Midnight

"I think they al must be dead, don’t you?"Theo’s voice was soft over the roar of the flames. "As for Inari – I think that perhaps someone destroyed her star bal . I’m afraid I was not strong enough to defeat her myself."

"What time is it?"Meredith abruptly cried, remembering. She ran to the old SUV, which was Stillrunning. Its clock showed 12:00 midnight exactly.

"Did we save the people?"Matt asked desperately.

Theo turned her face outward toward the center of the town.

For nearly a minute she was Still, as if listening for something. At last, when Meredith felt that she might shatter from tension, she turned back and said quietly, "Dear Ma ma, Grand mama, and I are one, now. I sense children who are finding themselves holding knives – and some with guns. I sense them standing in their sleeping parents’rooms, unable to remember how they got there. And I sense parents, hiding in closets, a moment ago frightened for their very lives, who are seeing weapons dropped and children fal ing onto master bedroom floors, sobbing and bewildered."

"We did it, then. You did it. You held her off,"Matt panted.

Stillgentle and sober, Theo said, "Someone else – far away – did much more. I know that the town needs healing. But Grand mama and Ma ma agree. Because of them, no child has kil ed a parent this night, and no parent has kil ed a child.

The long nightmare of Inari and her Last Midnight is over."

Meredith, grimy and bedraggled as she was, felt something rise and swell inside her, bigger and bigger, until, for al her training, she couldn’t contain herself any longer. It exploded out of her in a yel of exultation.

She found that Matt was shouting too. He was as grubby and unkempt as she was, but he seized her by the hands and whirled her around in a barbarian victory dance.

And it was fun, whirling around and yel ing like a kid. Maybe – maybe in trying to be calm, in always being the most grown-up, she had missed out on the essence of fun, which always felt as if it had some childlike quality to it.

Matt had no trouble in expressing his feelings, whatever they were: childlike, mature, stubborn, happy. Meredith found herself admiring this, and also thinking that it had been a long time since she’d real y looked at Matt. But now she felt a sudden wave of feeling for him. And she could see that Matt felt the same way about her. As if he’d never real y looked at her properly before.

This was the moment…when they were meant to kiss.

Meredith had seen it so often in movies, and read about it in books, that it was almost a given.

But this was life, it wasn’t a story. And when the moment came, Meredith found herself holding Matt’s shoulders while he held hers, and she could see that he was thinking exactly the same thing about the kiss.

The moment stretched…

Then, with a grin, Matt’s face showed that he knew what to do. Meredith did too. They both moved in, and hugged each other. When they drew back, they were both grinning. They knew who they were. They were very different, very close friends. Meredith hoped that they always would be.

They both turned to look at Theo, and Meredith felt a pang in her heart, the first since she had heard they’d saved the town. Theo was changing. It was the look on her face as she watched them that gave Meredith the pang.

After being young, and while watching youth at its peak, she was once again aging, wrinkling, her hair going white instead of moonlit silver. At last, she was an old woman wearing a raincoat covered with bits of paper.

"Mrs. Flowers!" This person, it was perfectly safe and right to kiss. Meredith flung her arms about the frail old woman, lifting her off her feet in excitement. Matt joined them, and they boosted her above their heads. They carried her like this to the Saitous, mother and daughter, who were watching the fire.

There, sobered, they put her down.

"Isobel,"Meredith said. "God! I’m so sorry – your home…"

"Thank you,"Isobel said in her soft, slurred voice. Then she turned away.

Meredith felt chil ed. She was even beginning to regret the celebration, when Mrs. Saitou said, "Do you know, this is the greatest moment in the history of our family? For hundreds of years, that ancient kitsune – oh, yes, I’ve always known what she was – has been forcing herself upon innocent humans.

And for the last three centuries it has been my family line of samurai mikos that she has terrorized. Now my husband can come home at last."

Meredith looked at her, startled. Mrs. Saitou nodded.

"He tried to defy her and she banished him from the house.

Ever since Isobel was born, I have feared for her. And now, please forgive her. She has trouble expressing what she feels."

"I know about that,"Meredith said quietly. "I’l go have a little talk with her, if it’s All right."

If ever in her life she could explain to a fel ow traveler what fun having fun was, she thought, it was now.

Chapter 38

Damon had stopped and was kneeling behind an enormous broken tree branch. Stefan pul ed both girls to him and caught them so that they al three landed just behind his brother.

Elena found herself staring at a very large tree trunk. Stillas big as it was, it was nowhere near as large as she had been expecting. It was true; the four of them certainly couldn’t have held hands around it. But in the back of her mind had been lurking images of moons and trees and trunks that were as tal as skyscrapers, in which a star bal could be hidden on any "floor,"in any "room."

This was simply a grand oak tree trunk sitting in a sort of fairy circle – perhaps twenty feet in diameter on which no dead leaf had strayed. It was a paler color than the loam they had been running on, and even sparkled in a few places. Overal , Elena was relieved.