Page 47 of The Luminaries
Jay pointedly ignores the question, instead saying, “That’s the newest tech. Most clans don’t have access to it.” Meaninghisclan doesn’t have access. To his credit, he doesn’t sound bitter about that fact. He’s just observing. Winnie almost wishes she hadn’t kept the exo-scales on after Rachel dropped her off at home.
Almost.They also feel so amazing against her skin, she thinks she might sleep in them.
Jay drives them through downtown, over the dam and then north, past the Little Lake, past the Mondays and the Tuesdays, and finally onto the dirt road Winnie takes every Thursday morning for corpse duty. A sign at the mouth declares,NO TRESPASSING.
Though spring sun may mark Hemlock Falls, the world here shifts tograyscale. Green slowly desaturates. Birdsong drips away. At a narrow fork in the road, Jay pulls right instead of the left that leads to the hunter meeting point—the spot where Winnie and the others will get dropped off tonight.
Somehow, that moment feels much too soon and also still so far away. This day has felt even more eternal than Thursday before the first trial. It’s as if knowing what she’s going to be up against has distorted the passage of time.
Mathilda heaves and yaws over terrain better navigated by Tuesday Hummers. “Are we going to the overlook?” Winnie asks, referring to a large wooden platform where you can watch the giant falls that are partly the source of Hemlock Falls’ name.
“You’ll see” is Jay’s only reply until they reach the dirt road’s end, where forest clusters close. It feels like the end of day here, though the Wagoneer clock only shows ten after two.
Jay cuts the engine and slings himself out. Like yesterday, he wears his black training clothes. He no longer smells of weed, but instead like his usual soap. He also doesn’t look stoned (Winnie never would have gotten in the car with him if he did), and he doesn’t move stoned. He is, once more, Jay of the forest, slowly sharpening around the edges as if her pen is filling him in.
Without a word, he sets off into the forest, using the trail that leads to the overlook. He only stays on the path for about twenty steps before ducking around a maple sapling and vanishing into the trees.
“Can we go slower?” she asks, hurrying after him. “I need to memorize this.”
He lifts a hand. “Not yet. Just walk for now, Win.”
So she does. This close to the Big Lake, the forest reigns with a dense grip of pines and hemlocks and oak. Undergrowth slips away, the canopy rises, and the roar of the falls saturates everything. Jay strides with his usual ease, and Winnie finds her sore muscles melting away with the movement. Training with Coach Rosa had made it all worse—every muscle fiber had screamed at her like that painting with the guy clutching his face in visceral horror.
Her muscles aren’t screaming now, though. They’re relaxing, softening, smiling at her, as if this new gear modeled on melusine scales also transfers some of the creatures’ healing magic.Or,she thinks optimistically,as if my muscles know it’s time to hunt and they’re ready for it.
Jay leads her ever deeper into the forest, speaking only occasionally, to point out murderously low branches or roots lying in wait. The sound of the falls expands, until Winnie can hardly hear Jay when he points out a lurking hole in the ground. Fog gathers in the air, biting and wet and pure as only spindrift from running water can be. The ground rumbles beneath her feet.
Then they clear the forest, Jay first, Winnie second, and the waterfall right before them. They stand on a stretch of wet stone at the edge of the Big Lake, where the water escapes its rocky jailer and thunders a hundred feet below.
Winnie scoots to the stone edge of their little cliff and cranes her neck to peer down. Fifty feet below is the wooden overlook. Another fifty below that is the crashing falls’ end, shrouded in spray.
“This is your spot?” Winnie has to lift her voice slightly to be heard.
He shakes his head. “No.” Water beads on his cheeks, dampens his hair. “It’s just a spot I thought you might like to see.”
Winnie doesn’t know how to answer that, so she pushes at her glasses—now speckled with water—and peers once more over the edge. It’s a long way down. She’s glad heights don’t bother her.
Her teeth start clicking.
“You came,” Jay says eventually. “Last night.”
Winnie swallows and stares harder at the white-flecked water far below. She had really hoped this conversation wouldn’t come up. After all, he hadn’t looked particularly happy to see her.
“Just for a minute. I was waiting on Mom to get off work.” She forces herself to look at him.
But he’s staring over the waterfall too, giving her a close-up of his jaw misted with water and his cheeks daubed in pink.
Strangely, she thinks he has a very nice neck, the muscles long and defined where they stretch up from beneath his collar.
“You’re good,” she tells his profile. “The band, I mean.”And you too.
He flushes slightly. His gaze darts to hers. “What songs did you hear?”
“Just the first two.” She can’t remember their names. But like the music Jenna used to make, she remembers the tunes. She remembers the way Jay’s fingers flew across the bass, reverberating inside her.
“Okay,” he says, and he seems to wilt ever so slightly, like he’s relieved that’s all Winnie had heard. Clearly he’s glad she left early.
It makes her heart feel prickly.
