Page 2 of The Hunting Moon
“Hey,” Mom says, gripping at Winnie’s biceps. Winnie flinches. “Let’s go back.”
Winnie has stopped walking. She hadn’t realized it. Her feet just… aren’t moving. “No.” She wags her head. This is weird. She, Winnie, is being weird, and she needs to get a hold of herself.
It’s not like she’s never been to a hunter’s funeral before.
Twenty steps bring Winnie and Mom to the amorphous cloud of people clustered at the Big Lake’s silty edge, two bacteria sucked into a colony. It’s more Luminaries than Winnie would have expected at a funeral for the smallest clan, although Tuesday scorpions do inflate the numbers. They cluster around the edges in their camouflage fatigues, weapons strapped across their bodies.
Winnie can’t tell if they’re here for the ceremony or because this is where their daily route just happens to take them. Their faces are hidden in the glossy brown, carapace-like helmets they always wear.
Menacing helmets. Little shields meant to hide something.
These are the Alphas—a special branch of the martial Tuesday clan who deal with any nightmares that escape the forest. Or, as the Alphas have been deployed lately, to surveil the forest for daywalkers.
Conversation drones around Winnie. She hears someone mention the werewolf and how it must be brought to justice. Then someone else complains that the Council can’t get its shit together—and hey, did you see Johnny’s interview with Dryden last night? What a disaster. But at least the Masquerade hasn’t been canceled.
Winnie gets whiplash just from listening.Werewolf, werewolf… Masquerade! Werewolf, werewolf… Masquerade! Darkness, darkness, light!
She should be used to it by now.
It has been eight days since she told the truth to Aunt Rachel about the banshee head. Eight days since Aunt Rachel told Winnie not to tell anyone. And eight days since Winnie was forced to accept that no one—absolutelyno one—in this town cares that she and Emma Wednesday almost died.
People have even asked Winnie if it was fun jumping off the waterfall.
Funjumping to her almost death.Darkness, darkness, light!
Winnie yanks off her glasses and frowns down at the lenses. They’re clean, but she scrubs at them anyway until Lizzy Friday clears her throat.Then Winnie shoves her glasses back on to watch the funeral. Her heart beats faster than it should.
Lizzy stands at the lakeshore, waves lapping gently a few steps behind her, tiny tentacles feeling for their next meal. She wears a simple black button-up tucked into functional black slacks, and she looks more like a traffic cop than leader of the Friday clan now mourning her lost. In one arm, she holds a ceramic urn.
“Thanks for coming,” Lizzy says, and the crowd goes silent. Now there is only the waterfall’s roar to fill the afternoon sky. “Grayson would have liked knowing he was this popular.” She smiles; a few people laugh.
“Grayson died doing what he loved,” Lizzy continues. “He died a hero protecting us from the forest. And although no one outside Hemlock Falls will ever know it, he died protecting them too.”
Grayson’s mother chokes at those words. She stands at the front of the crowd, her back ramrod straight like she’s still bracing for bad news. Like she hasn’t yet heard her only son is dead, but she knows the message is on the way.
Mom and Ms. Friday went to school together; Grayson is only a little older than Darian.
Wasonly a little older than Darian.
For two years, Grayson has been Lead Hunter for the Fridays. Now he will be one more name among the thousands hammered into a wall in city hall downtown, and on the next Friday night—just six days from now—the new Lead Hunter will take his place in the forest.
The new Lead Hunter stands near his aunt on the shore, his head bowed. He doesn’t move as Lizzy speaks. He is still as the forest. Still as a corpse preserved in the morgue.
His suit jacket is too short in the sleeves, suggesting he borrowed it, and Winnie doubts Jay has slept in over twenty-four hours. Grayson only died last night, his body so mangled Jay had to identify it by the ring on a nearby finger.
Winnie wonders who gathered up the pieces of Grayson for burning. Funerals have to happen fast in Hemlock Falls, before the forest can make a revenant.
She hopes no parts of Grayson got left behind.
“Integrity in all,” Lizzy says, ending her eulogy with the Friday clan’smotto. “Honesty to the end. May Grayson Alexander Friday find peace in his long sleep at the heart of the forest.”
Everyone murmurs those words back.
Everyone except Winnie.
Because Grayson Friday isn’t sleeping. He isn’t finding peace. And whatever he was two days ago, now he is nothing more than fish food floating in an aquarium.
CHAPTER2
