The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

Chapter 50

CHAPTER 50

What Winnie soon learns is that on the night her dad disappeared, events unfolded as follows:

When Mom found Dad in the middle of the living room with a glowing light in one hand and a piece of paper in the other, Dad did not in fact try to run. And Mom did not in fact give chase—because her ankle was busted.

Instead Dad said, “I am so sorry, Fran. I’m only trying to save the town.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dianas,” he answered. “A lēgātum. But if it all goes to plan, I’ll be back soon to explain. If it doesn’t…” He shook his head. Then magic slashed out. A verba circumvolēns spell mixed with a mild attack spell—to keep Mom from explaining what she saw.

To protect her, in the end, in case a Crow like Martedì ever came calling.

When Mom awoke, she did drag herself to the Tuesday estate—hoping she could get help for her husband. Hoping she could alert Jeremiah to a lēgātum in Hemlock Falls . But she couldn’t explain herself, and by then it was all too late. Dad’s plan failed; Jenna died; Dad got Grayson away…

But then he had to ensure Martedì’s attention never turned onto the poor boy who knew nothing of what Jenna really was, but simply loved her with all his heart. First, Dad gave Jenna’s locket to Grayson with the order to give it to Erica.

Then Dad became a crow and flew away.

The rest… ah, well, the rest is shitty history. Dad was four years out of practice with magic, and he couldn’t change back into a person. He’d known this might happen—he’d also known there was a very good chance he might die—so he had crafted a contingency plan. But Ms. Morgan didn’t follow her instructions. She was supposed to give the cards directly to Winnie and Darian. Instead, she delivered them to a mailbox, and then Mom tucked them away into the attic.

Human error. One step gone wrong. One semicolon forgotten on the line of code. Until a lucky, fateful day when Darian gave Winnie a locket for her sixteenth birthday… and Winnie went into the attic to dig for clues.

Dad was framed, just not in the way Winnie thought.

And now he is back. Now he is home.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

On the top floor of the Wednesday estate, a fabric shop has exploded inside of Fatima’s bedroom. And a crafts shop too. And also, forty-six jars of sequins. Her sleigh bed is hidden beneath so many silks, satins, feathers, lace, and sparkly plastic pieces that Winnie isn’t sure Fatima will ever find her lavender-colored bedsheets again.

Winnie keeps trying to neaten things. Fatima keeps swatting at her to stop. “Oh my goodness, Winnie. Just stay still. Is that really too much to ask?”

“Winnie.” Bretta shoots a glance from across the room. She stands in front of Fatima’s mirror, while Emma carefully—like, really carefully—attaches oak branches to her head. “You have the easiest costume out of all of us, so you should be able to follow instructions.”

“Exactly,” Fatima agrees, concentrating on the seam she is trying to get some final stitches onto. “And I wouldn’t be here finishing this…” She glares at Winnie. The thick midnight liner around her eyes make her blue irises pop with almost terrifying intensity. “If you had just told us everything that was going on in your life.”

Winnie cringes.

“Because if we’d known,” Fatima continues, repeating a rant she has expressed several times since Wednesday morning, “we could have helped you and we could have worked on this costume way sooner than the day of the freaking Nightmare Ball !” She stabs her needle into emerald silk.

Emma clucks her tongue, pausing her application of branches onto her sister’s head. “Everyone leave Winnie alone, okay? She was just doing the best she could. We love you, Winnie.”

Now Winnie really cringes, and shame is basically oozing out of her ears, her tear ducts, her nostrils. “No, no. Fatima’s right—”

“Yeah, she is,” Bretta mutters. Emma pokes her with a branch.

“—and I will just keep apologizing for the rest of time. Because it’s what you all deserve, okay?”

“And we will keep on accepting those apologies,” Emma answers. She pokes Bretta again.

“Ouch!” Bretta scowls. Then sighs. Then groans and drags her dryad-self away from the mirror. Her gown of gray and brown velvet streams behind her, the train cut into spirals to look like roots. So far, only three of the planned seven branches poke off her head. Emma has to chase behind to keep the fourth branch from falling before she has finished pinning it.

“Oh, you better not be walking over here, Bretta Wednesday!” Fatima doesn’t look up from her stitching. “I spent weeks making that costume, and if you tear it, I’ll feed you to a real dryad.”

“You are way too stressed right now, Fatima.” Bretta comes to a stop next to her—which puts her diagonal to Winnie. And Emma too, as keeper of the branches.

Bretta grins, her dimples digging deep. “Winnie: I do still love you, okay? I’m mostly just mad I didn’t get to kick more Diana butt. So next time—because I just… I just have the feeling there will be a next time with you—you’d better include us in your plans.”

