The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

The rest of Winnie’s school day is blissfully uneventful. On the ride to Falls’ Finest in the Wednesday family van after Sunday training, Winnie revels in the continued elation of Bretta and Fatima, who refer (in the cagiest of terms) to our third trial that we have to keep totally secret . Everyone laughs along willingly, Winnie loudest of all.

Although she can’t help but notice Emma isn’t quite as enthusiastic. So while they trace the brick sidewalks of downtown toward the glossy, glassy entrance of the main shopping hub in Hemlock Falls, Winnie hangs back. Emma might officially be off crutches, but she’s still in a cast and always a few steps behind.

It doesn’t help that the streets are extra crammed from an influx of foreign Luminaries here to enjoy the Nightmare Masquerade. The only two restaurants in town (the Très Jolie and the Revenant’s Daughter) have lines stretched down the sidewalk. Plus, decorations cover everything: banners on the streetlamps, colored lanterns in the trees, garlands on benches and trash bins, and—annoyingly—that inaccurate basilisk poster everywhere.

Come on, Darian! Why wouldn’t you consult your sister before printing that design in bulk?

“Hey,” Winnie offers Emma quietly. “How are you feeling about… this?” She dips her head toward Bretta and Fatima, who bound forward, arms around each other like they’re off to see the Wizard (the wonderful Wizard of Oz!).

Emma sighs. She doesn’t need Winnie to elaborate on what this means. “You know, I’m happy for Bretta. I really am. And I’m sure she’ll leap right into training—”

Winnie’s insides curdle at the word training . She definitely forgot about Aunt Rachel’s email from that morning.

“—because that’s how Bretta is. She sees what she wants and she just… Well, she goes and gets it. Even when we were babies, she walked a full month sooner than I did. Mom always says it was because Bretta was way too impatient and wanted to make sure she could get to our toys and have first pick. But…” Emma trails off.

Winnie lets a silence stretch between them, broken only by the ambient noise of other Luminaries milling about in the blustery downtown. Emma will say what she wants in her own time, and it’s one of the things Winnie most appreciates about her. Emma is always intentional, in her words, in her movements, in her choices.

Sure enough, right when they reach the entrance to Falls’ Finest, shoppers moving more speedily around them, Emma finally offers: “I think this might be another time where Bretta’s ready to walk, but I’m still good with crawling. Does that make sense? I know I passed my third trial, and I know I felt ready before I went into it with you… But I didn’t like being out there. And not because of the harpy or the werewolf or any of the other nightmares I saw. I didn’t… well, I don’t think I feel like Bretta does when she’s in those trees.”

Winnie nods. They have stopped walking. Fatima and Bretta are gone, swallowed up by the store along with all the other Luminaries who need last-minute outfits for the week of celebration.

“It definitely makes sense.” Winnie reaches out to touch her friend’s arm. Just a gentle brush above Emma’s elbow. “And I’ll support you whether you join the hunt or become a networker or give up entirely on the Luminaries.” Her throat tightens on those last words. She really doesn’t want Emma to give up entirely on the Luminaries.

Emma smiles. “Don’t tell Bretta, okay? She still thinks I’m going to go full hunter mode as soon as I’m out of this cast. And hey—I might. I’ll definitely attend some training sessions before I make any decisions. But…”

“But,” Winnie agrees. “And don’t worry: I won’t say a word to anyone.”

“I know.” Emma briefly rests her head on Winnie’s shoulder in a sideways half hug. Her braids smell like her favorite lilac perfume. “That’s why I like you so much, Winnie. You’re a great listener, and a steel vault for secrets. Sometimes, that’s exactly what a gal needs.”

While Winnie knows Emma’s words were offered in kindness, they pummel and churn like stones in a harpy gizzard. You’re a great listener, and a steel vault for secrets.

Yeah, Winnie is a steel vault all right. The kind that’s really heavy and sinks down to the bottom of a lake. Probably the Big Lake while kelpies and sirens feast on her bones. First, Winnie has too many secrets of her own, ranging from dad-shaped to Diana-shaped to lying-about-a-banshee-shaped. Then she has all these other people’s secrets too. Like Jay’s bona fide status as a daywalking nightmare werewolf . Or Erica’s unabashed, strutting-around status as a freaking Diana .

