The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

Obviously given the choice between an after-party or a nightmare “safari,” Winnie will always choose the safari. Not merely because it allows her to wear her combat boots while the other requires “cocktail/ fancy attire,” but also because this will give her a chance to talk to Mario Monday.

Alone.

Or so Winnie thinks until she steps onto the bus that will carry her and twenty-three other nightmare wonks into the forest. As soon as she climbs aboard, she is pounced upon.

“Oh, Winnie!” Professor Funday declares, leaping up from her seat in the back row. “Oh, sit with me, sit with me!”

Seeing little alternative, Winnie obeys. Which is fine; she genuinely likes the woman. And for the first time probably ever, the librarian is not dressed like a coral reef vomited onto her, but rather like a forest did. Not the forest of Hemlock Falls, of course. This is more Disney forest with bright, rapturous shades of green ranging from summer pine to bursting meadow. Even her boots have been painted (yes, painted) the shade of a fir tree in winter. Her silver hair is tucked beneath a beanie that skews neon, and her eyeliner sweeps out from her eyes in sharp branches.

It’s a lot.

“Winnie,” Funday says, almost breathlessly, “I’ve been trying to find you since last week, but with visitors arriving and the Sunday floats to prepare—I do most of the decorating you know—”

Winnie did not know, but that tracks.

“—I’ve just not had a moment to reach out. But that book I ordered from Italy finally came in. The one on moon and stars symbology. You remember it?”

Winnie’s lungs wheeze. Then wheeze again for good measure because oh boy, does she remember it. She has been anxiously awaiting that book’s arrival for over two weeks now and has been calling the Monday library every morning since day three. No, no books here for a Winnie Wednesday.

“The Mondays delivered the book to me, even though I very clearly told them it was to be delivered to you. Winnie Winona Wednesday, I said, our very own Midnight Crown. Although, of course, you hadn’t won yet. Wait, where is your crown?” Funday blinks expectantly.

And Winnie blinks back. Because she gives approximately zero craps about the Midnight Crown and approximately all craps for more information on this book. “The book. Where is it now, Professor?”

“It’s at my house.”

“Can I get it from you? Like, tonight? After this? Or we could even skip this and just go grab it now.”

“Oh, well, about that.” A slight chuckle. The fuzzy green squirrels dangling from Funday’s earlobes bounce and sway. “I didn’t realize the book would be in Italian, so I’ll have to translate it for you. Unless you know Italian?”

Right. Italian. Because of course the freaking book would be in Italian. I could ask the Crow for help reading it, Winnie thinks as a hysterical laugh squeaks from her mouth. “Nope, can’t say I know Italian.”

“Alas. I’ve been attempting to translate each night, but honestly, my Italian is so rusty. If you could tell me something specific you would like to focus on, then that might move things along more quickly. It’s a big book and there are so many chapters. Chapter one is on the initial need for the symbols. Chapter two is about actual constellations that inspired—”

Pop, pop, pop. Mario boards the bus. Everyone falls silent.

Like Funday, Mario has traded his signature look (in which a laboratory vomited upon him) for more practical gear like khakis, hiking boots, and a brown fleece. He has not, however, abandoned the signature bubble gum.

He spots Winnie at the back; gives a tiny wave; then launches into: “Welcome, locals and visitors alike. I’m Mario, lead nightmare researcher for the Mondays and foremost ecology expert in Hemlock Falls. Although.” He throws a mischievous smile Winnie’s way. “The winner of our Midnight Crown back there—”

Every head whips toward Winnie.

“—has quite the advanced knowledge herself. So if I’m ever too busy to answer a question about our local fauna, then feel free to ask Winnie Wednesday instead.”

No, thinks Winnie, dread shoveling through her. Do not feel free at all!

But it’s too late. The damage is done. What should have been a mindless meander through the forest before dusk—in which she tries not to repeat her panicked meltdown from Wednesday training or the hot room pool—is now going to be filled with foreigners wanting selfies and asking questions.

She is going to murder Mario. Or at the very least, shove him off the overlook into the falls.

Mario continues with a description of where they’ll be walking (western shore, departing from the hunters’ parking lot) and what they can expect to see (prime manticore nesting habitats, kelpie formation spots, the kill site for a recent droll). “And if we’re lucky, we’ll finish in time to enjoy that open bar at the after-party! All right.” He claps his hands, gnawing at the gum he cannot subsist without.

