Page 4 of The Hunting Moon
No,Winnie thinks as she stomps away from it all to seek solitude in the parking lot.He’s not proud. And jumping wasn’t fun. And Grayson isn’t sleeping. And the Nightmare Masquerade should not be happening in two weeks.
Yet even as those thoughts slice through Winnie’s brain one after the other,bright, burning meteorites, she knows that the better thoughts—the better questions she really should be raising—are:What is wrong with me? Why can’t I compartmentalize like everybody else?
And why am I not acting like a Luminary?
Winnie isn’t at the Volvo for long before Mom joins her. One look at Winnie’s face with her front teeth clicking and her cheeks flushed from too many emotions, and Mom opts to preserve her silence.
Thank god. Winnie doesn’t know what she’ll say if she has to speak right now. She feels like a piece of Grayson Friday got stuck inside her. Like his ashes were grenade shrapnel and now they’re wedged in so deep, she’ll never dig them out again.
Or maybe it’s just the growing realization that she isn’t very good at being a Luminary.
Or maybe she’s just hungry and she shouldn’t have skipped breakfast.
“You’re driving,” Mom says, and though the last thing Winnie wants to do right now is concentrate on getting the Volvo into second gear without stalling halfway up the hill onto the dam, she also needs the distraction.
And to her surprise, it’s actually sort of soothing.In goes the clutch. Change gears. Out goes the clutch.There’s a rhythm to it that slows her heart.In. Change. Out.
Fallen branches litter the side of the gravel road that leads south out of the forest. Then they’re passing the Tuesday estate, all bare-bones practicality—more bunker than fancy mansion.
“You want to talk?” Mom asks when they successfully make it past the Monday estate without any gear-shift problems, a morning fog weaving through the college campus–like grounds.
“Yeah,” Winnie answers eventually. “Everything’s okay. It was just… a lot.” She hopes Mom interprets this as the funeral in general; she really doesn’t want to talk about Jay’s misty eyes or the way the waterfall sounded too much like death.
Fortunately, Mom does misinterpret. “I would be lying if I didn’t say I’m relieved you’re not hunting yet, Winnebago. If your trial had gone just a little bit differently…”
Mom doesn’t finish the thought, and she doesn’t need to.
“Until this werewolf is killed,” Mom continues, “I’ll be grateful you’re not in the forest. You’re still not planning to hunt any time soon, right?” She fastens Winnie with a laser-eyed stare, and Winnie’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel until her knuckles turn white.
Because there it is, right there. One more piece of festering shrapnel: not even her own mother believes her about the Whisperer, and it’s thoughtless little comments like this one that keep giving her away.
God, I hope they catch this werewolf,she said last night after Dryden’s interview on the news.
To think, it’s just out there walking among us.That comment came last Thursday.
And:I am so, so glad the werewolf didn’t get you, Winnie.That was from last Sunday, Winnie’s third day home from the hospital.
Winnie doesn’t turn her head. She doesn’t meet Mom’s eyes. “No,” she says with as little inflection as possible. “I don’t plan to hunt any time soon.”
Winnie and Mom clear the last of the trees. To their left, the Little Lake is almost blue this morning. It is the opposite of the Big Lake. Cheerful instead of oppressive, welcoming instead of cruel. Winnie can’t help but wonder if Grayson Friday really did drive into the water there. If so, does that mean a Hummer is still sitting at the bottom of the lake right now?
Winnie kind of hopes it is. For some reason, that just feels right: a statue no one can see for a man no one will ever speak to again.
CHAPTER3
Werewolf, were-creatures: Human by day and monster by night, these rare daywalkers blend in easily and are indistinguishable from other humans in their daytime form. Also, wrongfully accused of killing Grayson Friday.
Whisperer: This nightmare is a new creature native to the American forest. No one believes it is real except for Wednesday Winona Wednesday, despite ample evidence that the monster exists.
Since Mom is due for a shift at the grocery store, Winnie will be driving herself to Sunday training (alone,yikes). But first she is meeting her brother Darian. He has already canceled their usual Saturday dinner tonight—which he did last weekend too—so Winnie roped him into at least grabbing a coffee with her. Proof-of-life sort of thing.
Coffee-scented warmth whooshes against Winnie as she pushes through the front entrance into Joe Squared. A sign proclaims that the establishment wasVOTED BEST COFFEE SHOP IN HEMLOCK FALLS!
Considering they are also theonlycoffee shop in Hemlock Falls, the distinction doesn’t mean much.
Never graceful on a good day, Winnie offers an especially spectaculardisplay of awkward as she peels out of her leather jacket, knocks her glasses to the floor, and ends up getting her golden moon locket caught in her hair when she doubles over to retrieve said glasses. These are her newer pair, finally repaired so that they sit straight atop her nose—though not for long if she keeps dropping them.
Her face is aflame when she finally approaches the counter.
