Page 29 of The Luminaries
“Um, thanks?”
“And you killed a banshee—abanshee! Andrew started telling me how they like to eat their prey still alive, and I was just like, ‘Stop! I don’t want to know!’” He yanks her into another hug. “I was wrong to doubt you. I was really wrong, and you are my hero.”
Winnie draws in a slow breath. Darian smells like spearmint toothpaste, as he always does. It would be a comforting smell if she weren’t presently freaking out. If anyone can catch her in a lie, it’s Darian.Don’t say anything,she tells herself.Don’t say anything.She’ll just keep her mouth shut, and he’ll move on.
Except he doesn’t move on. “Tell me what happened. I want the whole story.”
“I mean,” she squeezes out, “it’s pretty much what everyone is saying—”
“But I want to hear it fromyou.” He pushes her toward her bed and then slings himself into the desk chair, where he used to sit almost every night while he and Winnie hashed out, yet again, what had happened with Dad. How had they missed the signs? Where had he fled to? What would they do if the Council decided to cast them out forever?
It’s nice seeing Darian there again. Winnie doesn’t want to ruin the moment.
She pushes at her glasses. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but first.” She holds out her arms. “What do you think of my outfit?”
As she’d hoped, his eyes light on the leather jacket. He gasps. “Where did you get that? It’s gorgeous.”
“Isn’t it?” She strokes her forearm like a cat. “It’s buttery soft, and look at this.”Zip-zip, zip-zip.“Emma and Bretta Wednesday gave it to me.”
Darian’s expression moves from skeptical awe to envious awe. “I knew being a networker paid well, but…” He scoots from the chair to the bed. “Maybe I should consider a career change.” He sighs. Then his gaze scans over her, taking in the rest of her outfit. When he spots the locket, he smiles. “You like it?”
“Yeah.” She pats her sternum where it rests. “I like it.”
“These, though.” He flicks her old glasses. “Please tell me the new ones got smashed by a banshee.”
“Kind of.” Winnie forces a laugh. They are returning to dangerously boily waters. She shoots to her feet. “What’s this promotion? Are you no longer assistant to the assistant of the illustrious Mr. Dryden Saturday?”
“Nope.” A sly smile spreads over his lips. His dark eyes crinkle behind his own, much more stylish glasses. “I am now straightassistantand Cindy Thursday got punted over to the filing desk. Oh, man, Winnie, I wish you could have seen her face when Mr. Saturday told us about the ‘internal rearranging.’ She looked like her head might explode, neck straining, lips so tight they turned white—”
“Are you coming?” a voice hollers from downstairs. Andrew. “Dinner is getting cold!”
“Dinner?” Winnie asks as Darian flashes her anoops!face and pushes to his feet.
“Indeed, madam.” He offers her his arm. “We have brought you the finest fare from Très Jolie, and Mom will be home soon for our celebratory meal. You can tell us all about the banshee hunt then.”
It takes every ounce of wiles Winnie has to navigate dinner. It’s worse than being in the forest, all the dodging and ducking and deflecting. Yet somehow, over the dinner of coq au vin, baguette, and a family-sized salad, Winnie manages to successfully steer the conversation away from the banshee. And if anyone thinks it strange that she keeps removing her glasses to clean them or that she keeps asking everyone else abouttheirdays, no one says anything.
They also don’t say anything when she declares exhaustion and an early bedtime. On her way toward the stairs, though, Winnie’s attention snags on the PC and she remembers that she hasn’t heard a word from Jay—meaning she also has no ride to the Sunday estate in the morning.
It’s a long shot, but maybe Jay still uses the old email address he used to have. Before she can actually write to him, however, she spots a new email from Mario.
I heard what happened,it reads.Congratulations! You’re either completely bananas or an evil genius. I’m guessing the former, but I’m impressed all the same. And now that you’ve got clan privileges again, comeby my office. No need to wait for corpse duty. I want to discuss that wolf theory. See you soon!
All thoughts of Jay diffuse like forest mist. Winnie’s eyes unfocus and her teeth start clicking as she closes the browser. As she puts the old PC to sleep and slides out of the squeaky swivel chair. As her feet shuffle her upstairs and into her bedroom, where the door shuts and softens the sound of wine-happy Darian and Mom.
Winnie is welcome back on the Monday estate. Just like that, she is allowed to come and go as she pleases. And if she wants, she can waltz right into the main building where Mario’s office is and visit him at any time. It doesn’t even matter that she doesn’t know where it is. She’s allowed to be on the campus, and people will actually respond to her when she waves.
For some reason, this feels more real than anything else has. Or rather, it’s like the final adjustment on the eye-doctor lens that makes the hot-air balloon come into focus. She actually did it. Her family is accepted again in the Luminaries.Sheis accepted again in the Luminaries.
She sits on her bed, teeth no longer clicking. Everything inside her has gone as still as the forest—and as cold as the forest too. She should be happy. It’s been so long since she heard Mom and Darian laugh like they are right now downstairs.
But she isn’t happy. Not merely because it’s all a lie and she’ll have to maintain this lie for the rest of her life, or because her odds of survival on Sunday night are feeling terrifyingly low and her plan to get Jay’s help has already dissolved like cotton candy in the rain… but because of the werewolf.
Her reaction isn’t logical. She should feel fear, but instead, she feels only a sluggish, almost angry resistance. What if the Council and the hunters have it all wrong? What if the werewolf hasn’t killed anyone at all, and instead, all the recent deaths of hunters and nons were caused by that whispery kaleidoscope thing?
Yes, werewolves are bad. Period. If one is out there, then Hemlock Falls needs to be on high alert. When the werewolf emerged from the forest seventeen years ago, he killed six people before the Tuesdays were able to kill him. The whole city was on lockdown, and the collectivememory of that imprinted on everyone. Even on the people who, like Winnie, weren’t yet alive.
But there was also thatotherthing, whatever it was. Even if no one else seems to have seen it, she knows she saw the forest crack into fractals. She knows she heard a sound like melting car speakers. And sheknowsshe found that banshee outside the forest lines.
