Page 59 of The Luminaries
Suddenly Winnie doesn’t know what the hell she was thinking, coming up here. She drops the photo back onto the stack and grabs the lid to close it again—which is when she notices something under all the pictures. Something that isn’t a flower sketch or a photograph, but an envelope. Red, just like the one that came on Winnie’s birthday.
She sniffles again. Rubs once at her eyes. Then sweeps the pictures aside. Sure enough, it’s the birthday card, and when Winnie digs deeper, she finds eight. Four addressed to her, four addressed to Darian. One for each year that Dad hasn’t been here.
One for each year Winnie thought her mom was taking these to the Council.
No, no,she tells herself.You saw Mom leave.She must have turned them over to the Council, and for whatever reason, the Council gave them back.
Except as Winnie returns the cards to the shoebox with trembling hands, she knows the obvious truth: all the cards except one are unopened. Mom never turned these in. And if she has kept them a secret every single year… not just from the Council but from Winnie and Darian too… then what else might she be hiding?
Winnie’s teeth click as she slides the card from its envelope. It’s just a plain white postcard, and in Dad’s print writing with the scatteredidots, she reads:
Happy 1–3-Th birthday, Winnie! I wish I was there to see you. It was only last year that things were normal and right, framed like that picture of us in the living room. Stay safe.
Love, Dad
It’s a code. Winnie knows that right away. The1–3-This from the games they used to play—this one a sort of scavenger hunt, where they’d leave messages in books at the Monday history library. He must have left her a message, assuming she’d read this card four years ago, and now that hidden message has been sitting inside a book all this time, where anyone might find it.
Where anyone might havealreadyfound it.
She feels sick at the thought. Like, her heart is thumping way too hard against her lungs. She should go make sure the message is still there. Then dispose of whatever it is. And she should read the other cards too, to make sure there aren’t any other notes tucked inside books a random Luminary might read.
Winnie doesn’t read them, though—not yet anyway—because she really thinks her heart might explode if she has to stare at Dad’s handwriting a second longer. Her whole body feels tingly; her head feels light. How dare he do this. Howdarehe. Even if she’d read his card four years ago, she couldn’t have accessed the history library as an outcast.
Winnie is glad Mom didn’t give her the cards. She’s also glad Mom didn’t give these to the Council—not that Mom or Darian knew the game Winnie and Dad used to play. But they might have figured out the code. They might have decided Winnie, Mom, and Darian had been in cahoots with Dad all along.
For some reason, as Winnie escapes the attic, her eyes ache with tears.
That night, Mom lets Winnie have not one, buttwoginger ales, as well as a boatload of chicken noodle soup that has thatje ne sais quoiflavor only found in a can. While she and Winnie are sitting on the couch,sharing a blanket that has seen better days, Johnny Saturday appears on the TV with his too-handsome face that never seems to age. After announcing that the drama troupe will be performingA Midsummer Night’s Dreamnext week (tickets are fifty dollars) and that the Revenant’s Daughter will be briefly closed while a new stove is installed (“Dammit, Archie, thanks for the heads-up”), he shifts to the usual updates on forest activity.
More vampira. A manticore nest that keeps reappearing on the eastern side of the lake with hatchlings. A melusine recorded near the falls.
Winnie blows her nose three times and takes two sips of tea that isn’t quite hot anymore. Every second that she’s around Mom makes her lungs swell with a question she’s afraid will eventually burst out of her:Why did you keep the birthday cards? Do you know what they say?But as long as the TV is on, she’s able to quell her need for answers—and the truth is that she isn’t quite sure shewantsto know Mom’s answers.
Then comes the moment Winnie has been awaiting from Johnny Saturday: “The Council has also posted an alert for all locals of a daywalker in the forest.”
Winnie jolts upright. The couch shakes.
“Until the Tuesdays have captured this nightmare, all nonhunters are advised to avoid the main forest and any hotspots.” Johnny pauses, as if he’s confused by the teleprompter. Then he visibly blanches on camera. “Wow, so this werewolf rumor is real, then. Good god.”
He blinks, briefly breaking eye contact with the camera. A swallow. A twitch of his jaw. Then a return to the teleprompter: “Though no ID has been made, there is strong evidence to suggest a werewolf walks among us in Hemlock Falls. The Council blames it for the recent hunter deaths of Noah Saturday and Claire Tuesday, as well as the increase in non corpses. The Council will host a public forum tomorrow night to address any concerns.”
Again, Johnny pauses, and this time he shakes his head too. “Be careful out there, folks. Just… be careful.” The news cuts away. Mom grabs for the remote. The TV winks off, leaving a black screen with Winnie’s and Mom’s reflections on it.
Winnie feels as sick as Johnny had just looked. Like she has beenpunched in the stomach. She knows Mom is staring at her—can even see from her periphery as worry folds over Mom’s face.
Mom knows about the Whisperer; Aunt Rachel told her about Winnie’s assertions; and Winnie later told Mom about Lizzy having actual footage of it.
“I… don’t understand,” Winnie finds herself saying. “It’s not the werewolf that killed those people. It’s the Whisperer.”
“Well,” Mom says with way too much gentleness, “a werewolfissomething to worry about too, even if you think something else—”
“I don’t think.” Winnie glares at Mom’s reflection. “I know.” She had been so sure that with Lizzy and Mario to back her up, the hunters would listen. The Council would listen. Instead, all of Hemlock Falls is fixated on the wrong daywalker because of something that happened seventeen years ago.
Sure, Mom is right: a werewolf is something to worry about. But the Whisperer is incalculably worse. A new nightmare that eats other nightmares like a wood chipper? That walks in and out of the forest at will? And that doesn’t disappear when the mist comes?
Nothing could be worse.Nothingcould be more dangerous for Hemlock Falls and the world beyond.
“I’m going to bed,” Winnie says, standing unsteadily.
