Page 66 of The Hunting Moon
Erica’s eyes widen. Then she lifts her fingers, as if she has forgotten that yes, they are regularly covered in Band-Aids—as her thumb is right now.
Winnie moves to the wall and leans against it. This wall is much colder than the one inside. The bricks exhale ice. “Have you been taking lessons?”
“Um, sort of,” Erica answers, and Winnie watches as the fight leaks out of her.Drip, drip, drain.“I… found some YouTube channels. But…” Pause. Swallow. “I’m not very good. Not like, you know…”
“Like Jenna.”
“Yeah.” She sucks in a breath. Her hands lower. “Like Jenna.”
Inside, the crowd is going absolutely wild. Full-on party-at-the-old-museum wild. It pours out of the coffee shop’s back door, a soda erupting beyond its measly can. For several moments, there is no space to speak in the alleyway.
Then L.A. Saturday, the lead singer, comes on the mic. “This is for everyone we’ve lost. Grayson, you’re never forgotten.”
Somehow the crowd getseven louder.It barrels into Winnie, a tornado’s wind. A werewolf shoving her out of a manticore’s way. She sways sideways, bricks catching her until the roar subsides and the bass line begins, more sensation than actual sound. It hums low in Winnie’s belly, and the crowd falls silent. Too silent, the memory of their eruption still hanging in the air. Little echoes that hover like butterflies around Winnie and Erica in the alleyway.
And for half a second—a tiny flicker of analmostmoment—Winnie thinks she might get it. The darkness, the darkness, the light.
Only when the guitar joins in and then L.A. starts singing—a song Winnie has heard before—do she and Erica speak again. And it is like the old museum all over again, when Winnie met Erica in front of Grayson’s photograph: tightly leashed sadness crosses her face.
Until Erica abruptly turns to Winnie and declares: “Ididknow Grayson Friday.”
Winnie blinks. Then blinks again, her lashes falling in time to Jay’s bass line. “Because… he invited you to that party for Jenna?” Winnie is straining to remember what else Erica said on Saturday night.
But Erica shakes her head. “No. Because he was the one who found Jenna on the night she died.”
“Oh.” Winnie’s head rears back.“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Erica scowls down at her Band-Aid, and the leashed sadness gives way to something frothy, something mad. “He was on his trial like she was. He found her, tried to revive her, and… well, you know the rest.”
No. Winniedoesn’tknow the rest because this was right after Dad left, and Erica was no longer her friend. All Winnie knows about Jenna’s death was that it happened during her second hunter trial, when she was meant to survive a night in the forest all alone. And she knows that it was ugly.Realugly with her body mutilated by vampira and everyone wondering why she was on the trial in the first place.
As if following the same thoughts, Erica says, “She never wanted to be a hunter.” Erica is picking at her Band-Aid now, peeling up the edge and then pressing it back down. Her words fog slightly as she speaks; the night has grown colder. “I have played it over and over andoveragain: she didn’t want to be a hunter, so why did she do the trials?”
Winnie knows Erica doesn’t expect an answer, but she can’t help but attempt one anyway: “I don’t know. She wanted to leave Hemlock Falls, and it never made any sense to me either.”
“No.” Erica sniffs. “It didn’t.” Then she smiles, a cruel thing that stretches her lips like she’s a changeling who has never imitated a human before. It’s made all the more unnatural because she isn’t smilingatWinnie but almostbeyondher, at some ghost hovering just out of sight.
And suddenly Winnie knows what she needs to say. A split-second decision, a choice to jump right off the falls. “I heard her, you know. When I was under the waterfall.” Winnie isn’t sure why she adds theyou know.Because of course Erica doesn’tknow.That’s why Winnie is telling her. “It’s the only thing I remember, E. Right before everything went black, I heard her singing. And it was…” Winnie bounces one shoulder. “It was beautiful. Even now, her music moves people. Maybe it even saves.”
“Ah.” Erica lifts a fist to her mouth as if trying to hold in tears. When she does finally speak again, her voice is totally steady: “Thank you for telling me that.”
Winnie wants to answer—she wants to say,Thank you for talking to me right now.But she doesn’t get a chance. The Forgotten have finished their first song, and now are sidestepping into a new one.
“You should get back in there.” Erica has to shout now because the crowd is yet again losing it.
“Nah,” Winnie replies, except that when she meets Erica’s eyes again, the anger and inhumanity are gone. There is a look in them that she remembers from Saturday night. A look she remembers from childhood. It’s mischievous and it’s teasing. Adare.
Winnie has no idea what it means, coming as it is right now.
What she does know, however, is that this moment between them is over. The realness, the rawness, the brief trust flavored with fried grease—that has ended. Erica isn’t a full-on ice queen, but she’s also no longer crushed by a banshee. She no longer needs Winnie to save her.
Erica swoops up the guitar case, while inside Joe Squared, the screams and claps of the adoring crowd settle into rapturous silence. Erica dabs at her eyes; it smears her mascara.
“You shouldreallyget back in there,” she repeats. “I think you’re going to want to hear them tonight. There’s one song in particular…” Shepauses, pretending to chew on her words in a way that is part of the mischief, part of the game. “Well, you’ll have to let me know what you think when you hear it.”
Winnie doesn’t get a chance to answer before Erica twirls on her two-inch heels and strides away. Her footsteps are lost to the music, her posture straight despite the weight of the guitar case no doubt pulling her to one side.
Erica has never been one to bend. Certainly never one to break.
