Page 49 of The Hunting Moon
Some Dianas will craft small coins from rowan wood that has been harvested in a spirit forest, believing such amulets can protect against nightmares.
Please let it protect Winnie, please let it protect Jay. She dares not look behind to see where he is. The sadhuzag’s breaths are rasping so near, its hoof falls vibrating in her ribs, in her lungs.
“DROP!” Jay commands from behind her.
Winnie doesn’t drop. She propels herself straight forward, right between the rowan and an elm.
Heat slices across her calf. Then antlers connect with tree trunks and Winnie connects with the ground. She rolls. Wood crunches, and chips spray wide. The ground shakes; the sadhuzag bellows; then somehow Jay is beside Winnie and dragging her onto her feet.
Pain sears up from her calf. One of the antlers got her. But there’s no time to look at it or deal with it or even reallyfeelthe sharp burn rising through her. There is only time to let Jay tug her deeper into the trees.
The sadhuzag roars again behind them. Then it crashes against the trunks, seventy-four prongs that will soon enough knock an elm and a rowan to the ground. Jay and Winnie will not be here when that happens.
Meanwhile, at the heart of a granite pit lined with leaves, a creature made of wormholes and broken carburetors shivers into being. It smells prey nearby, fresh and young and tempting. But even more appealing is the other, purer smell beside it. So close, so powerful. Not yet ready for feasting…
But soon.
CHAPTER27
“Where are we?” Winnie pants as she and Jay finally slow to a run… a jog… a walk. “I don’t… recognize any of this.”
“We’re almost out of the forest.” Jay’s cheeks are flushed—dark banners of color in this shadowy night. It’s the only sign of exertion he wears; he isn’t even breathing heavily.
Winnie, meanwhile, is on the verge of collapse. She’s angry about it too. Angry her legs are shaking and her arms feel weak. Angry that the sweat on her body is already cooling into something frozen. She hates that Jay still moves with the natural ease of a hunter, while she just wants water and a minute or two to catch her breath.
Also, her leg hurts.
Itreallyhurts.
She doesn’t stop, of course. If she could manage the pure hellfire that was her third trial—if she could survive the Whisperer and jump off the waterfall—then this is nothing.
“The boundary stakes are ahead,” Jay explains. His voice is barely audible over Winnie’s panting. “We’re going to leave the forest there and circle home outside.”
“Circle… home.” Winnie’s eyes briefly shut. If they are on the northern edge of the forest, then circling outside will take hours. Mom must already be back at the house by now, and though Winnie was smart enough to turn off her bedroom light and shove pillows under the covers, she doesn’t relishthe thought of sneaking in at 3:00A.M.with a gaping wound on the back of her leg.
Sorry about the blood all over the rug, Mom. Paper cut from my homework! You know how it is.
Winnie squashes her worries. There is nothing she can do except keep moving. One foot. Then the other. Even if it hurts.
In minutes, they reach the red stakes that mark the forest boundary. Jay circles them around the sensors so no Tuesdays will come this way in search of nightmares. The shift in the air is instantly palpable: the night warms and the stars brighten. There are faint hints of color here too, and the breeze, when it caresses Winnie’s face, doesn’t smell of carrion.
They reach a crude trail between the trees that could be from animals—natural ones—or could be from Luminaries who regularly check that boundary stakes remain intact. Either way, Winnie is grateful for the easier terrain of cleared underbrush and packed earth.
She and Jay have not made it far, though, when a light flashes ahead.
Jay stops, towing Winnie to a halt beside him. Her calf throbs; she wills herself to ignore it.
The light flashes again, and this time, a sound like a chirping bird rises into the night—pained, pathetic, and almost too shrill to fully hear.Will-o’-wisp,Winnie thinks, stunned by two thoughts colliding in her brain simultaneously. One, that she has never seen a will-o’-wisp alive before…
And two, that a will-o’-wisp is currently outside the forest bounds.
Will-o’-wisp: Like large hummingbirds, these nightmares are plumed all over in silvery flames instead of feathers. When the flames die out, will-o’-wisps are revealed to be nothing more than hollow skeletons.The Compendium’s definition digs through Winnie’s brain, surprisingly coherent despite the pain rising in her leg.
“It’s outside the bounds,” Jay whispers beside her, and there’s a tautness coiling through him as his hunter persona re-calcifies in his veins. “We need to do something.”
Winnie nods. This is why the Luminaries exist: to keep the monstersinsidethe forest where their bloodthirsty ways cannot harm humans.
And will-o’-wisps would definitely harm humans.
