get a bit of exposition. A sheriff apparently disappeared some years ago. There is a curfew for minors: if they are out after eleven, the police would go after them. There is also something called the snake pit outside of town. Rumors say a panther lives here, there are even articles about it, but they are from 30th. There is also a big stone around it, and if you form a certain symbol from pebbles before it, they would move around at midnight. It’s also a place where old arrowheads of Native Americans who lived there about ten thousands years ago can be found. That last one is not a rumor but a fact.

“Jen leaned forward, still talking in a quiet, ghost-story voice. “And even
though archaeologists have been working there for a long time, you can still
find arrowheads if you look. They’re, like, a thousand years old.”

“Ten thousand, you mean.”

Jessica and the others turned to look across the library. It was Dess, the
girl from Jessica’s math class, sitting alone in a corner.”

So, yeah, Dess is also here. Well, I said I would keep an open mind about her, so let’s see how this scene is going to go.

The girls make fun of her, calling her lame and jokingly suggesting to list her as a fourth weird thing about Bixby. They do it in whispers, but Dess probably heard.

That’s the first scene where we actually see people speaking ill of her or otherwise treating her badly, and it does help her image. Someone who scoffs at people because they are not as special as them is an elitist snob. Someone who scoffs at people because they reject them is building up a defense mechanism. It’s not necessary a nice trait, but, much like with Melissa, an understandable one.

Jessica doesn’t like much other girls poking fun at Dess and goes to sit with her, using her math homework as an excuse.

“She remembered how things
had been for her in Chicago, before she’d moved here and become Miss Popular.”

Interesting, though I don’t remember if anything would be done with her backstory. For now I am going to assume Jessica knew Dresden, which left deep scars on her mind. It amuses me.

Also, we find about why Dess wears sunglasses all the time:

“Do you think that…” Her question faltered. Dess’s stare was so cool and
unblinking. “I just wanted to ask you,” Jess started again, “uh… do you
always wear sunglasses when you read?”

“Not always. They make me take them off in class.”

“Oh. But why—?”

“I’m photophobic. Sunlight hurts my eyes. A lot.”

“Ow.They should let you wear dark glasses in class, then.”

“They don’t. There’s no rule. But they don’t.”

You know, suffering really is a good foundation for sympathy.

They talk, Dess asks Jessica if she, too, needs sunglasses now, and Jessica says no. Dess explains that some people who move in Bixby would find sunlight there unbearably bright. She then talks about the town symbol: a thirteen-pointed star (it is not said if it looks kinda like a tree, but I am sure the implication is here) that can be found everywhere: on books, on plaques on all houses, at city hall, etc. Apparently, Bixby is big on the number thirteen in general: there are thirteen council members (though, of course, we shouldn’t really count Tremere, those upstart Mary Sues), the flights of stairs typically have thirteen steps, etc.

After that bout of exposition, Dess asks if Jessica started having funny dreams. Jessica hedges because “For some reason, she didn’t want
to tell Dess about her dream. It had felt so perfect, so welcoming. And she was
certain that Dess would say something to ruin the feeling that the dream had
left her with.” So she tells that maybe she had a weird dream, but maybe it wasn’t a dream.

Dess ominously says that soon Jessica will find out. “Dess looked up at the library clock and
smiled. “In 43,207 seconds, to be exact.”

So, what do I think about Dess now? Well, she’s still annoyingly and probably unnecessary cryptic, especially considering that Melissa has confirmed that Jessica had entered the Mad City. However, I am less antagonistic towards her now. It really helps that Jessica had troubles talking with her. With this, the narrative acknowledges that her behavior is off-putting, which makes it a deliberate part of Dess’ character rather than a part of the narrative.

6
12:01 P.M.
JONATHAN

And again, despite the title, the chapter is from Jessica’s perspective. It’s not a big thing, but it rubs me the wrong way.

Jessica goes to lunch and decides where to sit down.


“As her eyes scanned the room, the butterflies in Jessica’s stomach started
fluttering again. There was Dess, looking straight at her. The girl must have
used some quicker route to the lunchroom through the Bixby High maze.”

OK, so I’m less antagonistic towards Dess, but seriously, she likes to watch. There were references to her stare in the previous chapter, too:

“The girl looked up at her without expression. Not impatient or annoyed, just
strangely neutral behind the glasses.”

“Dess pulled her glasses down half an inch and peered into Jessica’s eyes, an
intent expression on her face.”

Anyway, Dess is sitting there with Rex and Melissa. Jessica recognizes Rex.

“Jessica wondered why she hadn’t seen him around since
then. With his long black coat the guy should have stood out at Bixby. There’d
been a lot of kids like him and Dess back in PS 141, but there were only three
or four here. It was too warm and sunny in Oklahoma to do the whole vampire
thing.”

Heh, the narration acknowledging it’s a pretty ridiculous attire does much for my ability to not poke fun at it on my own. Though there is also a suggestion that it’s a photophobic thing, which… I am not sure how that works? Black fabric wouldn’t reflect any light, but are they truly that sensitive that it’s going to make a difference compared to everything else around them? I understand covering themselves from top to bottom if they don’t like sunlight touching bare skin, but the black color feels arbitrary, especially since it’s just going to make them warmer.

Moving on, Jessica gets into some sort of haze and moves towards Dess’ table almost against her will. She is intercepted by Jonathan, an attractive guy from her physics class. She sits with him instead and proceeds to have an awkward conversation.

The conversation is basically Jessica bonding with Jonathan over both of them moving to Bixby from other places and finding it kinda weird. It’s a nice enough moment, but then it kinda goes downhill:

“It’s just that Bixby is really… psychosomatic.”

“It’s what?” she asked. “Doesn’t that mean ‘all in your head’
or something?”

“Yeah. Like when you feel sick, but your body’s really okay. Your mind has
the power to make you sick. That’s Bixby all over: psychosomatic. The
kind of place that gives you strange dreams.”

And that’s a great way to convince Jessica she really is going crazy. Smooth move here.

Jessica then tells Jonathan, without going into details, about that girl who sometimes sounds like she reads Jessica’s mind. Jonathan tells her that girl is probably using cold reading, probably without even realizing what she’s doing and maybe believing she has some sort of power (she uses a story about his friend going to a psychic to explain all of that, not openly saying that’s what’s going on here, but heavily implying it), but that Jessica shouldn’t dismiss her outright because she can have something important to tell and just not know how to communicate it.

Rather mixed signals here, Jonathan. Do you want Jessica to believe Nightmares are after her or not?

“So it’s possible,” Jonathan continued, “that this girl you know isn’t
completely nuts. She might have a different way of communicating, but maybe she
does have something important to say.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jessica said. “But whatever it is, I kind of wish she’d just
come out and say it.”

“Maybe you’re not ready to hear it.”

OK then, so you think Jessica wouldn’t believe you about the secret hour right away. Why did you even venture into the psychosomatic topic then? That’s my main problem with both him and Dess currently: they dance around the issue with cryptic remarks instead of, you know, talking about mundane things at school and later just meeting her on Bizarre Bazaar and explaining everything. Melissa has detected her, can track her, and Jessica even lives near her home, it shouldn’t be hard to find her. Just do it already.

Just to clarify: it’s not the timing I am objecting to (Melissa just confirmed her presence yesterday), it’s the structure of the plot. We could have skipped the cryptic stuff and cut straight to SEES, Bixby Division finding Jessica and getting her involved in the main plot. Instead, we’ve spent 1/5th of the novel on jerking her around for no clear reason. That doesn’t bode well for the rest of the book.