Page 9 of The Luminaries
But alas, Winnie just isn’t convincing enough, and Mom sighs. It is a sound of such dejection and self-loathing that Winnie is struck, for the eight millionth time, by how much she hates her dad. He did this to Francesca Wednesday. He broke her heart—broke all their hearts—and made the toughest hunter in the Wednesday clan into…
Into this.
Not that Mom is broken. Anythingbut.She is Winnie’s hero and always will be. But before Dad betrayed them, Mom never had any doubts. She was Lead Hunter for the Wednesday clan, and she lived by the Wednesday motto. She hammered loyalty into her kids; she hammered loyalty into Winnie.
Then Mom caught Dad in the middle of a spying spell that would have fed Luminary secrets directly to the Dianas. She’d tried to turn him in. He’d knocked her out. And the rest is shitty history.
“How do I look?” Winnie offers her goofiest smile for Mom, tongue out and teeth bared, and to her relief, Mom grins back.
“Order up!” Archie barks, louder now.
“You look fantastic, Win.” Mom pulls Winnie in for an awkward hug (they’ve never been one for touching) and kisses her hair. “Happy birthday to my most favorite daughter in all the universe—”
“Order.”
“—I hope it’s a good day, and don’t forget: we need to practice your driving—”
“Up.”
“Hellions and banshees, Archie,I freaking heard you!” Mom scowls, looking much more like the hard-ass Lead Hunter Winnie grew up with. A pat on the head for Winnie, then she’s already stalking away to grab more breakfast.
And to serve all the Luminaries who will no longer let her in.
CHAPTER7
It isn’t that most Luminaries are cruel to Winnie or her family directly. After the spray-painting incident of freshman year had yielded actual punishment from the Council, most of the local Luminaries shifted to ignoring Winnie, Darian, and their mom.
At least to their faces. Behind their backs, however, they do love a good snicker. Or a good whisper. Or even the occasionalOops, I spilled my chai latte all over you. So sorry!
And when Winnie says “behind their backs,” she means it literally. In homeroom, she is forced to sit in the second row because of Ms. Morgan’s inane seat assignments that arrange everyone by grade, which means that today she gets to hear Dante Lunedì whisper-sing “Happy Birthday” at her with slightly modified lyrics and a nice accent.
He and his family might have moved here only two years ago from the Italian branch of the Luminaries, but outcasts like Winnie are despised in all fourteen branches around the world. So even though newcomers regularly join the American Luminaries, they all know exactly how they’re supposed to treat Winnie, Darian, and Mom.
“Happy birthday to you,”Dante sings,“happy birthday to you, happy birthday, witch traitor, happy birthday to you.”
Well, at least someone remembered her birthday. Winnie supposes that must count for something, right?
She doesn’t turn around, because she never turns around. She just drags her No. 2 pencil over a corner of math homework. Here are the sylphid’s horns. Its teeth. Its bark-textured skin. Winnie isn’t in homeroom at all, but back in the forest while the hemlocks and spruce trees breathe. While humidity beads on her skin and the cold sharpens her senses.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, Diana spawn, happy birthday to you.”Then he adds a spoken “Don’t take my finger bones as a source,sì?”
Most of the classroom is laughing now. Quiet, subtle laughs that are just soft enough they can be silenced in a heartbeat. The only person not laughing is Fatima Wednesday, whose mom is head of the Wednesday clan and therefore a councilor. She whisper-hisses “Stop” at Dante, as well as “No Diana would want your gross fingers.”
As much as Winnie wants to give Fatima a grateful glance, she dares not turn around. She’s afraid if she does, it will somehow confirm that no Diana would want his gross fingers. Then people will question how Winnie knows such a thing, and it won’t matter that she doesn’t. That even to this day, she has no idea what her dad’s source was made of or where he may have buried it in the forest.
Twelve more hours,Winnie tells herself. In twelve more hours, she’ll be starting the first trial. She presses her pencil into the paper and sketches out a long sylphid finger, almost rootlike in its gnarly shape.Twelve more hours, twelve more hours.
Right as Dante is going in for a third round of song, this time with Peter Sunday on harmony, Ms. Morgan arrives. She isn’t a Luminary, but a rare non folded into the Hemlock Falls mix because she has been dating Mason Thursday for a bazillion years. With alabaster skin and round, glowing cheeks that she expertly streaks with shimmery highlighter, she has the look of a hippie art teacher. Her long mousy-brown hair is always pulled into a single braid, her clothes always billowy and free.
Aunt Rachel was actually the one who vetted Leona Morgan to ensure she had no shady past or Diana connections before she was allowedinto Hemlock Falls. That was when Rachel had worked in the bureaucratic Wednesday offices before taking over as Lead Hunter.
Winnie has always wondered who vetted Dad; she has always wondered if Dad had been a Diana before he came and the Wednesdays just missed the signs… or if he joined the witches after moving here.
The entire room goes quiet at Ms. Morgan’s arrival, and she flings out a knowing glance from behind her thin, metal-framed glasses. The exact sort of glasses that Winnie was hoping to get.
“Good morning.” Ms. Morgan waves a loosed-sleeved arm at the room. “Is everyone finished being a childish asshole yet? Because if so, I’d like to take attendance.”
Dante chokes. The rest of the room goes silent—and Winnie wishes very much that she could curl under her desk and die. Having Ms. Morgan defend her is even worse than enduring the childish assholes.
