Page 38 of The Luminaries
Besides, he’s already rolling off her and springing to his feet. He offers her a hand. “Good fall.”
She winces up at him. “What?”
“You tucked in your chin and threw out your arm.” He points to her left arm, which sure enough is thrust out to her side, fingers splayed. It is the first lesson Luminaries learn in physical training: how to fall correctly. Winnie and all the other kids with her, before her, after her learn by falling over and over and over… and then over some more, until their bodies instinctively know how to minimize impact.
Winnie has practiced falling a thousand times on her living room floor these past four years (RIP TV remote), but the forest floor feels a lot harder, a lot colder.
“Glad I remembered one thing,” she groans, eyes closing. First the failure in the forest. Then the failure on the obstacle course. And now this failure against Jay. As far as she can tell, all her efforts over the last four years have led her basicallynowhere.
She hears Jay’s clothing rustle, then his hand—so warm in this forest cold—wraps around hers. “Up you go, Win.” He doesn’t give her a choice, just starts hauling, and next thing she knows, she’s standing beside him.
He scoops up the bow next, and then the fallen bolt. “Again,” he tells her, and he hops once more onto the crooked trunk.
This time, Winnie takes aim. But this time, when he moves, he doesn’t come directly at her. He drops to the floor and zooms sideways. She shoots. She misses—horribly misses, because he has already leaped into a forward roll.
He hits her again one second later, and she topples over a mere fraction of a second after that.
“Ow.” He is heavier than he looks. All those lean lines are pure muscle. Or maybe lead weights. He certainly feels like lead weights.
“Again.” He rises off her and prowls away. She doesn’t even have time to fetch her lost bolt—it’s landed beside the fallen trunk—before he’s charging again.
He hits her. She hits the ground. Then the steps of the dance renew. Every time, she lands on her back with Jay pinning her down, his gray eyes inescapable while the forest breathes around them. With eachonslaught, though, Jay seems to change. The skin on his face gains color, looking less like paper stretched over bone. As if the gray of the forest is releasing him. As if the old Jay is seeping back into his veins with each new surge of endorphins.
Or maybe it’s Winnie who’s changing, her muscles and brain finally adapting four years of practice to accommodate a partner, a target, a forest. The fallen trees seem to sharpen; the pine needles divide into a thousand amber lines across the floor; she notices small dips and rises in the terrain that she hadn’t seen before.
On maybe the tenth, maybe the twelfth try, Winnie finally has the bolt nocked—and she finally has a sense of where Jay is going to go before he moves. She’s not fast, but she’s faster than she was thirty minutes ago now that her body and instincts have woken up.
He rushes her—and rushes right for the arrow aimed at his head.
He instantly grinds to a stop, hands lifting in supplication. And Winnie whoops with pure elation. It bursts out of her, radiant as the spring sun outside the forest. “I did it! I did it! I did it!” She lowers the bow and skips toward him, shrieking.
Except he isn’t smiling back, and for half a moment, she’s scared she shot him. But when she looks down, the bolt is still in her hand.
She looks at him again. This is an expression she’s never seen before, his eyes laser-sharp.Intense,Winnie thinks. It’s the only word to describe him right now.Intense.
“Are… you okay?” She’s panting, and her elation is draining fast. She doesn’t like this version of Jay. Or, rather, she doesn’t like that she doesn’t recognize him. “Did I hurt you?”
He blinks. “No,” he gruffs out, abruptly turning away. “I’m fine.” He stalks three steps to the fallen trunk, and before Winnie’s eyes, he seems to smear away. As if the forest is erasing him, leaving only wind and leaves and misty silence in his stead.
“Good job,” he calls eventually, still facing the tree trunk. “A few more weeks, and you might actually hit me on the first try.”
Now Winnie is the one to blink. “A few more weeks?” She scurries toward him. “I don’t have a few weeks, Jay. I have another trialtomorrow night.”
“I know what you’re up against.” Jay’s hands are in his pockets. Heis folding in on himself. “I go in the forest at least one night a week, remember?”
Help me,she wants to say, but she stops herself. Jay owes her nothing. She’s not even sure why he has done this much for her. Plus, the more she pushes, the more likely he is to pushherfor answers—and if he knows whatreallyhappened on Thursday night…
He won’t help her anymore. He’ll turn her in for the liar she is because his honor as a Friday will force him to. Because deep down to the very beating core of him, Jay is honesty through and through.
He twists toward her. His cheeks are pale once more, his body back to its unnatural stillness. Mud streaks his joggers. The zipper on his hoodie has come halfway undone, revealing a white T-shirt underneath. His hair is mussed and pine-needled. “Surviving the night is the easiest of the trials, Winnie. As long as you know where to go.”
“I don’t.”
“But I do.” He reaches for the bow, and she lets him take it. His fingers are icy to the touch, though she swears only a minute ago they were warm. “There’s a spot where nightmares don’t go. You’ll have to reach that spot from the drop-off point, but I’ll show you where it is.”
“Why don’t the nightmares go there?”
“It’s surrounded by running water. And while you might get some vampira lurking around the edges, they won’t cross.”
