Page 2 of The Luminaries
This is how it usually goes. Aunt Rachel says a handful of words and then, like every other Wednesday and every other Luminary, she goes back to pretending Winnie doesn’t exist. She even walks away before Winnie has fully grasped the map, leaving Winnie to swipe it from the air as it falls.
Once Rachel joins the other hunters, they all cram into their SUVs. Electric engines hum to life. A slurp of tires on fresh mud marks their exit.
Winnie doesn’t watch them go. She has been doing corpse duty forthree years now and even if today is her birthday, even if her stomach is as knotted as a harpy’s braid, the familiarity of routine soothes her.
Corpse duty might be a job no one else likes—cleaning up the nightmare bodies left behind in the forest each morning, as well as any human bodies—but Winnie has always enjoyed it. Her brother calls her morbid; she calls him boring.
Sure, it’s a grim job, but someone has to do it. Otherwise, the corpses that don’t magically vanish at dawn will reawaken as revenants, and that’salwaysnasty. Besides, corpse duty is the only time Winnie gets to flex her knowledge of the Nightmare Compendium, and each new body is a riddle to be solved.
She studies the map, her front teeth clicking. There’s the halfer, not far from the Friday estate. And then a second human is marked about a mile away from the first, by the lake. Two is a lot for one night. There’s been a definite uptick lately.
Click, click, click. Click, click, click.
“Winnie?” comes a voice, and Marcus, Aunt Rachel’s son, steps out from under the hemlock. An eighth grader who has only just started corpse duty, he is nice to Winnie when no one else is around. But get him outside of the forest, and he—like everyone else in the Luminaries—delights in calling herwitch spawn.
Winnie dreams often of punching out his front teeth. They’re just theperfectsize for smashing and would add some much-needed color to his olive-pale skin.
Behind him are two other teenagers: the pretty Wednesday twins, Black girls with rich umber skin and dark tourmaline eyes. The dimples in their cheeks are the envy of everyone in town.
Their family moved to Hemlock Falls the year before, transplants from the world outside because their parents are networkers—that special variety of Luminary who live in the non world, working to ensure no one ever learns of the Luminaries or the forest.
Like most people in the Wednesday clan of the American Luminaries, the twins have no blood connection to Winnie or Marcus, and as sophomores like Winnie, they’re easily the most popular girls at school. Which of course means that Marcus has it bad for them. Like, real bad. He doesn’tseem to understand that they’re only nice to him because they’re nice to everyone. Including Winnie, no matter how much she frowns.
Shewantsto be nice back—she really does. But if she lowers her guard for even one minute, there’s a risk someone might slip in.Witch spawn, witch spawn.
“Happy birthday!” they sing in unison.
“We got you a present.” Emma offers a box with perfectly wrapped edges and a perfectly curled bow.
“Uh, thanks.” Winnie takes the box; it’s heavy. “I’ll open it later.”
A flash of disappointment crosses their faces. Their smile dimples smooth away, and Bretta, who currently wears corkscrew curls (while Emma has long braids), says, “Oh, but we want to see your reaction.”
Winnie tenses at those words. Fear spikes up her arms, as if the box is made of banshee tears. They’ve pranked her. It’s probably dog poop inside, and when she opens the box, they’ll snap a video with their phones to show everyone at school.
Except no. Winnie shakes her head. The twins aren’t like that. Besides, contrary to the rest of Hemlock Falls, they have always been genuinely nice to Winnie. The Luminary rules are pretty clear on how to treat outcasts:ignore them.Yet the twins never have.
Winnie pushes her glasses up her nose, inhales a steeling breath, and finally tears into the wrapping paper. It rips loudly across the silent dawn, and in less than a second the nameFalls’ Finestpeers up at her in the same swirly gold lettering as the store windows wear downtown.
She gulps, hating that she’s suddenly excited. Hating that the twins have probably gotten her something expensive, judging by the box’s heft, and that she’s probably going to like it. She almost prefers the dog poop.
But she can’t stop now. Emma and Bretta are bouncing with excitement.
She pries off the box’s lid and discovers a leather jacket. The sort of item that Winnie will never be able to afford unless it’sveryused. And the sort of style that will look good no matter its age, no matter the decade.
She gulps a second time. It’s the perfect shade of cinnamon brown to complement her auburn hair.
“Because you’re always cold on corpse duty,” Emma explains. “This will keep you warm!”
Though she doesn’t say it and definitely doesn’t mean it maliciously, the subtextual reality is inescapable:You’re always cold and will continue to be cold because while we will stop doing corpse duty soon, you, Winnie Wednesday, will keep doing it forever.
“Try it on!” Bretta urges, dimples returning. “We’ll exchange it if it doesn’t fit.”
Winnie obeys, and of course the jacket fits perfectly. Even over her green hoodie that saysSAVE THE WHALES. She bends her elbows. The new leather squeaks. She tries the zipper. It slides up and down like a scalpel through vampira viscera.
She should refuse this. Yes, she should refuse this. Thank the twins politely, but say it’s too nice a gift for her to ever accept.
Winnie doesn’t refuse it. She feels too badass, like a photo her mom has of Grandma Winona, bow in hand, nightmare viscera splattered across her body, and a wide, vicious grin bright as the sun rising behind her.
