Page 88 of The Hunting Moon
Impossible.Never, in all of her research and study, in all the editions of the Compendium she has combed, in all the footnotes and scribbles she has added to her own Xeroxed copy, has she ever heard of anything like this.
The forest mist.
Inside a vial.
In seconds, the crow is obscured—and the pressure of her body against Winnie recedes, as if she stands.
Winnie throws out her hand to grab at the crow’s chest, fingers clasping onto anything with purchase. “No,” Winnie says, yanking at the woman’s armor. “No.” She wants to see the woman’s face, she wants toseethe person who ruined her life and ruined her dad’s—
But the crow withdraws as effortlessly as a siren through waves, and soon she is out of sight once more. The last thing Winnie hears before the mist steals sound along with sight is a snarl like a wolf’s. A snap like vicious fangs. Then that vanishes as well, and all Winnie knows is the mist.
Spirit mist is both the origin of and end of the nightmares each night,her Compendium provides.Often, nightmares mortally wounded at dawn will return fully healed the next evening, suggesting the mist is capable of both creation and restoration.That healing ability was why Winnie hoped she could help the will-o’-wisp last night.
And it must also be why Jay has it stored inside a red vial. This must be the only way to heal him. To create him, to restore him.
Since there is no predicting the location of a nightmare’s arrival,her inner Compendium continues,the hunter must keep moving. Otherwise, one could apparate exactly where the hunter stands.
Unfortunately, Winnie cannot move even if she wants to. Her muscles are still limp from touching that mask, and her brain seems to heave and yaw like a ship on stormy seas. But the seas are made of mist, and the monsters of the deep are vampira.
Nonsense,she tells herself.You’re thinking nonsense.She needs to pull herself together. She needs to wrangle her thoughts under control and then her body too. The rill around the island won’t stop nightmares if they apparate on this side of it. And the fire from the phoenix feather must be totally snuffed out by the mist…
Winnie thinks she hears more snarling. It is not lupine, but a coughing, choking hack. As if the changeling has come here. Like maybe the mist has healed all of its wounds too.
Winnie can’t stay here.
Shecan’tstay here.
At that thought, a light winks to her right. Then, a split second later, a second winks to her left, bright as a shooting star. And another light comes a heartbeat after that; then a fourth beams into existence mere inches from Winnie’s face.
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 will-o’-wisp flares again before Winnie’s eyes, forcing her to wince and recoil against the red cedar. She has the distinct sense that it is scolding her. That it is saying,Get up, you foolish human, before we decide to eat you.
“Yep,” she groans at it, mist slithering into her throat—so hot,whyis it always so hot? Then, with another groan, she heaves in her legs and digs her fingers into tree bark. She pushes, she pulls, she gulps in misty air, until at last she is standing and her muscles, though weak, feel as if they’re totally her own again.
And all around her, she sees the mist. It is receding slowly, reluctantly. An impossible mist from an impossible red vial. Soon, it will dissipate completely.
The flames are also gone now, only damp ash left behind and two faint mounds on the earth to mark what used to be hounds.
But that’s it. That is all Winnie sees. There is no changeling to feast on her, no crow to bewitch her, no werewolf once more alive and fighting.
And there is no Aunt Rachel either. The body is simply gone, as if the mist devoured her. As if the forest claimed her… Or as if a nightmare within did.
In that moment, Winnie realizes a nightmaredidget Rachel, just as it got Winnie two weeks ago, and suddenly Winnie finds she is laughing. A high-pitched, wild laugh that wheezes out toward the sky. Because she would bet all that money in her old piggy bank that she knows where Rachel is and she knows who took her there.
She is at a spot beneath a waterfall where a melusine sings and heals anyone who might come near her—or at least a melusine who heals when her werewolf cousin asks her to. Tomorrow, Rachel will awaken in a hospital with fang marks on her arm and a sparkle in her blood.
Light gutters and gleams twenty feet away, as if the will-o’-wisps beckon. As if they want to lead Winnie into the forest to her doom. But you either trust the forest or you don’t, and so far, trust has worked out pretty well for Winnie Winona Wednesday.
“Lead the way,” she calls to the creatures in a voice made of eternal night. And the will-o’-wisps obey, because not all humans deserve to die.
And some might even be worth saving.
HEMLOCK FALLS TESTING PORTAL
THURSDAY, APRIL 11
TEST RESULTS for PREVIOUS DAY:
