The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

Chapter 45

CHAPTER 45

Winnie runs the pontoon boat aground. She doesn’t have much choice. There are too many rocks as she goes upstream, and the river rapids are too turbulent for the swan to sail against. This vessel was built for show, not power. So she veers the boat onto the eastern shore and runs the poor Sunday beast aground.

The pontoon boat launches upward like it’s hit a ramp. The right wing cracks against a hemlock. Winnie topples backward, falling alongside her final crate of fireworks toward the railing at the boat’s end.

She hits the railing. The crate hits too, bonking right against her swollen ankle. She yelps. Then clasps her hands over her mouth to stay quiet. And other than a brief lurch when the current headbutts the swan farther onto its rock, Winnie and the fireworks don’t move again.

Her heart gallops inside her skull. Her ankle is really shouting SOS now. But if it ain’t bleeding—which would attract nightmares—then Winnie still ain’t stopping. At least there’s no mist here, and Winnie can only assume that’s because it has finished its job. It has built the nightmares it needed, so now it glides southward, raising nightmares far beyond the spirit’s usual realm like a gardener plucking weeds from a vegetable patch.

She peers around the crooked pontoon boat; its electric engine is still thrumming. The shoreline is almost all conifers. This has never been a place dense with monsters because running water deters land nightmares—which is why Winnie made this her route into the forest in the first place. Unfortunately, she’s on the wrong shore. She wanted west because that is where the trail switchbacks up to the overlook and the Big Lake beyond. But oh well. East she is, so east she shall go.

Wind kicks upward in blustery, unpredictable bursts, as if the spirit inhales. As if it laughs . Finally, I am awake. Finally, I am free. But Jay’s song continues to call to Winnie too. Louder than the spirit’s tempestuous laugh. I miss you more now. Now that it’s been so long.

As Winnie clambers from the pontoon boat, the scent of petrichor pings around her like a pinball, promising rain at any moment. Her boots slide on slimy rocks. Water splashes to her calf. Her ankle snarls its rage. But with only a little wobble and no surprise drop-offs, she reaches the shore in seconds.

Where she immediately sets off north. Toward the lake, toward the Crow and Erica and…

Jay.

To kiss across shadows into a bright fever

The dawn mist rises inside me like a wildfire

Winnie unstraps a hunting knife as she creeps forward. A fine, serrated thing that Mason probably spent a lot of time selecting for himself. It even has his initials on the hilt (MRT). Briefly, she considers unstrapping a second blade for bilateral symmetry, but a low-hanging branch that almost swats her into the river ends that thought. She’ll need one hand empty for climbing and grabbing.

Lights flicker to her left. A nest of will-o’-wisps jets across the river like dragonflies before zapping out of sight. In the distance, she thinks she hears gunshots.

T minus forty-nine minutes until the Crow makes good on her threats.

Winnie stays as low to the ground as she can. As close to the shore too. Her eyes search the veiled, gusting dawn for any sign of game trails, worn into the ground by nightmares or hunters or both. But she spies nothing. And when she squints east, she sees flames in the distance. Salamander, she remembers from the radio, and if that is one, then she’ll want to avoid it.

Actually, she needs to avoid it. Those things are massive and spit fire.

Salamander: These large amphibious nightmares are able to start fires thanks to special glands on their backs. They are cold-blooded, so salamanders hibernate underground in winter.

The waterfall gets louder the farther north Winnie aims. It’s like static on an old TV—like the sleeping spirit has its finger on the volume and is just pushing it higher, higher, higher. The light changes too, brightening in a way that suggests sunshine is being allowed through.

But it’s a green sunshine, toxic and terrifying, and it paints the forest in too much color. This is a world of grayscale or sepia, where running water not only deters nightmares, but also deters vibrance and saturation.

Sleeping spirits: Little is understood regarding these magical entities believed to be the source of all nightmares. Most theories are, in fact, philosophical instead of scientific. The lack of empirical—

A bolt of lightning sears past Winnie. Heat and light crack in, so close that she needs three full heartbeats to realize the lightning didn’t actually hit her. Then she launches into a run.

Air sylphid: These humanoid creatures are childlike in size with bark for skin and stone for teeth and horns. Their mastery over wind allows them to fly. They can also summon lightning; hunters are advised to avoid.

