Page 46 of The Hunting Moon
However, both carnivores and herbivores are essential for healthy ecosystems, and this author posits that so too are our disparate organizations. The question then becomes: Which society is the predator? And which society is the prey?
After what feels like an eternity of sunlight vanishing and cold creeping in, Jay finally straightens and returns the flashlight to his pocket. “Nothing,” he says, his haggard face tight with frustration. Water sloughs off his hands and arms. He yanks his hood back. “I thought maybe there was another dampener in here, but I’m not finding anything under all this muck.”
“Maybe someone already found whatever it was Dad wanted me to find.”
Jay’s face winds up tighter. “Maybe. But this isn’t a place hunters come often.” He waves around. “Most of the nightmares rise closer to the Big Lake, and especially on the western side. That’s why we park over there, you know?”
Winnie didnotknow this is why the parking area is to the west, and she hastily files that information away for later consideration. Then she offers Jay her hand. He doesn’t need it.
He takes it anyway.
His fingers are freezing and slightly damp, and she has a weird urge to clutch his hands and rub them like Mom used to do for her when she was a little girl. Jay’s boots squelch and filthy water splatters onto Winnie’s legs. Then he is out and they release each other. Again.
Winnie pushes her glasses up her nose. “So this is a dead end?”
“Looks that way.” Jay squints down at his watch, beaming the flashlight onto the old face. “Whatever your dad wanted you to find, I’m not seeing it.”
“Me neither.” Winnie kicks ineffectually at a lump of leaves; the first sparks of rage are flickering along the back of her neck and she doesn’t want to indulge them. “Why can’t he just give me an address, you know? Like, why couldn’t the X on the map just lead me to the real Diana’s house?”
Jay shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe because no one would believe you if you showed up shouting,Witch!You need proof, Win, and… well, I assume that’s where all these clues are meant to go. Plus,” Jay adds, sliding his hands into his jogger pockets, “if this Diana is as dangerous as they seem, then writing you a letter is way too risky. Instead, your dad made all these steps to follow to keep you from getting caught—and even doing that was probably a risk for him.”
“A risk forhim?” Winnie repeats. “The guy that might be innocent but still ran off and abandoned his family?Hewas at risk?”
“I’m not defending him, Winnie—”
“You sure about that?”
“—I just get why he might have done what he did to protect you.” Jay pins Winnie with an uncompromising stare. “I also think that understanding his headspace will make it easier to follow his clues. He’s trying to lead you to proof so you can actually catch the real Diana. That means something here is important. I just… have no idea what.” His shoulders shrug, hands still in his pockets.
Then he withdraws them and taps at his watch. “We need to go. The mist will rise soon.”
Winnie clenches her molars and swallows back the urge to snarl and snap at him like one of those aquatic wyrms in the Mexican forest. Jay is not the enemy, and now is not the time for a fight.
She scans the granite pit once more. What are they missing? What isshemissing? “Can I have the flashlight?”
Jay rifles it out. It’s warm, and their fingers briefly touch. Winnie winks it on and beams it over the pit’s walls. This is such a distinctive place—one she has somehow never seen before in all her years of corpse duty.
Up, down, side to side. Winnie drags the shaft of light over grooved stone that must have stood here for millions of years. Long before the trees, long after the threes. Long before the spirit, and perhaps long after it too.
Theodosia Monday mentioned that no onereallyknows what happens when a spirit dies. Dianas claim it will mean safety across the world; Luminaries believe it will mean a global ecosystem collapse. That latter option is what has always been taught to Luminaries, and it makes perfect sense to Winnie’s science mind. Ecosystems are just that:systems.To remove onepiece from a system means every other component no longer functions as it evolved to do…
But what if the Dianas learn explanations that make just as much sense to them? What if they also have evolutionary and ecological examples that point to why the spirits should be eliminated? There’s no way to test it empirically, no experiment to run that would clearly say,Oh yes, this is what happens when a spirit dies.
Which is why, even centuries after the two societies split apart, their enmity still remains.
“Stop,” Jay says, a scalpel through Winnie’s thoughts. “Swing the light back this way.” He guides her wrist, and the flashlight finds a stretch of stone. “There.”
He stalks away from Winnie, circles the edge of the puddle, and reaches the wall—where yes, a long strip of shadow is now illuminated.
Winnie’s lungs hitch. “That’s not natural.” It was impossible to see in the darkness, but Jay’s hunter eyes caught what Winnie’s did not. She scoots to his side and light gleams over streaks and smears.
It looks very familiar, and Winnie knows right away why: something died here. Someonedied here.
And they died exactly as Grayson had.
Before Winnie can say anything—not that she knows what to say anyway—she catches sight of the unmistakable sign that she and Jay are in trouble. White fog curls around her feet.
The night’s mist has begun to rise.
