The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

“I’m sorry, Winnie,” Erica says in a tone that is decidedly not sorry. “But when were you going to tell me you put a message in your locket?” She stands with her hands on hips, several paces from Winnie. A strobe light from one of the few windows not boarded up flashes over her like a thunderstorm. “We’ve been together how many hours in the last few days? And still you couldn’t bother to mention this?”

“I didn’t keep it from you on purpose.” Winnie lifts her hands. Now that the whole WTF gang is here—and actually standing in an approximation of a right triangle—Winnie has explained why she summoned Erica and Jay to meet her. “I assumed it didn’t work. Because it didn’t until tonight. And well… there’s been a lot going on.”

“But it did work.” While Jay sounds less pissed about this development than Erica, it’s clear he too feels Winnie should have kept them updated.

Although, that rasping strain on his voice might also be from what he and Winnie were just doing two minutes ago. Like, Winnie still has her back against the column (which shall henceforth be known as Location #1 on the list of Great Make-Out Spots in Hemlock Falls), and Jay’s lips are visibly swollen.

“So who answered the message?” Erica demands. “Show it to me.” Unlike Jay, who is dressed as always in jeans and flannel, or Winnie in her ancient hoodie, Erica has actually put on a costume: cat ears. This in combination with the same all-black ensemble she wore yesterday, and she really has transformed into Catwoman. Which adds one more Sexy Superhero to the party.

Winnie pulls the message from her hoodie. “I have no idea who sent this, E. Only that it says ‘museum, eleven P.M. ’… Wait, now it doesn’t say anything at all.” She pushes out of the column’s shadow to hold the paper into the blinking light, but no. There’s nothing written there.

Erica doesn’t seem surprised. In fact, she rolls her eyes so aggressively, her head swings. “You have to put the paper back in the locket, Winona. It’s like an auto-deleting text message—”

“Those exist?” Winnie asks.

“—and if you keep it out of the locket, the message vanishes. Here.” Without asking permission, Erica scoots in and snaps the paper back into the locket. “Now we wait a few seconds.”

Erica’s hands remain clasped around the locket. Her eyes go hazy, as if she’s staring into the future. Or maybe just counting to ten.

Jay clears his throat.

“Shut up,” Erica replies, accurately anticipating what Jay is about to say. (So maybe she was staring into the future.)

“I don’t like this.” Jay fastens a stare onto Winnie. “I don’t feel good about it, and I think it’s a trap. Secret notes in lockets and magic spells that auto-delete—this all feels like a really bad combination.”

Now Erica is the one to stare at Winnie. “Please remind Jay that he’s the one who’s a werewolf.”

Winnie swallows. She has successfully kept Mario’s baseless theory about why Jay is a werewolf tamped down inside her brain. Now is not a good time to start chewing on it again.

Erica flips open the locket. “Awesome. There you are, Mr. Message. Except…” She angles the paper into the light. “It says second floor . That’s not what it said before, is it?”

All thoughts of werewolf mutations scatter. Winnie snatches the paper from Erica, and sure enough, it now reads: Second floor, 11:05. “Whoa. This is new since I left the Monday estate.”

“And it’s eleven oh five now.” Erica’s eyes bug. “Put the note back in the locket, and let’s go .” She spins on a boot heel, ready to march away.

Until Jay sidles a long leg into her path. “Nope. We’re not going up there, Erica. Following messages from an unknown witch seems like a guaranteed way for all of us to end up dead.”

“Don’t make assumptions.” Erica pins him with an Ice Queen stare. “Winnie asked the locket for help, and that’s clearly what we’re getting. For all you know, it’s her dad sending the messages, and we’re about to finally get what we’ve been looking for.”

Winnie’s mouth dries at those words. Her tongue thickens.

“Or maybe,” Jay counters, “it’s that witch who tried to kill me and Winnie in the forest. Remember her?”

“You don’t know the cornīx wrote this. There are probably more Dianas in Hemlock Falls than just her, and someone bewitched Winnie with a circling-words spell—”

“Wait, what? What spell?” Jay stares again at Winnie, but it’s not like she can explain to him what’s happening, so she simply shrugs helplessly back.

“She can’t talk about it,” Erica fills in, and there’s a smugness to the up-tilt of her jaw. She knows more than Jay, and she’s savoring it. “Any time Winnie tries to tell me about it, random nonsense spews out.”

Now Jay’s expression is one of betrayal. Erica knows this but not me? But again, it’s not like Winnie can say or do anything to explain herself. All she can manage is a tight-knuckled fist around the message and a furious exhale entombed by spring-cold fog.

Overhead, the strobe light keeps bouncing.

“Are we all good now?” Erica asks with pretend sweetness. “Because if so, it’s now eleven oh six, and we’re late.” She sets off again toward the museum’s entrance, and oh, Winnie is now noticing a tail attached to her jeans.

