CHAPTER ONE.

"You're such an idiot." Jamison shook his head.

Ray grinned as he watched his paper airplane glide out the gla.s.sless window and into the darkness. "You love me."

Jamison didn't know whether it was his imagination or the glow of white paper that his eyes followed, arching off to the right, then lodging in a corn stalk twenty feet below the old tree house. He itched to turn on the flashlight, to see if it had landed where he thought, but that would screw up their little stake-out.

The tree was enormous, nearly five feet in diameter, and the ancient clubhouse was so insanely high people forgot it was there. Built thirty or forty years ago, before people knew better than to pound railroad stakes into living trees, a dozen three-foot boards were nailed to the side of the trunk, creating a ladder. Not realizing it had been mortally wounded, the tree hung on to those boards like a dutiful soldier. Unfortunately, and fortunately, the gaps between the rungs stretched with each year and little kids could no longer use them.

Not that they would want to; even Jamison hated being up so high.

Another page was loudly ripped from a dusty tabloid.

"Dude!" Jamison groped for the magazine in the dark and pulled it away from the childhood friend whom he'd barely recognized two days before when Jamison had returned to his grandpa's farm. "I didn't freeze my b.u.t.t off 'til three o'clock in the morning just so you could give us away."

"Oh yeah. Okay."

Behind them, Burke began to snore.

"Hey. Hey, wake up. It's almost time." Ray thumped on the guy until he stopped snoring and dragged himself over to join the party.

"This better be good, man." Burke rubbed his eyes and set his chin on the two-by-four window frame. There was no moon, but in the eerie blue light from the stars, the skater beanie hanging off the back of his head made his profile look like an alien's.

s.p.a.ce was tight, with all three of them looking out the rectangle opening, but at least Jamison was warmer. Colorado in the fall was like Siberia to a kid who'd spent the last five years in Texas.

A door spring creaked from the left, then creaked again, as if the neighbor's old porch screen had slowly opened and then shut even slower.

"Holy c.r.a.p," Ray whispered. His legs started bouncing.

"Relax." Jamison tried not to get too excited. So someone was up at three a.m. just like Ray had promised. They still had no clue what was planned, only that it was a secret, and maybe a cult thing.

"It's not that. I have to p.i.s.s." Ray's legs still shook.

"You'll have to hold it," Jamison ordered.

"No way, bro. My Dew just hit." Ray stood up. "I'm going down."

"Me too." Burke stood up. "I gotta go too."

A chill ran up and down Jamison's spine like a pinball between b.u.mpers. If he got busted spying on their neighbors, his mom would kill him. Heck, he'd die of embarra.s.sment all by himself, especially if the hot one heard about it; either way, he'd be dead. When he started school tomorrow, he wanted to be able to look her in the eye again, not hide from her.

"Just find a bottle," he pleaded.

"No way. It would overflow." Ray shuffled toward the exit in the corner of the floor. "I'd arc it out the window, but I might hit someone."

Burke choked on a laugh.

"Okay. But if you're going down, be quiet. And hurry."

A few seconds later Jamison was alone. He pulled his hoodie over his head but held it out from his ears, listening for Ray to make too much noise.

A breeze disturbed the field below.

At first, he worried it was his friends, peeing over the fence. Why else would the tree leaves not be moving too? But the rustling came from the ground and grew louder, as if tons of people were walking through the dense drying field.

Jamison turned back to the window.

Tons of people. Holy c.r.a.p.

Suddenly he'd have given anything to be tucked in bed, completely oblivious to what his grandpa's freakish neighbors did in the middle of the night. Maybe if he, too, would have needed to pee, he could've snuck back into the house instead of sitting in the front row of what he hoped wouldn't be some sort of ritual sacrifice.

They made movies out of this stuff-a boy witnesses a murder. Boy reports the murder. There is no body. Soon...there is no boy.

Not daring to sit front and center in case the moon suddenly showed up, he stood and moved back, satisfied to watch only what came into view. He tugged harder on his hood, to hide his blond hair, folded his arms, and tucked his cold hands into his armpits, grateful for the thick soft cotton of his new sweatshirt.

Small glowing lights moved among the plants, headed for the center of the field. As Jamison shifted from foot to foot the specters spread into a circle about fifty yards out from the tree. At first, he thought someone was going to burn the field, but the lights were as steady as the people carrying them.

But they weren't actually carrying them.

