Page 66 of The Luminaries
He pauses and his jaw works with a few forceful gum smacks. Then he offers a pained grimace to Winnie. “I’m really sorry about what happened yesterday. Likesosorry. But the only way we can get away with tracking the Whisperer right now is if no one knows we’re doing it.”
Winnie’s teeth click. While she is most definitely less furious withMario than when she’d first found him, she’s still a long way off from forgiving him.
“Jay put out these three cameras last night.” Mario waves to the screen. “Despite Lizzy’s optimism, I’m not sure they’ll last a full hunt. If we’re lucky, they’ll survive the mist long enough to capture more footage of our unknown nightmare. If we’re not lucky, well… then we’ll just keep putting out cameras until we get it.”
“Or until you get caught.”
Pop!“Or until we get caught.” Mario rubs at his eyes. He looks as stretched out as Winnie feels.
“Or,” Winnie begins, pushing at her glasses, “you catch the werewolf. Surely after that’s done, then Dryden and the other councilors will listen.”One thing at a time,like her mom had said. Except that when she glances at Mario for a response, she finds he has stiffened at those words. His jaw has stopped moving, and he stares with unseeing eyes at the cameras. Time trickles past. The forest’s soothing sounds rustle through the room.
Until at last Mario says, “I don’t know, Winnie. This werewolf has remained hidden for a long time, and I’m afraid… That is to say, I think… Well…” He pulls a fresh stick of gum from his pocket and shoves it into his mouth. Then he finally meets Winnie’s gaze, a hollowness weighing at the back of his eyes. “I think we need to prepare ourselves for the very real chance we might never find it. At least not before the creature is ready to be found.”
Winnie can’t stop stewing over Mario’s words while she walks to the history library, rolling her bike beside her.The werewolf has remained hidden a long time.How long, she wants to know—and how long has Mario known it was out there? She hadn’t been able to ask before they’d heard Dryden’s voice in the hall and Winnie had fled.
Not before it’s ready to be found.
A werewolf in Hemlock Falls. A Whisperer no one believes in. God, she hopes Lizzy’s cameras capture something. She might not have been alive for the werewolf seventeen years ago, but the damage is seared intoeveryone’s DNA. Inherited trauma, inherited fear. Sometimes Winnie has wondered if the reason no one noticed what her dad was—the reason that she and Mom and Darian never noticed—was because they were all so fixated on what might come out of the forest… instead of what might try to comein.
Yet, for some reason, Winnie has a sickening fear that what’s happening now is going to get worse. Alotworse.
Soon the Monday library comes into view: two square buildings connected by a covered walkway where morning glories will bloom in the late summer. All is still at this hour; the library never gets crowded, but especially not before 8:00A.M.
She hasn’t been here but a few clandestine times over the past four years, and she hadn’t realized just how much she missed being able to simply walk inside. Four stories rise up, arranged around an open area filled with tables and thick with books dedicated to the history of the Luminaries.
Someone coughs on a higher floor. She thinks she hears a Xerox machine warming up.
She cuts right toward a row of shelves that stretch alongside tall, multipaned windows.“1” for first floor. “3” for third row.This eastern block of shelves is dedicated to the Dianas—and it makes her heart pound when she realizes it.
Dad was not being subtle.
A few spiders have taken up residence over the oldest, fattest tomes.“Th” for author first name.Winnie finds three of them on the bottom shelf closest to the window, all by the same woman, Theodosia Monday:The Awakening of the Spirit by Source, Signs of Sources, Soil Composition for Optimal Sources.Winnie feels ill at those titles.
Don’t take my finger bones as a source,sì?
A tiny little piece of her wants to open one of those books and read about sources. Do Dianas actually use finger bones? What might Dad’s source have been? A much larger, more insistent piece of her, though, wants to find Dad’s message and get the hell out of here.
Winnie shoots a quick glance around. There’s no one. The Xerox, on a higher floor, is now thrumming in full force.
Heart pounding, she pulls out each book. Her teeth click double time.But when she shakes the books’ pages, nothing comes out. And when she quickly skims through them, nothing rests within. They’re just dry texts on how Dianas drain magic from spirits by planting “sources” in the forests. When the sources are full, the Dianas can cast spells with the gathered magic—but the spells come at a price: they leave physical marks on Dianas’ hands. Burn marks from the heat of a power that isn’t theirs.
Winnie’s heart pounds harder. Someone must have found Dad’s message, and oh god, what if it had been addressed to her? What if it was turned over to the Council and they know Dad tried to contact her—
“No,” she whispers, pushing at her glasses. “No.” The more likely situation is that Dad didn’t even put the note in a book. He wrote in code; he was obviously being careful; if the message isn’t here, she should just keep looking.
Another glance around. Still no one, though the Xerox has silenced. Someone coughs again.
Winnie pats along the shelf. Top, bottom, anywhere a message might be taped. Her fingers feel nothing save a spiderweb that makes her flinch.Gross.After confirming no spider scuttles over her, she crooks down to actually peer beneath the shelf where the books had rested.
Her chest is practically on the floor. Her glasses slip down her nose. But there’s no paper, no tape, no message. Just a squiggly line and some dots on the back of the shelf, like a five-year-old got hold of a permanent marker.
Except why would a five-year-old be here? And why would they draw back there?
Winnie’s teeth click even faster as she yanks more books off the shelf, revealing more squiggles. Six books later, and the whole drawing is on display: a wavy line that snakes right, save for a big gap in the middle with an X floating at the heart. Then, at the top corner, there’s a letterZwith an arrow pointing left, and beside that are the numbers1–2–1.
Winnie has absolutely no idea what it means.
She also has no chance to consider it, because footsteps clatter this way. Heeled shoes on hardwood that move with purposeful speed. Winnie shoves the books back onto the shelf and hauls herself to her feet right as, of all people, Erica Thursday appears.
