The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

As far as Winnie knows, on the night her dad disappeared, events unfolded as follows:

It was a Monday, and Mom was supposed to be gone until 8 P.M. with hunter training. She sprained her ankle, though, so she left Aunt Rachel in command and came home early. Winnie was at Erica’s house doing homework. Darian was on his second date with Andrew (they went for coffee at Joe Squared).

When Mom reached the house, she found Dad in the middle of the living room with a glowing light in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. The paper vanished the instant she stepped into the living room; the light did not.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, total shock mixing with rigid horror. “Is that a source?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Dad replied. His hair was apparently a mess. “Fran, you can’t be here.”

In the time it took him to say those words, Mom realized there was magic all around. She smelled it, she felt it. Dad tried to run. She tried to give chase, but her ankle was busted. She barely made it five steps before he was through the kitchen and opening the door.

He looked back once. The light around his hand spread. An explosion, Mom thought, before it hit her. She blacked out.

When she came to, she dragged herself to the Tuesday estate. Not that Darian or Winnie knew this. They came home; they went to bed; then they were both awakened by Tuesday scorpions hours later and locked into handcuffs.

The rest… ah, well, the rest is shitty history. Winnie and Darian were hauled underground at the Tuesday estate and blasted with Jeremiah’s probing questions—in separate rooms, of course. Were there burn marks on your dad’s fingers? Did you ever smell strange things in the house? Did he have small wooden coins in his possession?

No, no, the answer to everything was no—including the biggest question of all: Can your family still be in the Luminaries?

Four years later, after months in denial, then years in rage… then the sudden flip of the script in which Winnie learned Dad was actually framed… Now here Winnie is, and everything has been flipped all over again.

Dad was framed, and maybe Mom has always known about it.

It makes a frowning, chewed-up sort of sense. After all, Mom never really fought the punishment passed down from the Council, even though it ruined her life and her children’s. She just kept her gaze forward, never complained, and trudged on.

And then there was always that nagging question of why Mom kept the birthday cards that mysteriously appeared in the mailbox each year. What if, Winnie now wonders, there were more than just birthday cards? What if Mom found other things too?

Winnie’s mind is alight as she walks through the Carnival and the calliope music nips after. One turn on the Ferris wheel was all she endured before she got right back off again. The Crow trilled, “Ciao ciao!” while Marcia leaped into Winnie’s place. Winnie ignored the Crow—and ignored Marcia and everyone else too. She simply set off, walking south. Then once she reached the carnival’s exit, she strode through and didn’t look back.

She wants to go to the Friday estate and search for Jay.

She wants to track down Mom and confront her.

And she wants to pound that Diana’s face in, then pound in Jeremiah Tuesday’s too.

But it’s time for Sunday training, and so back to the Sunday estate Winnie will go. By foot. She will walk and walk and walk because there’s something about the steady pounding of her feet that seems to fire up her brain. Like one of those bicycle-powered engines: as long as her wheels are spinning, her brain has computational function.

People slow down to offer her rides. Casey Tuesday in his Wrangler. Fatima in her Mom’s Taurus. But Winnie waves them on. It’s not that she doesn’t want company right now (although she doesn’t) so much as her brain can’t spare the processing power. She needs to think through what it might mean if Mom has always known. She needs to feel what it might mean if Mom has always known.

Could that mean Mom also knows where Dad is right now?

Winnie pushes into a jog, savoring how her Converse slap on pavement. How her breaths get shallow and fast. Heat saturates her muscle fibers. She has to stop at one point to pull off her green sweater, revealing her white tee now speckled with green fuzz. She holds the sweater in one fist, losing her bilateral symmetry, but the challenge feels good. Like it used to feel when she would run and run and run, thinking only of the hunter trials ahead. Knowing only she could save her family by passing them.

What if Mom could have saved them all along? What does that mean for Winnie and for Darian?

It’s too much for Winnie to reckon with, so she just keeps slamming one foot in front of the other until she reaches the middle of the dam. No floats or boats are here now. Just water and cold.

At this point, her emotions are running along familiar fault lines. And frankly, if she could have her way, she’d just skip the whole feeling things quake and jump straight into the aftermath of dusty stillness.

Winnie cranks out her arm, sweater still clutched there, and imagines dropping it into the Little Lake, where it can sink down and join all the plastic candy wrappers. And also the Tuesday Hummer Grayson Friday drove in there four years ago.

Four years ago. Why did so many things happen four years ago?

