The next evening—Monday night, August sixth—Tom stood on the front porch with his dad, looking at his digital watch every ten seconds as the sun sank deeper and deeper behind the tree-hidden horizon. The last remnants of twilight turned the sky into an ugly black bruise, a few streaks of cloud looking like jagged scars. It had just turned seven-thirty, and the temperature couldn't possibly be more perfect for a romp in the town cemetery. Warm, with a slight breeze bearing the strong scents of honeysuckle and pine.
"Are you ready for this?" Dad asked for the fifth time in the last half hour.
"I guess," Tom replied, tugging at the cap on his head, in no mood to offer any smart-aleck response. He felt like he should have done more to prepare, but there was nothing he could think of to do. The only instruction he'd been given in the Twelve Clues was to show up and do a couple of ridiculous cartoon actions.