Page 8 of The Luminaries
CHAPTER6
The Revenant’s Daughter is part bar, part diner, all grease. Winnie doesn’t normally stop by the restaurant before school, but her mom made her pinkie-swear the night before. “It’s your birthday. I want to see you on your birthday morning.” So now Winnie is here.
She parks the four-wheeler beside the dumpster out back, in the alley between Falls’ Finest, Joe Squared, and the Wednesday-owned grocery store that price-gouges everything because it’s the only one around, so they can do that.
The smell of hot oil melts over Winnie. Both disgusting and mouthwatering. Nothing at the Revenant’s Daughter is particularly good or gourmet, but it’s battered and fried so deeply, you don’t really notice. Plus, ketchup. The restaurant goes through a lot of ketchup.
Winnie clicks her front teeth in triple time as she marches toward the heavy back door propped open with a rock. Greasy heat billows into the morning. She wishes she had time for some breakfast.
“What’s wrong?” Francesca Wednesday asks the instant Winnie steps into the steamy kitchen. Her mom is in the middle of sliding two plates of hash browns onto a tray that’s already overloaded with eggs and toast and coffee. Archie Friday, meanwhile, cooks more of thosehash browns and doesn’t look up from the griddle. He’s a man of few words and mostly grunts.
“You look like something is wrong.” Mom frowns, the lines between her eyebrows slicing deep. The yellow undertones of her skin look almost sickly in the kitchen’s light. “Did corpse duty not go well?”
Winnie gulps. She’s not a very good liar. Even the simplest of white lies is impossible for her to conjure. For example, she has never successfully convinced her brother Darian that she reallydidlike the mustache he had last year. And when it comes to the big stuff… Well, she has only managed to hide her plans for the hunter trials by avoiding her mom.
Fortunately, as she stretches her brain for an answer, she zips up… and zips down the leather jacket. Mom’s dark eyes laser onto it. “Where did you getthat?” She strides over to Winnie, her tray balanced on one shoulder, and scrutinizes the leather with a hunter’s trained eye. “Did you steal it?”
Winnie laughs. A feeble sound that only makes her mom look that much more suspicious.
“No,Mom. Emma and Bretta Wednesday gave it to me.”
“Oh.” Mom blinks. “Wow.” Her cheeks flush. She glances toward the back of the kitchen, to where a yellow gift bag waits beside the industrial coffee machines. “Well, you’re, uh… you’re going to be disappointed by my gift, then. But go ahead.” She dips her head toward it. “Open it, and I’ll be right back.”
Mom shoves into the dining room, handling the tray with a lot more grace than she had four years ago, when the Luminaries first cast her out and she had to pick up two jobs to pay the bills. Winnie had never appreciated how comfortably they’d lived with Mom’s hunter salary—until it was gone.
While the swinging door pauses at the height of its opening, the already buzzing drone of voices hyped up on cholesterol and caffeine crashes over Winnie. She catches a glimpse of the nearest booth, which houses Imran and Xavier Saturday (seniors, popular, not related), Marisol Sunday (junior, popular), Casey Tuesday (sophomore, popular), and Erica Thursday.
Erica’s eyes, almost russet against her warm, amber skin, catch on Winnie’s. Then they lurch away as quickly as Winnie’s do. The doorswings shut. Archie barks, “Order up!” And Winnie makes a beeline for the coffee machines. Her heart is thundering. Her teeth are clicking.
Thatis another reason why she doesn’t come to the Daughter in the mornings. It’s where the popular kids eat breakfast before school.
It’s whereEricaeats breakfast before school. They haven’t spoken in four years, and though Erica doesn’t call Winniewitch spawnorDiana scat,she also doesn’t interfere when everyone else does. She just watches, expression inscrutable on her cold, perfectly made-up face. She’d just been getting into eyeliner and contouring when she and Winnie had still been friends. Now she is never without it, and her clothes are always designer, always new.
Erica’s dad, who hails from the Mexican Luminaries originally, is always one of the best dressed in Hemlock Falls, so it’s no surprise Erica is too. And though Erica’s dad still uses the last name Jueves, Erica was born in the American Luminaries. As such, she has the last name Thursday like her mom—who also happens to be head of the Thursday clan.
Everyone expects Erica to follow in Marcia’s perfectly placed three-inch heels. The way Erica looks and speaks and moves these days, she’s already most of the way there.
Winnie reaches the yellow gift bag and recognizes the unicorn tissue paper from last year’s birthday.New pens,she thinks, since that’s what Mom always gives her. Except when she dives in, she finds a fancy plaid glasses case instead.
Excitement wells inside her. She’d been saying she wanted new glasses, but she hadn’t realized Mom had been listening.
Winnie pops open the case, and while the glasses winking up at her aren’t smudged like her current pair, theyarekind of scuffed around the edges. And they’re also at least three years out of style, the frames thick when the style is thin.
Winnie swallows.
“I got the wrong kind, didn’t I?”
Winnie jolts. She hadn’t sensed her mom approaching. Even still, Fran moves with the stealth of a Lead Hunter.
“Are they knockoffs?Crap.” Mom swipes the case from Winnie’s grasp. “I really thought they looked fancy.”
“They’re not knockoffs.” Winnie grabs for the case.
Mom easily scoots out of the way. She is scowling at the glasses. “I knew I should have waited until after your birthday, when I could make the trip to Chicago, but I was just so pleased to find these cheap. Dammit, Fran.”
“No.” Winnie grabs her mom’s biceps. Then she squeezes. “They’re great, Mom. Exactly what I wanted. See?” She grabs the case and hastily changes pairs. No more smudge over the left eye, only crisp clarity as Archie shouts in their direction, “Order up!”
Winnie smiles, and Mom flushes all the way to the edge of her graying roots. Winnie hates how desperate it makes her look. Mom wants to believe Winnie, and Winnie wants Mom to believe too. Like, never in her life has she more fiercely wished she were good at this whole lying business.