Winnie’s boots toss up rocks and mud. She is making way more noise than is wise, but whatever. She has already been spotted; might as well go full throttle. The sylphid plunges out of the trees. Sparks flare between its gnarled hands.

Lightning streaks toward Winnie’s head. She ducks. The electricity hits the water, sizzling lines across the surface and illuminating waters below. CURSES , she screams internally. Why couldn’t you have grabbed a bow, Ms. Morgan? That would be so much more helpful right now, instead of this knife with MRT stamped onto it.

Winnie teeters toward the water. The river is pure chop this close to the waterfall. Jagged rocks jut upward. Cold wind gnaws, thick with spray off the waves. And the waterfall’s roar builds—as does the cold, heightened by this wind that still sucks upward.

It’s as if a cosmic vacuum has been switched on over the Big Lake, ready to suck up dirt, pet hair, and protons in one fell swoop. And hell, for all Winnie knows, maybe the spirit really is just a giant Hoover and the Pure Heart spell is the plug that slots into a socket. She can even imagine the Compendium entry: The spirit vacuum is especially powerful on carpets.

Oh god, she thinks as she lopes along the jagged riverbank. The falls are getting unbearably loud. You are losing it, Winnie. Focus. Stay sharp. Her arms swing at her sides. Adrenaline is stamping out the pain from her ankle, but she needs more speed, more bilateral symmetry—and oh no. There . There’s the waterfall.

Winnie has nowhere else left to run. Aroo! Aroo! Was it fun jumping, Wolf Girl?

Lightning discharges behind her. Inexplicably, it doesn’t connect. She rips a glance back… only to find a weeping willow tumbling onto the riverbank.

Dryad: These nightmares are indistinguishable from trees or hedges until disturbed by humans. They will attack with branches that become claw-like and legs that extend from their roots.

Lucky for Winnie, this particular dryad is focused on the sylphid—and the sylphid is suddenly distracted by the dryad. Which means now is a good moment to break from the river and launch uphill.

Except then a second sylphid hurtles in. Because of course it freaking does . Fresh lightning scrapes over Winnie’s head. She smells burning hair, although the stench is quickly vacuumed up by the spirit.

The sylphid sweeps closer. Bark skin, stone horns, sharp teeth laughing. It reaches for her while light and static build visibly between its hands. This near, there will be no avoiding the lightning. But this near, there is also no avoiding Winnie. She thrusts out Mason’s blade.

And she stabs the sylphid in the skull.

Light and static electricity wink out. The sylphid screams. Its magicked flight fails, and the natural pull of gravity lugs it from the air, sliding it right off Winnie’s stolen knife.

It lands on the wet, craggy shore before her, body quivering. Lightning from the other sylphid continues sizzling nearby; the dryad continues fighting with swinging branches. And even though Winnie should run, she can’t look away from the dying sylphid.

It would have killed her. Gladly. And yet, she can’t stop thinking of an afternoon almost a month ago when she found a gash on Jay’s wrist. What happened? she asked him.

Harpy, he replied.

Oh. Did you kill it?

Her, he corrected, his eyes wintery and cold. Mournful and lost. Yes, I killed her.

How many nightmares has Jay had to slay as a hunter? How many times has he looked into a creature’s eyes and thought, I am like you, and it’s only a matter of time before I die too.

Son of forest, son of pain.

No. Winnie can’t do this. She can’t kill again and cry Self-defense! If there’s one thing she has learned in the last week, it’s that she has to live with her choices for the rest of time; she has to live with her ghosts.

Winnie grabs the sylphid by the arm and starts tugging. The creature is heavier than she expects—which is silly. She has lifted plenty of dead sylphids during corpse duty. Behind her, the dryad lashes out with willow branches. It is green—so green—and the first sylphid hisses and electrocutes.

Winnie drags its sibling toward the water. The white foam of the waterfall spits and sprays; the TV static sound is overpowering; and Jay’s song whispers and kisses against Winnie’s skin.

Green. Everything glows toxic green.

The water kicks at the shoreline. Here is where Jay saved Winnie on her third trial. Here is where she awoke with the scent of him to keep her safe.

She doesn’t think it’s all in her head when she catches a whiff of lime and bergamot now. Or when she hears, again, his song “Backlit” summoning her in a voice that isn’t really there.

With heat on your skin I spin

Until I can’t see us

Her boots reach the water. The sylphid isn’t moving, and its oozing, silty blood has left a trail.