At that question, a memory surfaces in a way the candy bars and Hummer never will. A conversation on the roof of the old museum, where Jay lay draped on shingles while grief and vape smoke enclosed him.

“Grayson was on his second trial,” Winnie says to the water, where wind sketches a chevron pattern. White chop on dark waves. “When he stole a Tuesday Hummer and drove it off the dam.”

The second trial was the same trial Jenna was on when she died. Jenna, who was Grayson’s girlfriend. Jenna, who created the Whisperer. Jenna, who gave Grayson her locket for reasons no one understands.

And Grayson, who tried to reach out to Erica four years ago, only for her to essentially throat-punch him away. He told her that he’d found Jenna on her trial and tried to revive her. Assuming that’s true, what happened next? Why did he steal a Hummer and drive it off this bridge right there?

Winnie is still gripping the green sweater, holding it over the water as if she really does plan to drop it. In her brain, her three-petaled trilliums are morphing into four-petaled poppies.

Dad, Mom, Jenna, Grayson. On the surface, they should have nothing in common. And yet, four years ago something happened that connects them all.

Mom and Dad. What does Mom know? This is a conversation Winnie will have tonight, when she can gather the needed supplies and corner Francesca Wednesday alone.

Jenna and Grayson. What did Grayson know? Winnie thinks of the photograph she found in Jay’s office—of Grayson wearing Jenna’s locket. Then she thinks of Jay, still missing—or at least not answering her messages.

Winnie reels in her arm. The sleeve of the green sweater flutters like a fishing line that’s lost its catch. After tying the sweater around her waist, she resumes her run. Symmetrical now. Faster thinking, better processing. Until eventually the Sunday estate appears before her. Until she is once more at the oak tree where she met Erica only a few hours before.

Luminaries percolate from vehicles toward the front doors, pulled by the gravity of their culture. There might be a carnival with cotton candy and goldfish, but there is also a forest that wants to kill them. Winnie lets her footsteps slow so she can search for a Wagoneer. For Jay’s pale head and signature flannel.

He isn’t here, though, so she looks instead for Erica and the Porsche. Winnie will call Jay directly. She will hear his voice, and maybe then she will feel less worried about him.

Because of course, there are other things than the Crow that might have harmed him.

Winnie shoves inside the Sunday estate—so full, so alive now—and continues her wild search for Jay’s face, for Erica’s. Her feet lead her without conscious control to Luminary history, where Professor Alice is waiting at the door.

Because of course, Professor Samuel is dead.

Because of course, Winnie killed him.

“Ah, there you are,” Alice says with a smile that reveals lipstick on her teeth. “I have been told to escort you out of class.”

Winnie blinks at Alice. She is panting and sweating, and her neural pathways are primed for instant panic— What is it this time? Did they learn Erica and I broke in earlier? Oh god, what if they have security cameras!

Except now Alice chimes: “You’re being moved to new classes, Winnie!” She grips Winnie’s biceps with the strength of a droll and whirls her around. “I’ll be seeing you at the end of the day moving forward, instead of the beginning.”

“Ma’am?” Winnie is surprised this comes out without cracking.

“You’re being bumped up, Winnie. Don’t you want to be around students closer to your own age?” Alice’s smile falters. “Wait—why are you so sweaty? Did you run here?”

Winnie nods.

“Well, all the more reason to advance you. Come on.”

“So… I’ll be with my grade now?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t say grade .” An apologetic smile. “The headmaster felt you were too behind in Luminary history for that, but she did move you to the tenth-year class during third period. And for first period, you’ll be moving into twelfth-year physical training.”

“Oh.” Winnie doesn’t really know what else to say to this.

“You passed all of your trials,” Alice explains. “Which means you’re more than ready to train with the seniors. But if you don’t feel comfortable, I’m sure Headmaster Gina can rearrange things—once our day of Sunday festivities is over, of course. I hear you will be at our Sunday dinner tonight?”

“Uh, yeah.” Winnie finds herself swallowing and shoving at her glasses. Alice has led her to the locker rooms, and the door looks very different with body heat and voices to press against it.

“In you go.” Alice grins. “And I’ll see you in third period!”

Winnie feels detached from her body as she moves to her usual locker. She just jogged from the Floating Carnival while her brain attempted to run complex computational formulas. Now here she is, back in the Sunday estate locker room where the lights are too bright and a handful of seniors are staring at her with expressions she can’t sort through. Are those fangirl smiles or mocking ones? Or are these girls all just changelings who want to eat Winnie and wear her skin?