Fortunately, there’s not enough space in Winnie’s abdomen for guilt to wedge in. It’s just so stinking fun to be with her new best friends. Plus, she hasn’t been shopping in actual years, and on top of that, she isn’t the one who has to pay for new clothes because according to Fatima, Winnie has access to the Wednesday clan’s credit line.

“Mom told me I need to look good for all the foreign Luminaries coming to town.” Fatima is studying the seam quality on a pair of cherry-red trousers as she says this. “Then she told me I should buy a few things for you too, Win. Our local celebrity must look her best! ” Fatima shrugs, glancing at Winnie with clear apology in her blue eyes. “Not that you don’t always look your best, I mean.”

Winnie doesn’t take it personally that Fatima’s mom Leila also thinks her wardrobe sucks. Or at least, the truth stings a lot less once she has a pair of dark jeans, a fitted white T-shirt, and a wispy black dress with a pink flower pattern (that Bretta picked out for her) folded inside a paper bag. She even gets some black ankle boots she can wear with the dress and the jeans, and although Fatima insists Winnie should buy more stuff if she wants it…

Well, Winnie is pretty sure there’s a point at which she’s just being greedy. Besides, the one thing she really wants are new glasses, but that is beyond the purview of Falls’ Finest.

Maybe it’s time to try contacts again. Or not. ( Yuck, touching your eyeball!)

Winnie spends so many hours with her square of friends that she barely has time to get home, change, and then pedal at maximum speed to the Wednesday estate for training, which is definitely not the thing she wants to do next. She hasn’t gotten to read the latest messages from Erica; she hasn’t eaten dinner; and she has a book report due tomorrow for a book she can’t even remember the title of.

But for some reason, Winnie is pretty sure none of those reasons will seem valid to Aunt Rachel. Plus, Winnie can’t deny she’s ready to get this whole encounter over with. She has been avoiding her aunt for a week now, ever since their awkward debrief at the hospital, when Rachel basically said, I will cover for you and Jay, and we’ll all pretend that the werewolf is dead and you had nothing to do with those burned Dianas.

So yeah. It’s time to rip off this Band-Aid.

Tulips, newly erupted in vivid red, pink, and purple, flutter in neat rows beside the narrow green door into the Wednesday clan’s Armory, i.e., the basement compound where hunters train. The evening sun shines, and rain clouds that had threatened to unload earlier have dispersed unemptied. The forest does that sometimes: breaks its weather promises right as you prepare for the winds to blow a certain way.

Although Winnie can’t see it from this angle, she hears the beep and grind of power tools and construction gear. If she were to keep walking until she reached the gardens that sprawl behind the estate, she would see the assembly of pergolas and stages and tens of booths for the Hunters’ Feast on Wednesday.

Each clan has their own celebration, and for the Wednesday bears, it’s all about the food.

Winnie’s breaths are shallow, her body warm from pedaling here on the family bike. She frowns at a flyer for the Nightmare Masquerade on the brick wall beside the Armory door. Then she considers if she should submit an anatomical cross section of a basilisk fang for the Compendium contest…

Then she accepts she is procrastinating and she charges through the unlocked door. Stairs descend before her. The spring sun winks away as she plummets down two steps at a time.

The first thing she notices is the smell—something floral, like a spa waits ahead and not an intense gym for the practice of killing monsters. Fluorescent lights glimmer, gentle and unwavering and always at perfect brightness. Footsteps hammer, as does a sound like fists on foam targets. Then Winnie steps off the stairs into a wide space filled with hunters on the move. They leap, they roll, they swing at each other and block expertly.

Winnie stands on the second-to-last step while chills roll down her arms. This is what she wanted. This is what she dreamed of joining—more than the Masquerade, more than Sunday estate training, more than Wednesday clan dinners or even easy access to the Monday libraries…

Now here she is, and wow . She really has come so far in a month.