Then one huge bubble precedes a final grin for Winnie. “Let’s get going, friends! Into the woods to Grandmother’s house!”

Wow, Winnie thinks. That sounds ominous.

She feels lingering stares upon her. She fidgets with her glasses and focuses very hard on Professor Funday’s face. “The chapters,” she squeezes out. “Can you tell me more about them? Because yes, there are some specific things I’m interested in from the book.”

Funday nods. Her eyelids batten shut. Then she ticks off her fingers one by one in a way that suggests she’s reciting something memorized. “Why Luminary Symbology Evolved, The Original Constellations, The Evolution of Symbols, The Appropriation of Symbology by Dianas—”

“That,” Winnie blurts at the same instant the bus engine revs. Funday doesn’t hear her.

“—A Dictionary of Common Symbols, Putting the Secret in Secret Society, and… oh, what was that last chapter called?” Funday’s eyes crack open. The bus is now puttering across the parking lot. “Think, Teddy, think.”

“No, it’s fine, Professor.” Winnie shakes her head. “I’m mostly interested in the appropriation by…” Oh gosh, should she finish this sentence? Should she say the word Dianas ? Her family is still so closely associated with witches. What if Funday thinks, Why, this is odd, and alerts Jeremiah Tuesday to Winnie’s probing?

Although, would it matter if Jeremiah did find out at this point? He knows Winnie is just following wherever Signora Martedì wants her to follow—which is therefore where Jeremiah must want her to follow too, right?

T minus thirty-eight hours until the Crow makes good on her threats.

Winnie doesn’t have to finish her sentence because Funday fills in the blank for her: “Dianas.” She smiles a crinkly smile. “You want to know how the witches appropriated the symbols?”

Winnie thrusts again at her glasses. “Yep, and, uh, I guess… the dictionary would be useful too.”

“Ah, that’s right. Your locket!” Funday smacks her forehead—which ends up being a full-on karate chop because at that moment, the bus yaws hard to the left.

Bonk!

The librarian grimaces. Then shakes her head as if there are tiny canaries flying around it. “Ouch. Where was I? The locket. Um, can you show it to me again, Winnie? I don’t remember what it looks like.”

Winnie obeys, digging the locket from her Save the Whales hoodie, which she traded her sweater for. (She also added her leather jacket to the ensemble because the schedule did say to dress warm.) The locket glints in the evening light.

“Ah yes.” Funday adjusts her glasses so the bifocal parts of her lenses rest higher on her nose. “A pretty straightforward design,” she murmurs to herself. “A waning crescent with three stars. Typically three stars would stand for nuntius, which means message .”

“So… that’s all this means? Message ?”

“Well, it was usually the beginning of a message, and then more moons and stars would be added after that. So for example, after the first moon and three stars, a moon and four stars might follow. Which would literally mean yew tree, or more symbolically danger —because hunter bows were made from yew. Five stars, meanwhile, referred to rowan trees for protection…” Funday trails off here as she flips around the locket. “Nothing on the back of the locket… and…” She snaps it open.

A scrap of paper flutters out.

Winnie’s heart, again, skips several beats. Especially because, with Funday in the way, she can’t reach the paper to retrieve it. And especially because the way it falls is apparently the perfect angle for Funday to snatch it up and read. “My apologies, Winnie,” she says. “I didn’t mean to knock out a lover’s note. How romantic, though.”

For several more missed heartbeats, these words are meaningless to Winnie. Then two thoughts collide at once: She must think Darian is my boyfriend, not my brother, since his photo is inside. And: But wait, I thought I pulled the message out on Saturday night?

Winnie grabs the paper, pasting a very fake, laughably huge grin across her face. “So romantic,” she agrees. Then she flips the paper to read it on its way toward her pocket.

And oh, now Winnie understands. Now she sees why Funday might consider this romantic. Evening sunlight, filtered by a dirty bus window, reveals a message that isn’t at all what Winnie snapped in there two days ago. Because she really did pull that out on Saturday and toss it on the floor.

Museum, it reads. 11 P.M. tonight.

“Nightmare Safari” is a deeply misleading label for what happens over the next three hours. For one, there are no nightmares to see because the mist hasn’t yet risen. Therefore, the forest is nothing more than… well, a bunch of trees. Yes, there’s a definite creep factor that regular trees don’t possess—and there is that sense of Something Watching that everyone knows is caused by the sleeping spirit at the bottom of the Big Lake. But with no actual creatures to behold or photograph, the “safari” is more like a late-evening hike while the sun sets.

