Page 79 of The Hunting Moon
Thatwas not mentioned in Theodosia’s book.
And if Winnie had any doubts before that the Whisperer was a Diana-made spell, she doesn’t have them now. She presses a hand over her mouth to stifle her breathing. Maybe if she strains hard enough she can figure out what they’re saying. She’s a smart girl. There are rhythms and rules to all languages… right?
Wrong. She listens and listens, the night trudging past, but there is no familiar beat to latch on to here, no intuitive translation her brain can discern. There are only the whispers, alien and unsettling, seething out of each mask to fill the sky.
A wind picks up too, laced with a stench like singed arm hairs—a stench that might be a new spell from these Dianas or might just as easily be the Whisperer on its way. For all Winnie knows, they have summoned it.
For all she knows, they cancontrolit.
At that thought, Winnie’s hand over her mouth turns to a claw. Her fingernails dig into her cheek. Because even though she guessed the Whisperer was afamesspell, she hadn’t taken the next logical leap and considered that the Dianas could command it too.
And if they can order it about like some soldier, then that meansGrayson’s death was no hunger spell turned murderous. Nor was it a merely a hunger spell that chased Winnie off the waterfall. It was a direct order from a Diana.
Winnie’s jaw aches now. She has a sudden, grinding urge tobiteat these people. She wants to attack with her hunting knives and get payback for every person these Dianas have killed, every family they have destroyed.
Luke was right to go after Vader when he did. Training would have changed nothing.
No.Winnie’s nostrils flare. She makes herself inhale a full, real breath.No.Luke went to rescue Han; Winnie is here to rescue Jay. She can’t lose sight of that mission, no matter who or what stands before her.
Especially since one of the hounds is now rising, and for a fraction of a moment, a fresh flame ignites in the forest.
There are the masks, stark and illuminated, covering witches who look wholly inhuman. The charcoal shade of each mask is a perfect match for the shadows of the forest; it contrasts with the whites of their open eyes.
And the one who has lit the fire has dark, almost russet-colored irises.
The fire winks out again, but not before Winnie sees what she needed to see: blood on the rocks and a single, dragging paw print.
It is Jay’s blood, of course, and these Dianas must be tracking him. Just like Winnie is. Just like the Wednesday hunters are too.
Later, she will wonderwhythe Dianas would hunt Jay. Certainly, there are theincubospells, taken from nightmares of the forest, but what evenisthe magic of a werewolf? And why would they want to take that power from Jay?
Later, Winnie will also discover that her Venn diagram has grown, each circle morphing and stretching like the Whisperer across her page, swallowing up everything in its path and melting away the lines she thought kept eachSandWseparated.
But right now, as she sits within these willow branches and desperately tries to keep from giving herself away, all she can think isThey are going after Jay, they are going after Jay, they are going after Jay…
I need to get there first.
She has no idea how she’ll move ahead of the Dianas. She has no idea what in her pathetic bag of contraband she can possibly use against them. But she also knows she has to try.
The hound who lit the flame is now being scolded by the other Dianas, a cacophony of snarls and hisses that Winnie doesn’t need to understand to recognize. Light in the forest is deadly; how dare the hound make a flame without hiding it?
The crow is the angriest of all. A spitting snarl slides from their golden beak. Amazingly, though, where Winnie expects the scolded hound to back down or wilt against the others, their spine only straightens. Their shoulders—thin, but strong—only lift high. They point in the direction Winnie just came from. Then, as iftheyare the one in charge and not the crow, they set off directly toward the willow tree.
Winnie has barely enough time to dip sideways behind the willow’s trunk before the hound is there, sweeping into the branches and stepping over the exact spot Winnie just abandoned.
Winnie is, yet again, not breathing.
And as illogical as it is, she has a desperate urge to close her eyes—as if by erasing the Dianas from her sight, she will in turn erase herself from theirs. All this hound must do is look left and they will see Winnie, right there pressed against the bark.
But they do not look, and soon they have marched farther downstream—while the three other Dianas now stomp furiously after. The two remaining hounds keep their snouts high, as if they have sniffed their quarry and now give pursuit. Thecornixfollows last, their beak roving from side to side. Their eyes glittering like a real crow’s. All that’s missing are wings and they will fly into the night.
In seconds, the Dianas are gone.
CHAPTER41
Winnie sips in careful breaths. Her heart is almost as loud as the stream beside her. The Dianas are totally out of sight now, having trekked south—which Winnie knows is the wrong direction, because she never found any signs of Jay on her journey that way. No blood on the earth, no paw prints dragging by, no white tufts of fur in the trees.
Winnie’s chest loosens with relief. Jay’s tracks must have gotten muddled right here, and now the Dianas are aiming the wrong way.Or,a new idea prods,that hound intentionally led the other Dianas astray.