“I’m sorry,” Winnie tries, but Jay isn’t paying attention. His phone is lighting up in his flannel pocket, a secondary strobe to clash against the party. When he tugs it out, he groans. First at the phone. Than at Erica’s disappearing figure.

Given that the time is now 11:07 according to Winnie’s own phone, and that Erica has fully vanished from sight, Winnie mutters a rough “I’m sorry” for Jay. Then she scampers after the T in their WTF triangle.

Jay, half shouting into his phone so he can be heard, prowls after. “Can you—no. Please, L.A. Just wait, okay? It shouldn’t take long. Yeah, fine. Fine. I can meet you in the rotunda.”

That’s the last Winnie hears before the party subsumes her.

She has been to the old museum before, of course. On the night of Grayson’s funeral for a party so massive, there were at least double the people here celebrating his life. But whatever this party lacks in scale, it makes up for in enthusiasm. Music careens over Winnie like a wrecking ball. Or like the disco balls that dangle in the main rotunda where once upon a time, a life-size droll skeleton hung. Black lights turn graffiti into glowing art displays across the marble floors and transform a wide, winding staircase into river rapids of dancing Luminaries. So many masks, so many painted faces, Winnie recognizes no one—and she herself remains unseen, pulled so far inside her hoodie, she has basically morphed into a turtle-wyrm.

Turtle-wyrm: Like the name would suggest, this subset of wyrm is able to retract its head into its body during times of danger or distress. (See also Cueille-Aigue, where one such wyrm managed to escape and survive for three years before Martedì Alphas tracked it down and killed it.)

For a chaotic, thudding moment, as Winnie tries to shove up the stairs toward the second floor, she loses Erica. She loses Jay. And she loses herself too, to the darkness, darkness, light of the Luminaries.

Then Winnie is at the top of the stairs and shoving into more crowds. More bodies. The heat mauls. Smells overwhelm, alcohol emulsifying with perfumes and deodorants and sweat. Winnie can’t see Erica, she can’t see Jay, and now that she’s on the second floor, where is she supposed to go?

With elbows and a cast-down head, she bludgeons her way into a familiar anteroom, where Grayson’s memorial was set up scarcely two weeks ago. The easel still remains, but there’s no crappy printout of Grayson’s face, no We will miss you! written in permanent marker.

It’s just a room where more people dance, a few make out, and most hunch together shouting over the music or sharing drinks. No one looks at Winnie, and soon she finds herself before the window that will lead onto the roof. It’s open, though only enough to suck in a purl of air.

Winnie pulls her phone from her pocket. Her fingers shake as she fumbles out a message to Erica and Jay. By roof window. Then she waits.

And waits.

And waits some more while nothing happens.

Nothing except her locket vibrating against her chest. She jolts against the window. Then hastily checks the locket, where a new message reads: Closet by bathroom. Now.

Winnie doesn’t move. Her body hums with music and movement, but it’s not the work of her muscles. Not fibers contracting and stretching at the command of her brain. Closet by bathroom. Now. She’s pretty sure she knows where that is. There are bathrooms on this floor, and between the men’s and women’s is a door. The sort of door you expect to hold mops and toilet cleaner and extra paper towels. She can reach that door in mere moments if she aims east and into a darker, emptier gallery of the museum.

Winnie isn’t stupid though. Yes, she tromped into the forest on her first trial completely unprepared and nearly got killed by a banshee. And yes, she followed Emma into the forest when she had literally no weapons or proper footwear. And oh yeah, she did go after Jay after he was shot by Wednesdays and all she had for protection was nightmare contraband.

Still, she isn’t stupid. Each of those instances had high risk, but much higher reward. She got her family back into the Luminaries; she saved Emma’s life; she saved Jay’s life; and now, right now inside the shadowy, forgotten part of the museum…

Winnie thinks of Dad’s face, so much like Darian’s. Of his auburn hair that she inherited from him. She thinks of the sketches he drew in the birthday cards. She thinks of Mom, sitting at the kitchen table, trapped by the same spell that controls Winnie. She thinks of fireworks and Ferris wheels and the honest lights of downtown. Then she thinks of blue paper and stiff pencils and a don’t-know list that isn’t shrinking.

All she has to do is walk a hundred feet and see what’s there. She doesn’t have to approach, she doesn’t have to talk to anyone, and she certainly doesn’t have to remain if the whole thing feels wrong.

Winnie pulls out her phone. And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm; That could abash the little bird; That kept so many warm. She texts Jay, then Erica: 2 floor bathroom now . And finally, Winnie rocks away from the window. Her decision is made; the photons are guiding her this way.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t sense the night air trying to hold her back. Because it has no substance. It has no voice. It has only a whisper scratching to life nearby.

The party rumbles on.