“Hey, kid!” Rachel’s voice barks out over the din. It takes Winnie a few seconds to target-lock her aunt, who waves from behind a row of red punching bags. As Winnie jogs toward her, Wednesday hunters slow their workouts long enough to nod. A second cousin named Keifer throws out a hand for a fist bump, and it’s such a casual gesture that Winnie’s chest swells up like a puffer fish. Chad Wednesday, who made fun of Winnie on her first day of corpse duty— Death is a part of life. Get used to it, Little Win-Win, or you won’t last a week inside the forest— hollers, “Nice to see ya, Winnie!”

He and Keifer aren’t impressed by what Winnie did on her third trial. No one in this basement is, because they don’t look at Winnie and see a celebrity. Instead, they see a new recruit joining the hunt.

For half a second, as Winnie nears Aunt Rachel—no sign that Rachel is the Lead Hunter beyond her general air of authority—a sadness grips Winnie’s organs. It wrings out her stomach, digs into her intestines. Because Mom didn’t just lose her husband four years ago. Or her job or her friends. She lost her entire network, her entire identity.

Mom used to be a part of this, shouting orders and adjusting hunter form like Rachel does. She used to get fist bumps and welcome nods.

Then Winnie reaches Aunt Rachel, who, rather than acknowledge her niece, instead shoos Winnie over to the side so she can scope out two hunters sprinting by on the indoor track. Thump, thump, thump go their boots. In one hand, they swing their training bows. In the other, their training knives.

“First lesson,” Rachel says flatly, watching them fly by. “If you’re going to carry something in one hand, always have something else in the other. The human body evolved with bilateral symmetry.” Her attention briefly flicks to Winnie’s. “So if you only hold something on one side, your body is out of balance. And that, in turn, will slow you down.”

“Oh.” Winnie blinks, fastening her attention once more on the two hunters—who are somehow already halfway around the track. They’ve caught up to a slower mass of runners, and they dip and weave through the crowd before surging ahead again.

The taller of the two, Robin Wednesday (no relation to Winnie), is grinning as they gain ground on Jodi Wednesday (also no relation).

Rachel cups her hands to her mouth. “Tag her, Robin!”

Robin’s grin widens. They double back and charge for Jodi, but Jodi is already diving into the mass of runners—who sway and scoot and duck to avoid Jodi. What ensues is one of the coolest things Winnie has ever seen. It’s like watching bacteria crawl across a petri dish. The slower runners just keep jogging, veering as they must to avoid collision, while Robin and Jodi play an advanced game of tag.

All while holding their knives and bows too.

Then the bacterial mass has reached Winnie and Rachel. Boots and bodies thunder by. Jodi gets a punch at Robin’s chest. Robin gets a kick into Jodi’s low back. And Winnie has never wanted to play a game as much as she wants to play this one.

Perhaps because Winnie is grinning like an old family photo of Grandma Winona splattered with vampira viscera, Rachel says: “Don’t worry, Win. You’ll be part of that soon enough. You need better training clothes though. Here.” She fishes a small key out of her hoodie pocket. “For your locker. Number eighteen.”

Winnie swallows. Number eighteen. Mom’s locker. For all of Winnie’s childhood, that key hung on a hook beside her family’s fridge.

Winnie accepts the key, slightly warm from Rachel’s pocket, and finds a look in her aunt’s eyes she has seen before: in the forest when Rachel really wanted to help Winnie and Jay, but her loyalty to the cause said she couldn’t.

Winnie swallows a second time, but her throat isn’t as willing to cooperate this time. Rachel looks away first, attention lasering onto her hunters. The brief glimpse of feelings is already gone, squashed beneath a Lead Hunter’s frown and a hard, “Nicki and Tanaz, you’re up! Jodi and Robin, to the bags!” She doesn’t look at Winnie as she adds more quietly, “Get dressed, Win. We have work to do.”

“Yeah,” Winnie murmurs. She closes her hand around the key. One day—hopefully soon—Mom will be allowed to hunt again. Then Winnie will give her locker number eighteen, and the order of the world will be right again.

For now, though, this locker is hers. And for now, Winnie has work to do.