The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

Winnie wants to leave now. Immediately. Fire the starter gun and go. Because she knows—finally, finally—what Dad’s last message was: The source is in the yew trees.

“He must have assumed we’d stay friends.” Winnie is pacing. With her glasses off, the whole space feels like an orange-lit fever dream. “He must have assumed I would see Jenna’s locket on you.”

“Except Grayson had Jenna’s locket four years ago.”

“I know, but… he must have known Grayson would give it to you.” Winnie imagines the Hummer at the bottom of the Little Lake, surrounded by candy. Save the Fish. Save Grayson.

Too late.

“And Dad must have assumed we’d then figure out the four stars on your locket.”

Erica has taken off the locket, and she studies it on her palm, lips puckered to one side. With her hair askew and Winnie’s vision blurred, she looks like the cat version of herself again. A thoughtful, considering cat with a splash of gold upon her paw.

Winnie shakes her head. You’re delirious. You haven’t slept in a long time. Stay focused, Winnie. “We need to go get that source.”

“And then what?” Erica levels her gaze back to Winnie.

Who grinds to a halt. “What do you mean, ‘then what?’ The source is what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it? And their feathers can be ground into gray powder that is a stimulant when consumed… grrrrrr. ”

Erica doesn’t respond, and nothing in her posture suggests the same breathy urgency that now rattles through Winnie like live wires strapped to her fingertips.

So Winnie tries a different tack: “You said finding Jenna’s source would help you figure out what happened the night she died. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes. Of course it is.” Erica swipes at her face, a movement Winnie has seen Antonio make a thousand times. Every instance when Marcia’s nagging became too much for him. And then, just like her father, Erica also mutters, “Ay, Dios mío.”

Her heart’s not in the words, though. And her posture is like the piglet’s straw house after the wolf blew it over.

“I don’t understand.” Winnie drops to her knees before Erica. The dampener remains open, although the folded spell covers the source below. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Erica shakes herself. Swipes at her face again, smearing ancient, flaked mascara in the process. “I’ve just been searching for so long, and… I don’t know, Winnie. You ever want something so bad, and then you finally get it, but it’s just…” She doesn’t finish.

One second passes. Two.

Then: “What if it isn’t what you think it will be?”

Winnie almost laughs at this, a guttural bark of air because that has been her literal life for the past month. Four years wanting to be a Luminary again, and yet nothing lived up to her daydreams.

But Winnie doesn’t laugh. Because again, she has the sense that there are two pitches coming out of Erica’s mouth. A harmonic chant she can’t tease apart. A double meaning she isn’t picking up on.

“Do you want to leave the source, then? Because we can pretend we never figured out where it is.” What Winnie can’t add is: But if the Whisperer really is bound to that source, then finding it will protect all of Hemlock Falls .

“No.” Erica’s posture chinks higher. “I want to find it. I can’t just walk away. Not after so long.”

At those words, Winnie thinks of Jay’s song. Of the chorus: I miss you more now. Now that it’s been so long. She pushes at her glasses. She can’t think of Jay. She can’t get trapped again in her loop of the old museum. She knows where Jenna’s source is; there is only moving forward, following the photons down a trail her dad left four years ago. And Winnie says as much: “We have to finish what we started, E. We have to get Jenna’s source.”

“Yeah.” Another nod. Another lift in Erica’s spine. The straw house is becoming a brick one. “You’re right, Winona. I know you are.” She fastens the locket around her neck. An elegant movement by a Thursday who is poise through and through. “I can get us out of here,” she continues, her voice picking up speed. “But I’ll need a little time to get it ready.”

“Get what ready?”

“A mundanus . For hiding.” Locket in place, Erica grabs the dampener and tugs it to her crossed legs. “It’s, like, one of the only spells I can do, and it won’t keep us covered for long, but I think it will get us out of here.”

“Okay.” Winnie isn’t opposed to this, but again: she wants to leave now . “How long will it take?”

