Page 64 of The Hunting Moon
Winnie laughs at that—a full release of air and a smile that she can’t contain. Because her square of friends have just banished the howls of the night more effectively than any dawn mist can. “I’ve got a tab,” Winniesays as she slides her glasses back on. “So we can actually all get whatever we want—the fancier, the better, since Mario Monday is paying.”
Emma squeals and grabs for her crutches. “Oooh, this going to be fun.”
“Yeah,” Winnie answers, and to her surprise, she actually thinks it might be.
CHAPTER34
Winnie manages to endure the heat and eyes of the Wednesday dining room long enough to tell Mom and Darian, “I’m leaving with Fatima and the twins.”
Mom looks alarmed. Darian looks confused. Only Andrew seems to get it. “She needs some air,” he says, reiterating what Winnie already told them—all while his expression says,Hey, I’ll deal with this. You get out of here while you can.
Winnie tries to do precisely that. She even makes it out of the dining room, past the spillover tables, and to the front door—which is open and letting in cold night—before Darian calls out to her. Her friends pause. “You go on.” Winnie waves them toward the parking lot just visible through burgeoning spring trees. “I’ll catch up in a second.”
They obey, and moments later, Darian joins Winnie on the estate’s front steps. “You said you had something you needed to talk to me about.” He is panting slightly. “Is it this? Is it… whatever just happened?” He gestures ineffectually behind him, to where dinner clatters on, unaffected by Wolf Girl’s departure.
Winnie chews her lip, unsure what to say. Darian’s cheeks are flushed and his glasses slightly crooked. His sweater has a loose thread near the collar, and Winnie is 99 percent sure that if she pulls it, his entire soul will unravel.
Nonetheless, he is also the brightest, shiniest version of himself thatWinnie has seen in four years.Maybe he can become a councilor again,Winnie realizes, and she can’t believe she hadn’t considered that sooner—that maybe Darian can once again work up the ranks and try to replace Leila one day. The rule that prohibited him only applied to outcasts. Not outcasts who have had their punishment nullified…
Winnie knows right then and there that she can’t ruin this for her brother. She can’t tell him about the birthday cards currently stuffed in her pocket; she can’t risk his happiness for a wild-goose chase that might ultimately lead her nowhere. Just as onlyshecould be the one to enter the trials and face the nightmares, nowshemust be the one to follow Dad’s clues, to steady these Ping-Pong balls in her head and crack open the full meaning of her Venn diagram…
For Darian, the lights of downtown aren’t swamp fires—they’re real fairies, they’reeverythinghe has ever wanted, and now he can have them back again.
So although Winnie is a terrible liar, she makes herself paste on a smile. She makes herself say, “Yeah. I just really hate all the attention.” True. “And I was hoping you might have some advice for me.” Not quite true, but also not a total fabrication.
“Aw, Win.” Darian’s face crumples, and he pulls her to him for a hug worthy of a true Wednesday bear. “I’m sorry. I should have noticed how you felt sooner. I should have been there for you these last two weeks. It’s a lot.” He is talking into her hair, and there’s a ferocity in his arms that takes Winnie back four years, to one of the many nights they’d spent crying over Dad and what he did to them.
Darian isn’t crying now though, and to her surprise, neither is Winnie. Just as she felt better being with Emma, Bretta, and Fatima in the garden, she feels better now too. Like she is a swelling balloon floating up into the night.
She will open Darian’s birthday cards later; she will get the clues she needs; and he will never have to learn that messages from Dad existed. Is it a breach of his privacy? Maybe. Probably. But better that than a total obliteration of the joy he feels tonight.
Darian breaks their hug first. After all, their family doesn’t do physical touch except in the most extreme of circumstances. His glasses now havesmears on them—as do Winnie’s, made from eyelids pressed against polycarbonate. He smiles. She smiles back, and this time it isn’t forced.
“Have fun with your friends,” he tells her, and a more familiar family awkwardness takes hold. He pats her shoulder. “Mom, Andrew, and I will hold down the fort tonight. Tomorrow, though, let’s catch up for real, okay?”
“Sure,” Winnie replies, even though they both know it won’t happen. After all, the werewolf testing sites won’t run themselves, and the Nightmare Masquerade can’t self-assemble. “Let’s talk tomorrow, Darian.”
It is a packed house at Joe Squared. Much like the night Winnie snuck in and saw the Forgotten perform, the tables have been cleared away. Strands of Christmas lights twine around columns and support beams, setting the whole shop aglow.
An elderly fiddler pours out his heart on the low stage, his bow flying back and forth across the strings in a warm, rousing song that leaps and dances around the shop’s exposed brick surfaces. One person is particularly enraptured by the show, standing at the foot of the stage. Her bracelets clank and her orange sweater glows like a construction cone.
Professor Funday. Either the fiddler is her partner or she really wants him to be.
It is absolutely adorable.
True to Bretta’s promise, the twins and Fatimadofind a quiet corner, near the back door, and once a chair has been acquired for Emma, Bretta thrusts a pointed finger toward the ceiling. “Smoothies,” she declares. “What do you want, Winnie?”
“Strawberry and banana,” Winnie answers, ducking her head as a smattering of nearby Luminaries glance their way. It’s shadowy; hopefully they won’t recognize her; she wishes she had her trusty old hoodie on. It might be ragged and unfashionable, but it’s also as effective as the mist at swallowing her whole and erasing her into the dawn. “Oh, and don’t forget my tab, Bretta. Let’s all feast on Mario’s dime.”
As Bretta and Fatima march off to acquire sustenance, the fiddler ends his performance. Winnie and Emma clap along with the rest of the shop. Professor Funday claps and cheers loudest of all. She even shouts, “Encore! Encore!”
The man does not give an encore.
A half hour slides by this way, smooth as the blended strawberries and bananas that soon become Winnie’s dinner. Music and laughter and coffee-scented warmth curl around her, and it isexactlywhat she needed. No one ever notices the Wolf Girl tucked beside the back door—no one except Jo, who gives her a conspiratorial wink and then sneaks her a free blueberry muffin.
Two more performers take to the stage: a shy tween on her banjo that Winnie vaguely remembers from the ill-fated corpse duty on Monday morning (everyone cheers atonfor her), and then a middle-aged sister duo who sing a cappella in Italian.
Winnie catches few familiar words, likeincubifor nightmares andforestafor the forest.
