Page 12 of The Luminaries
Everything is gray.
Winnie obeys, a smile perking her lips, and she quickly opens theglove box. Because Darian is the living embodiment of a color-coded spreadsheet, and because he will organize anything that anyone will ever let him near, each item is in its proper sleeve, each emergency supply (matches, snacks, and even a glass-hammer in case the truck ever ends up underwater) in its proper cubbyhole.
He would have done so well as a Thursday. (Family motto:Always prepared. Never without a plan.)
Nestled within the orderly lines of the glove compartment is a tiny, gray velvet box. Too small to be pens or markers or a new sketchpad.Curiouser and curiouser.Winnie slides it out and opens it, holding it to the hazy afternoon light.
A locket winks up at her, a crescent moon and stars stamped into the matte gold. It’s the symbol for the Luminaries, and when she clicks open the thumbnail-sized circle, she finds a picture of Darian on one side and herself on the other. Old photos, from when she was eight and he was thirteen.
She tries to grin. She reallywantsto grin, but instead, she grimaces. Then bursts into tears. Not normal tears either, but the gross, hiccuping kind, and the next thing she knows, Darian has pulled into a parallel parking spot in front of Odell Wednesday’s bakery.
“Oh my god, what’s wrong? Winnie, what is it?” He reaches for her across the seat, but Winniereallydoesn’t like to be touched when she’s crying.
“I’m”—hiccup—“doing”—hiccup—“the trial tonight.”
Darian doesn’t seem to understand. He frowns at Winnie and slides off his glasses. “You’re what?”
“I’m doing the first trial tonight!” She practically wails the words this time. Then she too yanks off her glasses, and buries her face in her hands.
This is embarrassing. She is not a crier. And yet for some reason, she cannot seem to stop. Even as she senses that Darian has gone extremely still beside her. Still as a vampira stalking its prey. Still as a brother who has no idea what to say in the face of a hysterical little sister.
After several minutes of Winnie’s gulping tears and the clacking windshield wipers, Winnie finally gets herself under control. She wipes her eyes and snuffles onto a tissue Darian is now offering.
Then, as if he’s afraid he might scare her, he says very softly, “You’re doing the trial tonight. Is that even allowed?”
“Yeth.” Winnie blows her nose. Then she explains how she checked the Rulebook and even copied the relevant pages. Any Luminary can take the trials during the month of their sixteenth birthday, but they only get one chance. To fail marks the end of their hunter career before it can even begin.
Darian swallows. His fingers—his middle finger bearing a ring on it that matches one Andrew wears—start tapping the steering wheel. “You need to tell Mom.”
“She’ll just stop me.”
“Which maybe isn’t a bad thing.” He sighs and shifts toward her, drawing one knee onto the seat with him. “Win, peopledietaking the hunter trials. And those are people who’ve been training for years. You’ve seen what nightmares can do to a person.”
Winnie blows her nose again, then stares at the gross tissue now clutched in her hand. “Darian, you know this is all I’ve ever wanted.” Her voice is very small. “This is my only shot at it. If I can’t do it now, then I can’t ever.”
His lips compress, the skin around them turning pale, and Winnie knows he’s thinking about his own lost dream. She would feel guilty about that if she weren’t so desperate to convince him.
“Plus,” she forges on, “if I could become a hunter, it might helpallof us. You, me, Mom. We might actually be welcomed into the Luminaries again. No more waiting six years for this stupid punishment to end.”
Darian’s lips compress even more, and he notably says nothing—because there’s nothing he can say. Being a hunter carries clout in Hemlock Falls.Bigclout. Enough to count for something with the Council.
And with the Wednesdays too.
He pushes his glasses back on. “What were you gonna tell Mom you were doing?”
“I was just going to sneak out.”
He glares. “And then show back up all busted and muddy at threeA.M.? No way. The forest is dangerous for a Luminary untrained, remember? It’s like the first thing we learn, Winnie.”
“And I’m not totally untrained.” Winnie sets her jaw. “I’ve been practicing on my own.”
Darian’s glare turns suspicious. “How long have you been planning this?”
She fidgets with the tissue. “A while.”Since we first got kicked out.“The first trial is the easiest, Darian. All I have to do is kill a single nightmare. And when I do that, then I can move on to the second trial this weekend—”
“‘When’?” he repeats. “More like ‘if.’”
Winnie shreds off a corner of the tissue and ignores him. “WhenI pass, I’ll move on to the second trial and survive a night in the forest. Then I’ll move on to the final trial, whatever it might be.” She pins him with a stare. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’sif,not when, but I have to at least try, Darian. Think about what it might do for our family! Having a hunter again—proving our loyalty to the clan.Provingthat just because Dad turned out to be a Diana doesn’t mean we haven’t always been Luminaries to the core.”