I find no relief, inside I’m still a hopeless curse

Winnie heaves the body all the way into the water, careful to keep herself from ever getting so deep that the natural whirlpool sucks her down…

It sucks down the sylphid in seconds. And Winnie stares hard, hard at the churning waters. “Help it,” she begs the melusine who lives below. “Heal it because I don’t think—” Her voice cracks. She tries again. “I don’t think it’s a hopeless curse. I don’t think it deserves to die.”

Winnie has no idea if the melusine hears her. No idea if the mist even brought that particular to life this time . I love you. I’m sorry.

Winnie turns away from the shoreline and tromps uphill into the trees.

Melusine: These beautiful, mermaid-like creatures inhabit the rivers and lakes of the forest. They are not aggressive but will attack if humans get near. Their blood, a clear liquid, can heal external injuries when poured on a wound. When ingested, it is an effective antidote against venoms and poison. (Note from Winnie: It leaves a horrible hangover.)

The melusine is following Winnie.

Winnie doesn’t notice it for a full five minutes as she scrabbles up the unfriendly hill. As her left ankle gives out three times, and she nearly face-plants on roots or rocks. Only when she hears a loud boom! like a Tuesday grenade from the west does she look back…

And oh, there it is. Humanoid and hunching. Slippery and scaled. The melusine is only thirty feet away, and it’s not even trying to hide itself. It blinks, eyes vertically pupilled ( Like a banshee, Winnie notes). Its chest rises and falls. Its teal scales flicker with shades of purple, winks of blue, and above all, flashes of green.

But what surprises Winnie most—other than the fact that the melusine is there —is that it has legs. In all Winnie’s readings, in all her obsessive study of illustrations, she has never seen or heard of a melusine with anything other than a fishlike tail.

But this is definitely a melusine; it definitely has legs; and it’s definitely following Winnie.

They are not aggressive but will attack if humans get near. Welp, Winnie sure is near! And she can’t help but recall a mutilated vampira she found two years ago on corpse duty. She was so sure a melusine had killed it, but Mario had simply shaken his head while the Council had simply laughed. It’s not your fault, Marcia had told her, that you’re so out of practice.

Well, Marcia, Winnie thinks, I have a surprise for you! Not only do melusine kill, but they will track you before they do so!

With a strangled groan, Winnie hefts up her knife and trudges onward uphill. Wind slants against her, stinking of rotting leaves and musty water. Of fresh-churned soil and gunpowder. Wood smoke too—she catches whiffs of burning trees.

She checks behind her. The melusine is no closer, but it’s also not farther away.

She wants to scream at it. To shout, Shoo, shoo! Leave me alone! I’m only here to help you! But that would most certainly draw other nightmares—such as the salamander probably burning the forest south of here.

Another boom! like a grenade. Another glance behind her to check on the melusine.

It’s closer this time. So Winnie claws uphill faster. Her ankle fights her. The ground fights her too, slick with rain that is just starting to topple out. Fat, hot drops that remind Winnie of the mist. That hurt each time they pelt against her skin.

She is almost to the top of the hill. Then she will be a mere forty feet from the Big Lake. If she can just get that far. If she can just see what’s waiting up there. Is it Jay? Is it the Crow and Erica? Is it a single eye opening wide with the words Gone Fishing written in mist around it?

Winnie hauls herself over the final crest, pulling onto the root of a massive black walnut. The low branch of a much smaller white ash. She peers back.

She no longer sees the melusine.

Which feels like a very, very bad development. She whips forward once more, knife outstretched. Wind beats faster here, no longer blocked by the lower terrain. The hot rain falls harder. The roar of the falls is less TV static now, more microwave cosmic background. It all crushes together, compressing Winnie in green chaos. Branches waving. Trunks groaning.

The more I forget you, the deeper you sink in.

She limps forward. SOS throbs from her ankle. Ahead, a weeping willow thrashes more wildly than the elms or ash trees around it. Winnie skirts to avoid… only to watch as the willow follows her. Because— duh, Winnie! —it’s the dryad from before. She was so focused on the melusine, she didn’t pay attention to what else was stalking her up the hill.

Such as the actual forest.

Branches fling out. Claws form at the ends. Winnie arcs up her knife, tumbling left. But it’s useless. The branches loop around her arm like vines, and in seconds, she is being dragged toward the dryad’s trunk. She digs her boots into the soil. The earth is soft here, sand and pine needles that kick up greenish dust—before getting sucked into the currents slinging toward the lake.

