The Midnight Test

Jessa Wren stood with a clipboard full of clippings from the local paper, cataloging old photos of the station. Her mother worked nights at the Bluestone Bay Messenger, so Jessa had grown up smelling rumor before it hardened into fact. Cal Mercer drummed his sticks against the window frame like he was cracking a code. He had just come from football practice, mud still on his cleats, a cassette Walkman clipped at his belt. Nia Sloane set a portable shortwave receiver on the table, next to a frequency chart she had copied from the public library’s microfilm archives. She rarely spoke first. Even her silence looked careful. “This is just a dead-band check,” Mara said. “Nobody is summoning anything.”