Robes-the light came from under their robes as if each person wore a single, battery-operated Christmas light on one shoe. He would have laughed at the costumes if he hadn't just noticed that the neighbors were standing in a ring, in the middle of...of...a crop circle!

He, Ray, and Burke had climbed up pretty early-around eight o'clock. They'd looked over that field for an hour or so before it got dark. They would have noticed a freaking crop circle!

Come on. Come on. If those two didn't hustle, they'd miss it. They'd never believe him if the circle somehow disappeared by morning. He'd never believe it. They'd also never believe the lights-coming from...wherever.

They'd believe the robes, though; this group wasn't just eco-friendly, they were eco-nuts. Calling themselves Somerleds, they lived like the Amish or Mennonites-keeping to themselves, living simply-only instead of wearing black all the time, they wore white. Ray told him they wore only raw wool and raw cotton, and as far as his friend knew, they only ate raw food as well. No meat. Strictly vegetarians.

At least if they were sacrificing something, or someone, they wouldn't be eating it afterward. For some reason, that put Jamison a little more at ease. He still stayed back from the window, though. Who knew what might light up next and clearly show the Somerleds the face of their new neighbor/spy?

The circle of lights and bodies settled. Nothing else moved through the field; all were contained in that deep bowl of dried husks, the sides towering over the tallest of heads, the ta.s.sels waving in the breeze like flags above a circus tent.

Very clever; no one in that flat county would notice the meeting place unless they were flying overhead...or perched in one of Granddad's windbreak trees. They would never get away with this closer to the mountains.

But just what were they trying to get away with?

Movement.

A taller one-had to be a man-moved around the circle, stopping at each person for a minute. When he stopped near a small figure, the two hugged. For just a second that hot girl's face was lit up over the man's shoulder, her hair spilling down the guy's arm, and Jamison was. .h.i.t by an invisible Mac truck.

She was there. She was part of it. He'd fallen for a circus freak.

Jamison moved to the side of the window, wanting a better look, but more afraid of getting caught than before.

"Just show them a little respect for the good neighbors they've been to me," his granddad had asked in his letter.

Jamison had never been so near Somerled people before. For the last two days he'd tried not to stare and had done a pretty good job, he'd thought. He was a good actor, just like most kids in big city high schools; you had to walk a thin line between ignoring the dangerous people and showing them enough respect, and do both without drawing their attention. He'd managed to live a pretty invisible life in Texas and treating the Somerleds like dangerous gang members had been a good plan...

Until a girl his age had pulled up in a green BMW and caught him with his mouth hanging open. Her clothes marked her a Somerled, but her car was anything but simple. What was up with that?

He wouldn't call her pretty, but she had a look that said one of these days she'd be beautiful. Her nose was kind of cute and boxy on the end. Her eyes were so dark you couldn't tell where the iris ended and the pupil began. There was something warm and melty about those eyes, like chocolate in the bottom of a black cup. Her face was what his mom would call heart-shaped.

She styled her light brown hair the same as every other American female did-long and straight. It swung like a heavy drape when she walked.

And she wasn't overly hot, or at least he'd never be able to tell with all her white layers of clothes. Her pants looked like white jeans. She wore an off-white t-shirt that showed in the V of her same-colored sweater. Her rough-looking coat was kind of the same color of pencil lead. Her boots looked like moccasins and matched the fringe of her scarf, both of them the shade of raw leather-like the inside of an orange peel. A She-eco-nut. Just like the rest. Just like you'd find all over the world.

But she wore plain pretty well. Whether or not it was the confidence in her walk, or her steady gaze when she'd finally noticed him, he couldn't say. One thing was for sure, though. She'd gotten his attention and he was never going to get it back.

Especially when she teased him with crop circles and secret meetings in the middle of the night.

The tall one finally moved away from her and walked toward the center of the circle. His movements were slow, deliberate. Bent corn stalks tugged at his robes as he pa.s.sed over them, but he kept going until he reached the center.

Jamison was relieved there wasn't an altar in sight.

The Somerleds cleared their throats, then began...singing...kind of. It was more like the sound an orchestra makes when the musicians are warming up, only with voices.

A choir? Some stupid kind of choir practice at 3:00 in the morning? Something that couldn't be sung in a building somewhere, but in a crop circle?

Jamison smirked. How lame. Oh, he was going to kill Ray.

The noise sharpened, the voices blending better. He'd stay and watch for another minute, then he was going to bed. Ray could live until morning when they met up at school. If this was his idea of a joke, he'd be dead before first period.

