Page 65 of The Luminaries
Jay does at least promise to look for the Whisperer on the extra shift he’s picking up tonight with the Tuesdays, and though it doesn’t eliminate the acid roiling in Winnie’s gut—or her rage at Mario—it does help. A little.
If just one more person can see it in real life, surely the Council will listen?
It’s nearing sunset when Jay drops her off at home. She offers a rushed “Hi, bye!” to Mom, who is folding laundry while she watches the public forum on the werewolf; Winnie feels ill just hearing Dryden Saturday’s voice. After a rushed shower that isn’t quite hot because Mom must have just showered and the water heater is small, Winnie finds herself sitting on her bed, trying to ignore the TV downstairs.
“When will the blood tests begin?” a woman asks.
“We’re hoping to start next week. Right now, our medical teams are working to acquire all the necessary supplies—”
“Shouldn’t wehavethem already? After what happened?” Cries ofagreement rise. Winnie thinks she hears Mom grunt an agreement of her own.
No.She claps her hands to her ears. Listening to the forum isn’t going to help her right now. She needs to focus; she needs to brainstorm. What do you give to the coolest girls on the planet who seem to have everything? Winnie knows Emma and Bretta will love whatever she gives them because their hearts are too big not to… which only makes hermoredetermined to find the perfect present. She wants it to be something worthy of their year of kindness to her, their always welcoming smiles.
Her eyes scoot around her room in search of inspiration, briefly pausing on her desk. On the howling vampira face still crumpled on the carpet nearby. She could, she supposes, draw them something. Maybe the nightmares they each slew during their first trials…
But for some reason, that idea makes Winnie’s throat close up. Her chest feels too small too. She doesn’t want to think about how moonlight falls on a manticore hatchling’s carapace or how a will-o’-wisp might look surrounded by forest trees—because whenever she does imagine it, her brain conjures a carapace that’s hacked to bits or a will-o’-wisp corpse shoved through a cheese grater.
Her eyes snap away.Think, Winnie, think.Therehasto be something here—something special and unique.
She spots Andrew’s Kevlar vest hanging in her closet. Her attention snags. There’s something about it… Something on it…
Just like that, she knows exactly what to do. She bounds off the bed, sore ankle protesting, and hurries for the closet—but not for the vest. Instead, she digs into her dirty clothes, searching for something she definitely left in Saturday’s training gear.
When she finds it, Winnie can’t help but grin. Because this gift really isperfect.It’s badass. It’s one-of-a-kind, just like Emma. Just like Bretta. And they will, Winnie thinks, absolutely love it.
Wednesday morning arrives with storm clouds and thunder. Winnie crawls from bed extra early. No, it’s not corpse-duty early, but definitely early-bird-catches-the-worm early—and she has quite the worm to catch. She cycles across town as fast as the old bike will carry her, and as she’d hoped, Mario is just wheeling in the morning’s nightmares (brought to you by the Tuesday teens) when Winnie arrives.
She is boiling in her leather jacket even though her face and fingers have gone numb. The storm hasn’t broken yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
“How could you?” she demands, coasting to a stop and hopping off her bike. “How could you just stand there, Mario?”
“Winnie.” He lifts his hands and glances almost furtively around. “Let’s talk inside.”
“You know what that nightmare can do, but you just stood there while I pleaded with Dryden. Howcouldyou, Mario?”
“Winnie, please.” His eyes are huge. “Let me deliver these bodies. Then we can talk.”
Winnie’s scowl doesn’t budge. She does, however, nod stormily and lean her bike against the back door. She joins Mario at the corpses. One is another manticore hatchling. The other is part of whatmightbe a hellion. But it’s in bad shape. Like, Whisperer-level bad shape.
Together, Winnie and Mario roll the table into the lowest level of the hospital and toward the morgue. Winnie has never been allowed in here before, but it looks exactly like she’d imagined: beige walls and floors broken up by the occasional “decorative” blue stripe, fluorescent lights that give everything an unnatural sheen, and thick, windowless doors that sayPERSONNEL ONLY. At the end of the hall, they reach metal double doors that open when Mario swipes a plastic keycard over a reader. Cold billows over Winnie. The morgue’s lights flicker on.
“We’ll just leave these here for now,” Mario says, wheeling the cart to the center of the room, where two empty carts rest.
After a hasty scribble onto the usual clipboard—pop-pop-pop!—he beckons for her to follow him again. A brisk walk out of the hospital and across the campus plus a few errant raindrops later, they’re at the main building. The ivy really does look like it might wake up soon. They ascend to the third floor and enter Mario’s office. He shuts the door behind them. The vial of blood, Winnie notices, is gone from the Compendium.
He motions Winnie to his desk, where he silently offers her a stick of gum (she refuses) and turns on his computer. After a little clicking, he finds what he wants and swivels the monitor for her to see. “Lizzy’s cameras,” he says. For some reason, he’s talking very quietly. Almost inaudibly, even.
Winnie turns a frown onto the screen. Three windows reveal black-and-white footage of the forest. The first window shows a spot along the Big Lake, its waters placid as they move with lazy calm toward the waterfall. A label on the video reads:EASTERN SHORE 7:17 A.M.
The second window reveals a spot in the forest Winnie doesn’t recognize but that the label declares to be theNORTHWESTERN EDGE. The final screen shows the border between the Friday estate and the forest, near where Winnie and Jay had trekked only a few days ago.
Mario taps an icon on each window, and a sound like the white-noise app Mom uses fills the room. From camera one: a faint hum like the distant crashing of a cold waterfall. From camera two: wind and rustling leaves. From camera three, where the forest’s hold is weaker: a trickle of birdsong.
“Here’s the deal, Winnie.” He’s still almost inaudible. “The Council isn’t impressed by our Whisperer idea. They think the footage Lizzy captured is just an anomaly—standard distortion caused by the forest. They thinkIjust want to get my name into the Compendium by making up a nightmare. And you…”
Winnie huffs wearily. “They think I’m the girl who cried wolf.”
“Or in this case, cried ‘not wolf.’ But yeah.” Mario blows a bubble.Pop!“The Council thinks this fixation on the Whisperer is distracting from the very urgent threat of a werewolf. I’ve got Dryden breathing down my neck for a human IDbeforeLuminaries start flying in for the Masquerade. I’ve got Tuesdays breathing down my neck for a kill order, and I’ve got Mondays pissed at me for studying a nightmare no one has ever heard of and no one butyouhas actually seen.”