Not that Winnie minds. She’s such a bundle of panicked energy, she is frankly glad she can expel that energy here instead of wasting hours at the after-party—or worse, all by herself in her bedroom.

Museum. 11 P.M. tonight.

Before Mario can drive the transport bus fully out of civilization and into the forest’s clutches, Winnie blasts off a text message to both Jay and Erica: Meet at old museum at 10:30 .

She doesn’t know if they get the message, since neither respond before the magic of the spirit eliminates all signal. That doesn’t stop her from checking the device every twenty seconds to see if maybe a little blip of city service can sneak through.

It can’t, and for the next three hours, Winnie finds herself forced into the role of unofficial assistant tour guide. And despite her early reservations, it actually ends up being a solid distraction. Because these visitors really are nightmare wonks with the ecological, evolutionary, and biological questions to prove it.

So if she’s freaked out by the fact that they are slowly heading toward the northernmost shore of the Big Lake, which is slowly getting them closer to an area where two Dianas were burned to death…

Well, those ghosts are quieter than Professor Funday, who fires out enough questions to keep both Winnie and Mario busy.

And if Winnie’s entire circuit board is lit up by a single question— WHO SENT THE MESSAGE IN MY LOCKET? —then too bad. Winnie is here, in the forest, and the nightmare factoids bursting from her mouth aren’t forced there by a spell.

When they reach a stretch of shore shaped like a half-moon, Winnie can’t help but think of Grayson Friday. Of the funeral that happened for him right here, a little over two weeks ago. It was the same day Jay became Lead Hunter. It was the same day Winnie first realized maybe she wasn’t so great at exorcising her ghosts.

A stream burbles far too cheerfully at the farthest edge of this secluded beach. Next to it grows a silvery rowan tree, its branches flaunting new purple buds. Some Dianas, Winnie thinks, remembering words from Theodosia Monday’s book, will craft small coins from rowan wood that has been harvested in a spirit forest, believing such amulets can protect against nightmares.

Such a tree certainly helped her escape a sadhuzag two weeks ago.

“Manticores frequently rise here after the mist,” Mario explains as he guides them onto the silty beach. “Because the females are attracted to this softer soil for their nests.”

“And what about the males?” a visiting Tuesday asks. “Also, how does mating work for local manticores?”

“A great question, Se?ora Martes. Winnie, do you want to take it?”

“Sure,” Winnie says because what the heck else is she going to do right now? “Mating for manticores in this forest is a lot like scorpions in a non-magical ecosystem. The males begin the courtship with a behavior called ‘juddering,’ which creates vibrations in the ground. The females follow that.”

On and on, question after question—like a pop quiz to end all pop quizzes—twenty-four pairs of eyes watch Winnie with rapt attention. Mario too, because these people don’t actually care about Winnie’s Midnight Crown. They just want to know about the local nightmares in as much detail as two human encyclopedias can offer. And much like the Science Fair earlier, this whole thing should be fun. Winnie should be reveling in this chance to show off her knowledge and chat with fellow nerds.

Instead, she has never hated Signora Martedì more. And she can’t help but wonder if the signora is the one who sent the message in her locket. Except why? Martedì can just talk to Winnie directly. No need for subterfuge or lockets.

T minus thirty-six hours until the Crow makes good on her threats.

Or, another thought prods. A feathery, hopeful voice. What if the messenger is Dad? If three stars mean message, maybe he wanted Winnie to contact him with the locket all along.

Winnie is so distracted by her inner spiral and outward quiz bowl, she almost forgets the main draw for coming out here tonight: talking to Mario. And it’s only once they’re wrapping up the safari on the overlook beside the waterfall that she finally gets her chance.

Pop, pop, pop!

Far below the wooden decking, in a river churning with untamed waves and white chop, is where the melusine healed Winnie. Beside the river is where Jay dragged her out after she should have died.

To the west, a thoughtful violet sky is shifting toward hungry gray. Forest branches fracture it, like a frightened kid peeking through their fingers. The mist will rise soon. The forest and its monsters will awaken, and maybe the Whisperer too.