Jamison glared out at the scene, disgusted that he'd lost sleep for this. He didn't know what he'd been hoping to see, maybe a body being buried or some blood-drinking ceremony, but not this. Okay, the crop circle was pretty cool, but that was it.

He was about to turn away when the man in the center suddenly started getting taller and taller. Only he wasn't growing-he was rising in the air!

With the lights from the far side of the circle it was clear there was nothing lifting him up-definitely a David Blaine kind of thing.

But then, twenty feet in the air, nearly straight out from the tree house, he...exploded.

Fiery pieces of him flew in all directions and disintegrated, like a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. But there had been no sound. The singing had stopped short when the guy exploded.

Holy c.r.a.p! They blew him up!

"Holy s.h.i.t!" Ray's voice rose through the drop door and none too quietly.

Immediately, light hit the tree house-not small lights but more powerful beams, like cop flashlights. The Somerleds started moving back into the corn, heading not in the directions from which they came, but toward the trees! Some started to run.

Jamison's heart splashed into his bladder and he thought he'd p.i.s.s his pants. He hurried to the hole and leaned over.

"Get out of here!" he hissed. "They're coming."

But Ray had already noticed. He was nearly sitting on Burke's head as the two climbed down as fast as the awkward rungs would allow. If Jamison tried to follow, he'd get to the ground just in time to welcome the neighbors to his back yard.

c.r.a.p!

Would they come looking in the tree house?

He peeked out the window. Long robes didn't seem to be slowing anyone down. They looked like a search party after escaped convicts and they didn't appear concerned about the fence, either. Did they expect to run right through it?

h.e.l.l yes, they'd come looking in the tree house.

Suddenly he remembered the other trap door, but this one opened onto the roof. Jamison had "remodeled" when he'd inherited the hideout. Although with no handholds of any kind, and nothing to keep one from falling off the roof, the opening had only been used to hide contraband when Grandpa started huffing and puffing his way up the tree.

Jamison moved beneath it, thankful to still be deep in the shadows where the flashlight beams didn't reach him.

No go. c.r.a.p c.r.a.p c.r.a.p. He'd remembered the hole being so much larger.

The side window was barely big enough, but all he needed. He thrust one leg through and found a fat branch for his shoe. With a bit of maneuvering he found enough footholds to make his way to the roof and eased himself onto it, flattening as best as he could. The wood was cold and would have been smooth if not for decades of bird droppings, leaves, and sap sealing out the elements as well as shingles would have.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are." The taunting voice came from far below. The clubhouse was over six feet tall, so now that Jamison was on the roof his mind did the math and he froze. He was too high. He would die if he fell.

"Please, G.o.d, help me!" Ray wasn't acting. He wasn't joking. He sounded terrified, but Jamison couldn't help; he couldn't move. His mom would have to call the fire department in the morning and they'd come after him with a cherry picker, like a stupid cat.

All he could do was listen.

A deep laugh rumbled up to the canopy of dried leaves that waited for just the right breeze to pry their grasps from the high branches. "Don't you just love Desperation Prayers?"

"Oh yes," a woman answered. "They're like dessert, like the cherry on top. I bet I'd like cherries."

"Get your hands off me!" It was Burke's voice. "Let me go, you mother-"

"Now, now. Is that any way to talk? We're going to help you, son."

"I don't need help, you sick-"

"Stop that. You'll only feel worse for it in the end." The woman's voice and Burke's were moving away.

"Yes, and you have enough to repent over already, don't you think?" The deep voice laughed again. "Come along, Ray. Do you mind if we call you Ray?"

Ray couldn't be fond of cops, not with the candy store in his pockets he'd shown off to Jamison that day. Maybe that was why he sounded so terrified. Maybe he thought he'd be arrested.

But that wasn't right. They weren't trespa.s.sing. They were on Jamison's property, or at least they had been. If the Somerleds called the cops, Jamison would set them straight. They had no reason to arrest anyone. If anything, those guys should be charged with kidnapping.

But Jamison couldn't defend anyone stuck in a tree. He wanted to get down-he was freezing-but there had been so many of them. Some could still be waiting for him to show himself.

Forget that. I'd rather freeze.

He heard murmurs beneath him, getting closer, getting louder. Although he was expecting it, vibrations sent a wave of panic through him when someone dragged himself up through the hole, into the clubhouse.

"Cool."

More vibrations.

"Yeah, but look at the view."