Page 26 of The Luminaries
“For what?”
“For other people,” he replies, and Winnie makes a mental note to actively steer Bretta and Emma away from him. They deserve better than a slacker/stoner/deadbeat, and theyespeciallydeserve better thana slacker/stoner/deadbeat who clearly has no interest in them or anyone else.
“Where are we going?”
“Your house.”
“What?” She sits taller in the cracked leather seat. “You said we could start training now.”
“And we can.” A glance in the rearview. A glance in the side mirrors. His posture might have relaxed, but his eyes are still hunted. “We should wait for the rain to end. Plus,” a cool side eye, “you need different clothes.”
Winnie doesn’t argue with this. She is soaked through from the rain on the outside and sweat on the inside. “Fine,” she agrees. “I’ll just pop into the house, change into something fresh and ‘foresty,’ then we can head off to train. Okay?”
He grunts an acknowledgment.
Soon they reach the roundabout that leads into Hemlock Falls. The first exit heads for the eastern side of the river, the second for the western side. Jay lugs the steering wheel around the circle, recently repaved and buttery smooth, then veers them onto the first exit. The river appears to their left, rough, choppy with fresh rain. Trees hug the bank here, green sprouting off their limbs in a way that it never will off the limbs of forest trees. Blue crocuses wink like police lights within the underbrush.
The windshield wipers still squeak.
“I heard about your trial last night.”
Winnie pushes up her glasses. “And?”
A shrug. A pinching of his lips that might be approval or might just as easily be disapproval.
“Did you hear about the werewolf?” she asks.
“It’s all anyone has talked about today. So yes.” He sounds neither alarmed nor concerned by it.
“Have you seen it?” Rumor has it Jay picks up a lot of hunting shifts with other clans, in addition to his required Friday nights.
“No.”
“I did.”
“Huh,” he replies, and Winnie scowls. Talking to him is like talkingto a piece of cardboard sometimes, except that cardboard still emotes more than he does.
They reach the stretch of neighborhoods where Thursdays mostly reside. Mathilda slows to accommodate a reduced speed limit. Her growl softens; the windshield wipers seem louder.Squeak-squeak. Squeak-squeak.
Though not required to, most families live near their clan’s estate. More often than not, the homes pass from generation to generation. Grandma Winona’s house passed on to Mom, and one day she will pass it on to Winnie, while Darian and Andrew will likely move into Andrew’s ancestral home.
As Mathilda clears the neighborhoods, the old trees that line the streets give way to rolling green lawns on the right. Then there’s the Thursday estate, gray stone gleaming. Mathilda groans past, and they finally reach a new stretch of neighborhoods, where most Wednesdays live.
“Jay,” Winnie says. He grunts. “Have you ever seen a nightmare that’s…” She pauses. Articulating what she saw keeps proving near impossible. “Well, it’s a nightmare that’s whispery. Like… like a wind that’s going backwards. Or a lawn mower from another dimension.” She feels absurd as soon as she utters these descriptions, and when Jay gives her a sideways look that saysHuh?heat rises to her cheeks.
“It’s just that I saw something,” she quickly explains. “It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever read about in the Compendium. It made the forest look all distorted. And itsoundeddistorted too.”
Mathilda hits the intersection at Hawthorne, and Jay turns them right. He isn’t saying anything. Winnie’s face gets hotter by the second.
“Are you listening to me, Jay?”
“Of course I am, Win.” He pulls against the curb where Mom usually parks. Once Mathilda huffs a final automotive sigh, Jay withdraws the key and twists toward Winnie. “Have you asked Mario about it? He’ll know more than I do.”
Winnie deflates. “Yeah, that’s my plan.”
“Well, let me know what he says. Also, be careful. Two hunters have died recently, you know, and the forest is dangerous—”
“For a Luminary untrained. Yeah, Idoknow.” She grabs on to thedoor handle. “That’s why I’m asking you to help me.” She kicks out of the Wagoneer, only to find Jay doing the same. Winnie scrabbles toward him on the lawn. “I thought we had to wait before we trained?”