She has just wriggled into her black training T-shirt, when bam . Someone is standing beside her.

L.A. Saturday snorts at Winnie’s flinch. She wears the same training gear as everyone else, but she has made it wholly her own by cutting her T-shirt into a crop top and adding a small tutu over her track pants. She looks ready for the roller derby. “Care to explain why your boyfriend didn’t show up to our show last night?”

No, Winnie thinks. I really don’t. She retrieves her glasses from a nearby bench and shoves them on. She doesn’t think L.A. has ever directly addressed her in her life.

And she certainly has never directly scrutinized Winnie like she’s a Chrysomya megacephala larvae under a microscope.

“Well?” L.A. prompts.

“I have no idea why he didn’t show.” This is true. Completely true, but either Winnie’s tone isn’t very convincing or else her own panic over Jay is coming through, because L.A.’s posture softens.

Though only momentarily.

“Well then, what’s this about you winning the Midnight Crown, even though you’re not a senior? Some of us have worked really hard to get a crown, you know. Then you just show up and win all of them.”

“I had nothing to do with that. The Council were the ones who shrank the Court to one.”

L.A. cocks a single eyebrow. “The Council did it, huh? And you had nothing to do with it? It wasn’t your idea to just skip the Golden Crown meant for juniors and go straight for Midnight?” The sarcasm dripping off her voice is practically forming a puddle around her boots.

Frankly, Winnie doesn’t care. L.A. has confronted her, clearly hoping for a fight—and you know what? Winnie would love to go toe-to-toe right now. Which is why she says: “I guess if you wanted the Midnight Crown, L.A., you should have gotten more votes.”

The entire locker room audibly sucks in at those words. As if no one has ever talked back to L.A. Saturday before. The only person who doesn’t gasp is L.A. herself. Instead, her other eyebrow leaps up to join the first.

“I have no doubt I actually did win. I won the Bronze Crown, the Silver Crown, and the Golden Crown. There’s no way in hell I didn’t also win Midnight.”

“So what are you saying? You want me to just give it to you?”

L.A. shrugs as if to say, That works for me.

And Winnie shrugs right back. “Welp, can’t say I have it on me, Louisa Anne. But hey, check back at I-give-zero-fucks o’clock, okay? Maybe I’ll have it by then.”

Another gasp through the locker room.

L.A. opens her arms, smiling a feral smile. “Cute.”

To which Winnie responds by tugging back her right sleeve to reveal pale scars for all the senior class to see. “If a werewolf couldn’t take me down, then I can promise you can’t either.”

L.A. doesn’t look at the scars. She just holds Winnie’s gaze, her blue eyeliner thick and vibrant.

The entire locker room is holding its breath.

Then L.A. relaxes. A laugh barks from her throat. She starts nodding as if Jay has started a bass line. “Okay, okay. I hear you. Don’t fuck with the Wolf Girl.” She laughs again, a brighter sound this time, filled with real amusement, and the entire space deflates like a balloon.

L.A. flips up both hands. “I’m excited to see your moves in the hot room.” She pivots away. The final bursts of trapped air escape, and the unexpected shakedown ends.

But rather than feel relief at L.A.’s departing back, Winnie feels only fury gathering. Spinning like a hurricane. This is one more person trying to back her into a corner—and one more person who has severely underestimated what Winnie Wednesday can do.

L.A. picked the wrong target. She picked the wrong day. Winnie just faced down a full-blown Diana cornīx, and L.A. is such small fry in comparison, she’s basically microscopic.

“ Meu Deus, that was rough,” Coach Rosa says when Winnie finally storms onto the grounds behind the Sunday estate. The midday sun asserts its dominance across the obstacle course. The small lake ripples with spring-cold waves.

“You just watched everything that happened and didn’t interfere?” Winnie glares at the coach’s signature yellow scrunchie around her ponytail. Then at Rosa directly.

Rosa grins. “L.A. needed to be taken down a notch—like most Saturdays—and you managed it without even breaking a sweat. Well… without getting any sweatier.” She studies Winnie’s face. “Why are you so sweaty?”

Winnie wants to scream, BECAUSE EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET ME TODAY. But she chomps on her tongue instead and focuses on where Coach Rosa is now pointing. Tens of twelfth-grade bodies sprint and leap and swing.

“We’re racing to the hot room,” Rosa says. “You’re blue”—she shoves a velcro strap and flag into Winnie’s hand—“and the later you get in there, the harder it is to survive. Especially since I’m guessing you’ll be everyone’s target right now.”