Page 73 of The Luminaries
“Iheard the third trial doesn’t even happen in the forest.”
“Oh, I heard that too.” Fatima’s voice dips to a whisper. She glances back at the top floor, already disappearing from sight.
Winnie shoves her glasses up her nose.
“I heard it happens here,” Bretta continues. “Like in the Armory or something.”
“Pssshhhh.” Fatima swats the air. Her purple long sleeves billow. “If it was happening here, I would totally notice.”
“How?” Emma demands at the same time Winnie asks, “Are you allowed in the Armory, though?”
This makes Fatima frown. “Well, no—”
“Then itcouldbe here!” Bretta squeals, disrupting the heretoforestealth voices they’d been using. Winnie and Fatima both fling nervous glances around. But there’s no one near. They’re passing the second floor, and all the office doors are shut and dark at this hour.
“What if it happens tonight?” Bretta asks reverently. “On ourbirthday.”
“Oh, I hope not.” Emma hip-bumps her sister. “I’m tipsy.”
“Me too.”
Fatima looks at Winnie, a tiny frown slicing over her brow. “Have you heard anything?” She seems to realize as soon as she asks it that ofcourseWinnie hasn’t heard anything. She gulps. Hastily adjusts her hijab (in rich purple to match her gown). Then offers loud enough for the twins to hear: “The hunters are on duty tonight. So theycan’ttest us.”
But even as Fatima says it, Winnie can tell she’s not so sure. And Winnie isn’t so sure either—only that she’s glad she didn’t drink any of that champagne. Alcohol, she has decided, makes her family into fools.
When at last they reach the dining room, darkened save for the final phantom of a fire, the party is aglow outside. Speakers pump out dance music Winnie doesn’t recognize. The patio she’d navigated easily before is nowpacked,and the winking fairy lights seem to pulse in time to the music.
It’s magical. Otherworldly, with everyone glossy and smiling and alive. It reminds her of something Grandpa Frank once said—which is weird, because Winnie barely knew Grandpa Frank and doesn’t think of him often.
That’s why we’re called the Luminaries, Winnie: we are lanterns the forest can never snuff out.
Yes. Winnie can see that’s true; she canfeelthat’s true. She watches the twins skip across the dining room toward the open glass doors, Fatima with them, and all three oblivious that Winnie has slowed.
Winnie waits a long time before she leaves the safety of the dining room’s darkness. She simply stands there, still as Jay in the forest, watching the party unfold behind clear glass. Glittering and vibrant and beating with life. Lanterns the forest can never snuff out.
Outside, the song has shifted to something gentler. Less beat, more ether. It floats into the dining room and settles over Winnie, giving her other senses space to awaken.
The room has grown cold; the fire has coughed its final breath; the heaters outside flare invitingly. The patio is everything she has ever wanted, but in here, she is safe.
Eventually, L.A. gets onstage—to much cheering—and announces that the Forgotten is about to start,So get rid of your heels and take off those jackets, ’cos we’re gonna be dancing tonight.
“Winnie!” Fatima cries, materializing at the garden door. “Comeon!” She waves frantically before flinging herself back into the crowd.
Winnie obeys, her feet carrying her toward the door even if her mind isn’t quite ready for the onslaught. But then again, will it ever be?
It’s like stepping into the mist. Suddenly there is heat, cloying and wild. It swallows her, briefly crushing her in teeth made of Luminaries. But just as the mist always clears, the intensity of the onslaught fades. People smile at her. There is Carmen Lunes and Lindsey Saturday. Imran and Xavier, Dante and Marisol. Hugh Friday with Galina Vtornika, who just moved here from the Russian Luminaries.
Even Erica glances Winnie’s way across the crowd, her hair piled on her head in a way that makes her look like a queen. It’s not a smile she offers, but an acknowledgment. An acceptance that this is the way things are now, and so she will be polite.
Winnie drifts through the crowd, letting the tide carry her where it will. First she floats toward the stage. Then toward the fountain. Then toward the symmetrical gardens, where cold night air breathes over flowers in perfect rows.
Even if the Council hasn’t officially removed her family’s outcast status, for tonight, Winnie is a Luminary again. She is a Wednesday. She is a lantern.
She breaks free from the throngs right where the patio ends and the last of the fairy-light lattice extends. Trevor has just gotten onstage, devastatingly handsome in his tux. Winnie thinks she hears Fatima shrieking.
Next L.A. returns to the stage, drawing plenty of adoring shrieks of her own. She’s wearing a tuxedo too, but with glittery sneakers that flash like meteors.
Last comes Jay, and it’s weird because Winnie saw him only an hour ago, yet for some reason, seeing him on the stage, serious and clearlyuncomfortable with howvery muchpeople are screaming at him, he doesn’t look like the Jay she knows. Nor even like the Jay she used to know.
