07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

down on the saddle beside Damon and gathered her courage.
“Damon, I know you have a right to be angry with me. But don’t take it out on the others.
Especially Bonnie.”
“Another lecture?” Damon asked, giving her a look that would freeze a flame.
“No, just a—a request.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “a plea.”
When he didn’t answer and the silence became unbearable, she said, “Damon, for us—
we’re not going on a quest for treasure out of greed or adventure or any normal reason. We’re going
because we need to save our town.”
“From Midnight,” a voice just behind her said. “From the Last Midnight.”
Elena whirled to stare. She expected to see Stefan holding Bonnie clasped to him hard.
But it was only Bonnie at her head level, hanging on to the thurg ladder.
Elena forgot she was afraid of heights. She stood up on the swaying thurg, ready to climb
down on the sun side if there wasn’t enough room for Bonnie to sit down fast in the driver’s saddle.
But Bonnie had the slimmest hips in town and there was just room for all three of them.
“The Last Midnight is coming,” Bonnie repeated. Elena knew that monotonous voice,
knew the chalk-white cheeks, the blank eyes. Bonnie was in trance—and moving. It must be urgent.
“Damon,” Elena whispered. “If I speak to her, she’ll break trance. Can you ask her
telepathically what she means?”
A moment later she heard Damon’s projection. What is the Last Midnight? What’s going
to happen then?
“That’s when it starts. And it’s over in less than an hour. So…no more midnights.”
I beg your pardon? No more midnights?
“Not in Fell’s Church. No one left to see them.”
And when is this going to happen?
“Tonight. The children are finally ready.”
The children?
Bonnie simply nodded, her eyes far away.
Something’s going to happen to all the children?
Bonnie’s eyelids drooped to half mast. She didn’t seem to hear the question.
Elena needed to hold on to something. And suddenly she was. Damon had reached across
Bonnie’s lap and taken her hand.
Bonnie, are the children going to do something at midnight? he asked.
Bonnie’s eyes filled and she bowed her head.
“We’ve got to go back. We have to go to Fell’s Church,” Elena said, and scarcely
knowing what she was doing, unclasped Damon’s hand and climbed down the ladder. The bloated red
sun looked different—smaller. She tugged at the curtain and almost bumped heads with Stefan as he
rolled it up to let her in.
“Stefan, Bonnie’s in trance and she said—”
“I know. I was eavesdropping. I couldn’t even catch her on the way up. She jumped onto
the ladder and climbed like a squirrel. What do you think she means?”
“You remember in the out-of-body experience she and I had? A little spying on Alaric?
That’s what’s going to happen in Fell’s Church. All the children, all at once, just at midnight—that’s
why we have to get back—”
“Easy. Easy, love. Remember what Lady Ulma said? Nearly a year here came out to be
only days in our world.”