“No!” Winnie screams. “Let go!” The fat scorching raindrops vanish as she is towed under branches. She thinks of Erica in mist vines from the Crow. She thinks of Jay eaten whole by the Whisperer. She was so close to the Big Lake. She was so close to the Pure Heart. “I’m on your side,” she tries to shout, but the branches are creaking around her head, shoving wet leaves and rough bark into her mouth. Her glasses get crushed against her face. She can’t even scream now, and there—oh god, there is a mouth forming in the middle of the dryad’s trunk.

It has teeth, it has a tongue. Hot breath curls outward. The branches constrict Winnie tighter.

Then it stops.

It just stops, as if someone hit a pause button on the dryad. Rain still batters down. The wind still sucks over Winnie, frizzing with a song that sounds like Jay. And the waterfall still thunders and snarls downhill.

But as quickly as the dryad overpowered Winnie, it now releases her. She topples to the sandy earth, coughing. Smoke-flavored air courses over her. Rain, still hot and charged, lands on her face. Her glasses are bent and warped.

A shadow stretches over her. Then a pair of scaled legs. It is the melusine, and when Winnie tries to scoot away, it doesn’t stop her. It simply watches as she crab-legs backward. And though it has no eyes, Winnie can 100 percent feel the dryad watching her too.

“Oh shit,” she croaks, clutching at her throat. Her neck is bleeding. Her face as well, and the rain is washing blood down in burning stripes. But neither the melusine nor the dryad make a move to attack again. So Winnie doesn’t grab for her second knife, nor does she get up and start sprinting. She simply wipes the blood and rain from her eyes. Adjusts her glasses as best she can. Then pushes all the way to her feet, ankle bones juddering and howling.

Smoke billows upward, a gray curtain to haze out the southern sky. And there’s a rhythmic thump in the sand like a heartbeat. Gently tangible through the strange, tugging storm that wants to consume Winnie—and everything else—around the Big Lake.

“I’m… going now,” Winnie tells the melusine. She lifts her hands. No weapons, see? “I think that’s what you want me to do. I think that’s why you just helped me. And uh… well, if you can find any other helpers, that would be great. Because I’m not sure what’s happening at the shore, and I’m only one person against a really powerful Diana.”

The melusine coughs, a violent sound that draws up from its aquatic throat while its scales coruscate in a wave of colors. It lifts its arm; Winnie sees it’s holding her knife.

“For me?”

The melusine blinks. Its irises, Winnie notes, are glowing silvery gray like Jay’s.

“Okay. Thanks… I guess.” Winnie inches forward. Her exo-scales—modeled on this creature right here—look laughably clumsy next to the nightmare’s own scales.

Winnie grips the hilt. The melusine’s fingers briefly brush against hers.

And a ripple of strength courses through her. Up her arm, into her skull. It’s like coffee with a splash of starlight. Like kisses underneath a Lyrid sky.

Melusine scales provide all the euphoric feelings of melusine blood but with only limited active healing properties. That’s what the Compendium says, but now Winnie adds a note of her own: However, when the melusine chooses to share its healing powers, all it requires is a single touch to transfer the magic.

Winnie feels amazing.

Like, amazing. All the pain in her ankle is gone, as if there was never a Morse code machine pulsating through her blood vessels. The shredded skin on her face and neck stitches back together—she feels it happening, as if there are zippers on her flesh sliding shut. Within seconds, it’s as if Winnie never got hurt in the Saturday maze or by a sylphid at the falls. Like she was never in a Tuesday cell with too little food and even less sleep.

Yet unlike when she drank melusine blood, she feels no silly drunkenness. No giggly ecstasy. The touch of the melusine was healing, empowering, restoring—and nothing more.

“Thanks.” Winnie chokes out a laugh. A slightly deranged laugh as she finishes accepting the knife. Steel glints in the green and orange light. Rain plops onto it and slides down.

The melusine doesn’t move, and as Winnie carefully backs away, it lets her. As does the dryad, so immobile now it looks more tree than nightmare. Only its branches move, clashing on the unnatural, Pure Heart wind. On that heartbeat rumbling into its roots.

Winnie turns. Winnie runs. And this time, when the melusine follows—and the dryad too—she lets them.