Page 75 of The Hunting Moon
Then pain in her forearm punches into her awareness, two bright sparks like iron rods jammed into her flesh. Her eyes spring wide, and there he is. The werewolf. Blood trails above him from where Winnie stabbed a wooden stake into his neck.
He has come to finish me off,she thinks, hoping it doesn’t hurt. Hoping he can just be quick about it.
Werewolves, like their non counterparts, attack by going for the jugular. If faced with one, protect your throat.
Winnie doesn’t protect her throat. She instead lets the wolf pull her along, up, up and toward the shore. It is strange behavior—diving into turbulent water simply to retrieve prey… but she also can’t pin down those thoughts long enough to truly process what they mean.
Death certainly is taking its sweet time.
It is only once she is on the shore—Jenna’s song somehow louder now and soft—that it occurs to Winnie sheisn’tdead. She isn’t drowning. Sheisn’t even cold anymore. She is warm and safe, and the song surrounding her is pure.
She also thinks she sees scales sparkling in the wild, foaming waves nearby.Melusine,she thinks.A melusine is healing me.The Compendium never mentioned they could heal a human. And it certainly never mentioned that theywouldheal a human.
Winnie’s last thought before sleep settles over her isYou either trust the forest or you don’t.And she almost thinks she hears Jay right beside her, whispering those words anew.You either trust the forest or you don’t, Winnie. You have to choose.
CHAPTER39
Clusterfuck: When everything you thought you knew gets flipped upside down and the world starts collapsing around you. See also: werewolf, Winnie Wednesday, Jay Friday.
“Winnie!” someone shouts at her. “Winnie, are you okay? Hey, Winnie,Winnie.” They are shaking her, and she is no longer underwater. She’s not even in the water.
Bergamot and lime.Winnie smells bergamot and lime, and she is so glad to know that Jay is beside her… except when she opens her eyes, she realizes it’s only Lizzy becauseof course,they probably buy a family pack of soap. Andof course,Winnie is still in the lab…
And of course, Jay is the werewolf.
Those words repeat on a loop in her brain. A simple sentence that Winnie can diagram easily upon a whiteboard, thanks to Ms. Morgan’s tutelage.Subject, predicate, article, predicate nominative.
Jay is the werewolf.
Jay. Is. The. Werewolf.
How many times has he told her? All the answers have been there—right in front of her, backlit upon the stage.Never startle a nightmare,he said three weeks ago—and then again this morning as a joke. And yesterday, he defended Winnie’s dad:I just get why he might have done whathe did to protect you.And of course, the lyrics of the song:I find no relief, inside I’m still a hopeless curse.
Winnie very arrogantly assumed he referred to her and his Angsty Feelings… but no. The lyrics were literal; the curse was completely real; and all these years, Jay clearly believed—in that honest, Friday heart of his—that he was protecting Winnie by staying away from her. He said as much last night with the will-o’-wisp, didn’t he?It will hunt us down and kill us. Because that is what nightmares do. That’s the only thing nightmarescando.
Jay must have believed he was out there slaughtering people in the forest—and he must still believe he was the one who killed Grayson six nights ago. Which means he must not remember what happens when he’s in his wolf form.
At that thought, a new memory unravels. One from Mario’s office, of a Post-it on his enormous Compendium that read,No sentience in wolf form?It was one of many Post-its shoved onto the page for were-creatures.
Mario knows,Winnie realizes. All this time, Mario has known exactly who the werewolf was, yet somehow he kept it a secret throughout Winnie’s nosing around. He distracted her with wagers for Joe Squared coffee when she thought the halfer was killed by a werewolf. And he bamboozled her with his constantpop-pop!of pink bubblegum when she asked about that Post-it note in the Compendium.
But in the end, Mario had been right: that halfer didn’t die by a werewolf any more than Grayson did.
“Winnie,” Lizzy repeats, and this time, she bends down to stare at Winnie’s face. It would seem Winnie is doubled over. Her glasses have fallen off and now lie on the floor beside her combat boots. “Hey, Winnie, are you okay?”
“Yes,” Winnie squeezes out, even though it’s a blatant, bald-faced lie. Because Jay (subject) is (predicate) the (article) werewolf (predicate nominative).
Winnie grabs her glasses from the floor; they weigh approximately a million pounds, and somehow her head weighs even more as she tries to lift it. The blood that had reached her head now plummets toward her toes. Her vision briefly crosses, a roar throbs in her ears.
Lizzy is ogling her in open fear, her face almost as pale as her nephew’s.Almost as pale as the werewolf.“What just happened to you?”
“Blood sugar,” Winnie says, a weak lie that Lizzy doesn’t buy for a second—but that she also can’t contradict because Winnie is now turning away and walking toward the exit.
Lizzy tries to follow, but Winnie lifts a hand. “Tell Mario hi.”
Maybe it’s because this is such an innocuous thing to say, such anormaleveryday request to make in the middle of what is clearly not a normal night, but Lizzy actually does stop following. She even murmurs, “Ohh-kay,” and Winnie doesn’t have to look behind her to know the woman is frowning.
Then Winnie is out of the lab, out of the light.