“I have to pull together the pieces of the spell, assemble it, then place it in the source. Once that’s done, I can cast it and we’ll get out of here. It’ll take at least an hour to assemble, so you can nap or something.”

“Nap? Are you serious right now?”

“No one will find us.”

Winnie chokes out a laugh. The last thing she wants to do is sleep. Seriously, if she wanted to do that, she could have done it during her many hours locked underground in the Tuesday estate.

Erica seems to realize her advice isn’t being taken. She also seems annoyed by it. I gave you a command, Winona. Now you’re supposed to follow it. “Fine,” she snips. “Don’t nap. Wash up instead.” She motions to her duffel. “I’ve got baby wipes in there. And your training clothes are on top. Plus, there’s a brush somewhere, which… you really need a brush, Winnie.”

“What about paper? Do you have any paper?”

Erica’s eyebrows rise. The impatience is practically rolling off her now. She is no longer a little pig trapped in a house but the wolf blowing it down.

Winnie can relate. She would really like to get out of here. “Paper,” she repeats.

“Sure, yeah. That unlabeled binder on the shelf has paper. And there’s a pen in there too. Now can you stop asking for things? I need to concentrate.” Erica reaches out to grab her source as she did before, two-handed… Except she hesitates. Then flashes a warning glance at Winnie. “Don’t watch me, okay? I’m not very good at magic, and… I just really don’t want an audience.”

Winnie flips up her hands, already rising so she can find that blank paper. “No worries, E. Pretend I’m not here. Although… what do I do if I hear someone coming?”

“I’m not going into a trance, Winona.” Erica slips her hands under the source. “If the Tuesdays come, I’ll hear it just like you. But seriously: don’t worry. This place kept Jenna safe, and it’ll keep us safe too.”

Winnie takes Erica’s advice and cleans up. She won’t win any awards for freshness, but she does get the paint off her face. It also feels truly excellent to put on clean underwear, plus clean black sweatpants, a clean T-shirt, and the black zip-up hoodie she always wears during training.

Erica, having grabbed her source, has done absolutely nothing but close her eyes and concentrate. It’s identical to the pose she and Winnie mimicked as kids; all that’s missing is the dramatic bedsheet costume.

Okay, and the recitation of words like “eye of newt and blood of stone” or “tongue of harpy whispering home.” What Winnie hears coming from Erica are the soft mutterings of a language she can’t understand. She assumes Latin, but it might be Klingon for all she knows. It is with that gentle murmur behind her, rustling like spring in the forest, that Winnie finds a spot away from the heaters and leans against the wall. She folds up her knees, and with a binder on her lap, she starts to draw.

The pen is a ballpoint (the worst) and requires a few frustrated scratches to work. The paper, meanwhile, is lined, but with the blue still blue and the red still red. Not that any of that matters. What matters is the connection of pen to paper and the pressure of Winnie’s hand on the binder.

First, she sketches Erica, seated like she was before, with a source in one hand and Jenna’s spell in the other. She adds a blindfold because Justice is blind and neither Erica nor Winnie knows what will come next after they find Jenna’s source.

Then Winnie draws her family. A crude mimicry of the old photograph that hung in their living room, and that Dad sketched in Darian’s birthday cards. While Dad’s drawings were faceless, Winnie adds detail. Darian, laughing over pickle breath. Mom, setting her jaw against a spell that won’t defeat her.

Winnie keeps her own face featureless. No mouth, no nose, no eyes.

Justice is blind, after all.

She keeps Dad’s face blank too because she has no idea what he looks like now. Is he alive? Is he nearby? Or is he long gone, replaced by a tiny person in a hound mask? Anyone could be a Diana. A Diana could be anyone.

Lastly, Winnie draws Jay.

She doesn’t want to, and if she’s honest with herself, she’s afraid to even try. To commit his essence to paper like she did three nights ago. Because she has no idea what actually remains of the boy she loves. But once the distillation process begins, there’s no stopping it. Heat sends vapor rising through the copper still, until the alcohol is separated. Then gravity pulls it down, down, spiraling it through tubing, until drip!