Winnie bites her lip. Her shame is turning soupy.

“Oh no! You’ve made Winnie cry!” Emma tries to slide around her sister, but she can’t release the branches. “Oh, Winnie, hon. Don’t cry.”

Fatima finally looks up, her cheeks fully aflame. “Winnie, if you get tears on this silk, then you’ll be the one I feed to a dryad.”

“N-no,” Winnie blubbers. “I’m not… crying.” She sniffles. Then because she has been forbidden to move, she just lets the tears and a little snot slide down her face.

Bretta howls out a laugh, swiveling around to return to the mirror. “I made Wolf Girl cry!” she chants, clapping in time to the words. “Don’t tell Jay, he’ll eat me alive!”

A knock sounds at the door. Tentative. Almost drowned out by Bretta’s repeated chanting I made Wolf Girl cry! Don’t tell Jay, he’ll eat me alive!

“Come in!” Fatima calls.

The doorknob turns. The hinges creak. And there is Erica, poking in her head. “Hey, uh… we’re here.”

“Wheee!” Emma declares, bouncing on her toes—and in turn, making Bretta’s branches bounce too. “Join us, join us!”

Erica obeys, pushing through the door. Behind her are Katie Tuesday and Angélica Martes. All of them carry their costumes in long garment bags, and in mere moments, the bedroom is doused with noise. With laughter and voices and squeals. With questions and teasing and the shkkkkk of hairspray.

And although Fatima continues to snarl at Winnie, Stay still!, and Winnie’s stomach can’t quite stop gurgling with guilt, she also can’t not join in with the laughter and the squeals and the teasing. Her costume might be the simplest one in the room by far, but it’s still so much more than she could have ever asked for.

She is the Hunter, just like she and Fatima drew (minus the popcorn hands), complete with a jeweled belt and the sleek lines of an Ancient Roman gown—in emerald silk, of course, since Winnie is the Girl in Green.

Over the next two hours, all the girls dress. Bretta finishes transforming into an oak dryad, her head fully crowned with branches. And Winnie—under Fatima’s somewhat snippy guidance—paints gray lines down Bretta’s bare arms and across her face.

Emma becomes a phoenix, with fully feathered crimson wings to float off her back, and a gown made of slippery orange satin. Her lips are orange, and Winnie gives her feathery swirls across her face. Lastly, the Golden Crown shines like a lantern atop Emma’s head.

Fatima, meanwhile, is a siren in a fully sequined gown that fits her whole body like a shiny glove—and then slithers behind her in a long, magical tail. Her hijab is the same midnight blue as her eyeliner, and the rubber bands on her braces are teal. (Apparently Trevor, who is her date, has a matching costume that is, in Bretta’s words: smokin’ hot sexy. )

Erica metamorphoses into an arassas with (now-familiar) black cat ears, a form-fitting scaly dress, and her usual steel-toed boots. She glows with a radiance Winnie hasn’t seen in years, and rather than straighten her hair as she usually does, to look like Jenna’s, Erica has let the natural waves curl down her back.

Katie and Angélica—who have recently started dating—wear matching white vinyl bodysuits with long whips that come off their hands. “We’re manticores!” Angélica explains when Winnie raises a puzzled eyebrow. “Here’s the stinger.” She swings around to give a booty shake.

And yep. Okay. Winnie sees it now, and she applauds—and laughs—accordingly.

Once everyone is fully costumed, decorated, and accessorized, Winnie and her friends strut out of the bedroom, ready to take on the night. No longer a square of friends, but something bigger. And so, so much better.

Winnie spent four years as a hypotenuse cast adrift, and for those four, lonely years, she mistrusted anything more complicated than a line. All shapes—whether they were squares or triangles or trapezoids—looked to her like big red STOP signs.

But now she not only has a triangle, she not only has a square, she has a complete overhaul of geometry. She has a mixing of angles and lines, of blocks and diamonds, of parallelograms and polyhedrons.

So while Signora Martedì might still be out there somewhere, along with those nine other Dianas from the shore that were never captured, that Crow won’t find such an easy target in Winnie Wednesday if she ever comes back again. No more lines, no more singular photons beaming into space at the speed of light.

Number of shapes Winnie could rely on a month ago? Zero.

Number of shapes Winnie can rely on now? Too many to count.

So with her silk dress gliding over her legs and her jewel knife sheath resting comfortably at her hips, Winnie hooks her arm into Erica’s on one side. Into Fatima’s on the other. And together with this complex fractal of friends to glitter around her, she sets off for the final event of the Masquerade.