Winnie pivots away from the overlook. The ghosts are too loud; Jenna’s old song won’t stop playing in the back of her brain. She wishes she could seal up that song in bubble wrap. And the ghosts too. And all the endless, relentless feelings that go along with them. Then she could shove it in a box in the attic, right next to that box of photographs from when her family used to be whole.

Hope is the thing with feathers.

T minus thirty-five hours.

“Hey,” Mario says. He has followed Winnie away from the overlook, and now he offers her a stick of gum. She takes it, and for several seconds the sugar overwhelms her salivary glands. She chews. The intensity recedes, and the scent of forest detritus creeps back into her nasal cavity.

“Why is Jay getting worse?” Winnie’s voice floats out like a will-o’-wisp.

Mario glances behind them, but they’re alone here, twenty steps from the overlook.

“He told me he didn’t used to change this often,” she continues. “Maybe once a week. But lately, it’s almost every day.”

Mario shoves a fresh stick of gum into his own mouth. It mixes with old gum, and when he speaks, it’s around a mouthful of rubber. “No inspired theories of your own, Win? No wagers you want to make?” He tries for a grin.

But Winnie can’t grin back. The Winnie of a month ago, who just desperately wanted to feel relevant—to know someone was listening to her, no matter how unlikely her theories got…

That Winnie is gone, replaced by one who is too relevant. Who is trapped in the center of a Venn diagram, with every circle dependent on her, whether or not they know she exists.

“I have a hypothesis,” Mario continues when Winnie doesn’t answer. He slides his hands into fleece pockets. “It’s possible the severity of Jay’s mutation is responding to increased inflammation.”

“But… why would there be increased inflammation?”

“Same reason there would be in a human.” Mario blows a bubble. Pop! “Stress, Winnie.”

“Stress?”

“Jay just became Lead Hunter, right? Plus, he, ah…” Another glance to verify they’re alone. “He almost died in his wolf form a week and a half ago, so it’s possible the mutation is responding to heightened cortisol.”

“But why does he even have the mutation?” Winnie thinks back to all those Monday papers Grayson had gathered. Each one referenced werewolf mutation as only spreading through bite. Yet Jay was never bitten. On top of that, when he bit Winnie—only a hundred feet from this spot right here—the mutation didn’t spread to her.

The question hangs in the air while Mario’s jaw works. While a bubble inflates… then pops, and he slides his hands into his fleece pockets.

“Well?” she presses. “I can tell you have an answer, Mario. Want to share it with the rest of the class?”

Now Mario winces, and to her shock, rather than blow more bubbles or shove in more gum, he withdraws a shiny wrapper… then spits the pink wad from his mouth into it. “There have been records,” he answers as he wraps up the gum and returns it to his pocket, “of nightmare mutations that can spread genetically. It’s rare, since so few daywalkers have a human form—and even fewer live long enough to produce offspring. But… it has happened before. And you may recall that seventeen years ago there was a—”

“No.” Winnie doesn’t mean to say this. She doesn’t mean to say anything, but she also can’t let Mario finish his sentence. She can’t let him draw the line he’s about to draw.

“It’s just a theory,” he insists, but now Winnie lifts her hands. “No,” she repeats. The more she learns, the harder this will be to compartmentalize.

But it’s already too late, isn’t it? Her brain has drawn the line without Mario’s input, connecting the werewolf who was killed seventeen years ago to the boy Winnie loves today. Jay doesn’t know who his father was. His mother never shared the name before she died.

Winnie sways.

“It’s just a theory,” Mario repeats, more emphatically this time. “I have no actual evidence, Winnie. Not to mention, my theory doesn’t explain the jawbone Jay says he found under his pillow four years ago. So there’s a good chance the genetic connection isn’t the root cause of his mutation, but rather something we’ve never heard of—”

“Signore! Signore Mario, mi scusi!”

Mario pales. It’s clear he doesn’t want to end this conversation with Winnie, but he also has no choice. “Yes, Signora Lunedì?” he calls over his shoulder. “Do you have a question?”

“ Sì, sì. I want to know about Diana sources and their, uh… oh—how do you say? Impact on forest ecology. Does the source location impact the local ecosystem?”

“That’s a great question, Signora. I’ll be right there.” Mario grits out an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Winnie. We’ll have to finish this later.”

No, Winnie thinks, I’d rather not. “I’m going back to the bus,” she tells him quietly. But Mario doesn’t hear. He has already left her. He has already abandoned her to the forest and any new ghosts who might want to claim her.