There is the finished product.

This is what Winnie saw in the old museum. Not boy, not man, not wolf, but a silhouette with shadows to writhe around him like prey engulfed by an amoeba.

I love you. I’m sorry.

Why? she wants to scream at him. Why are you sorry when I’m the one who left you behind? Sumus ūnus in somnō et somniīs.

Winnie blinks. She didn’t think those last words; she heard them because Erica just uttered them. Static laps across the room, gentle as a hot blanket pulled fresh from a dryer, and with the faintest dusting of mist to curl out from Erica’s source, still clasped in her hands.

For half a breath, that mist curls past Erica, obscuring her face like the blindfold. Then it is gone. Her eyes open. “You’re watching.” She blushes. “I told you not to.”

“I wasn’t.” Winnie sets down the pen, the binder. Paper crunches as she folds it. “Just at the end, when you said those words— Sumus ūnus in somnō et somniīs. Katie was right? That’s really how you end a spell?”

Erica nods, and with more care than she showed earlier, she slides the source back into the dampener. Jenna’s spell, Winnie notices, is no longer tucked inside.

“How does it work?” she asks as Erica stands, legs wobbly. “The magic—what did you just do?”

Erica sniffs. Classic Ice Queen. “Now is not the time for Spells 101.”

“Okay, give me the SparkNotes version, then.”

“Give me the duffel first.” Erica holds out her arms, and Winnie complies, crossing the small space in two steps. She watches as Erica tugs out a pair of black leggings, and there’s no missing a shiny red pucker on the tips of Erica’s fingers. Next, Erica rolls up her shirt to reveal her abdomen. “Since my mask is in a toilet tank half a mile away, I’ve got to make a sling.”

“Why?”

“Because your source has to be on your body to use it. The closer to you, the better.”

“But can’t you just hold it in your hands, then?”

“Sure.” Tug. “But judging by our wild escape to get here…” Knot. Tighten. Release . She glances at Winnie. “I figure I’m going to want both hands free.”

Bilateral symmetry, Winnie thinks. “So you’ll just put the source in that… swaddle?”

“Yep.” Erica demonstrates by swooping down, fetching her source—which no longer oozes mist—and tucking it right into the leggings now wrapped around her midriff. Then she grins. “Perfect.”

“Okay, but now how will you summon the hiding spell?”

“I just say the right words, and the spell will be there.” She wets her lips. “Probably.”

Later, Winnie will consider that word— probably —and wish she’d paid closer attention to it. She will wish she’d paid closer attention to lots of things Erica said, and that she’d examined the harmonic overtone too.

In the moment, though, Winnie is thinking only of Signora Martedì. Of where the woman could have hidden her source on her body. People conceal weapons all the time, so Winnie supposes it wouldn’t have been hard for the signora to stash a chunk of stone or metal in her clothes.

“Anyone can put power into a source,” Erica explains, tucking her shirt over the new swaddle. “You just bury your source in the forest. The hard part is getting the magic back out. I’m… not good at that part.”

Again, Winnie really should be paying attention.

Again, she isn’t. If I could find the Crow’s source, could I take it off her? Would that nullify her magic?

“Imagine the mist,” Erica continues, “now imagine if you could shape it into whatever you want, instead of what the spirit wants. Right now, we want be hidden. So that’s what I’ve told the magic to do.”

Winnie finally homes in on Erica again. “So that’s why I saw mist when you finished? There is actual spirit mist inside the source?”

“Yeah. That’s what all magic is. At its most fundamental base, it’s the mist. The spirits use mist to create their dreams, and Dianas use mist to create their spells.” Erica rummages in the duffel. “Is there anything in here you want to bring? Otherwise, I’m leaving it behind.”

Just my sketch, Winnie thinks, which I already have . She shakes her head. “We’re good.”

“Then”—Erica smiles, a grim, almost frightening thing—“let’s get moving.”