Page 93 of The Hunting Moon
And she’s glad—so,soglad—that the other will-o’-wisps deemed her friend instead of foe.
Once Winnie reaches the high school, she parks (very carefully) beside a red Porsche that used to belong to Marcia Thursday. Minutes later, the bell rings to mark the end of the main school day. Now everyone will go to the Sunday estate.
Winnie glimpses her square of new best friends leaving school. They pile into a familiar minivan a few rows over, but Winnie doesn’t get out to say hi. She’s relieved when neither the twins nor Fatima notice her in the Volvo. Winnie will explainallof this to them eventually, but only when she herself knows the full story.
And only when her triangle of old best friends tells her it’s okay.
When at last Erica struts out of the high school, Winnie pushes into the midday. Spring wind pulls at her shower-damp hair. Erica notices her immediately, although her runway stride doesn’t miss a beat. In fact, she moves as if nothing unusual happened last night. As if she really did go home after Joe Squared and sleep until this morning.
Amazing how much makeup can hide, though. How mascara can make Erica’s eyes seem to sparkle or how lip gloss can plump a mouth pressed tight as Erica strides right up to the Porsche with Winnie standing beside it.
Winnie holds up a hand before Erica can say anything—not that she thinks Ericawillspeak first. It’s just that Winnie wants to ensure she gets her words out before her old Thursday friend can steer this conversation. “You know why I’m here, E. I want answers from you about Jenna, about the Band-Aids and the magic, about the Dianas that were in the forest and all the stuff that went missing from my room. But”—Winnie waves her hand emphatically—“I don’t want you to explain it now.”
Erica’s eyes twitch. Her lips somehow pinch more tightly. “Is that so, Winnie Wednesday? And when exactly am I supposed toexplainall these things you’re throwing at me?” She makes air quotations around the word “explain.”
But Winnie ignores the gesture, as well as the tone of Erica’s comments. Winnie won’t be tricked into an argument. She knows how clever and commanding Erica can be when it comes to words—a skill learned from her mother. Instead, Winnie answers the actual question Erica put forth: “You’ll explain it all tonight when Jay and I come to the cabin after your clan dinner.Then,you’re going to tell us everything we want to know about what happened. And in turn, we’re going to tell you everything we know.”
“And what if I don’t show up?”
“I’m pretty sure we know where to find you.”
Another twitch of Erica’s eyes, another pucker of lips that shine bright as moonbeams. But then the curtain rises. The Marcia-like persona slips away. Erica swallows. Her nostrils flare…
And it’s as if Winnie is watching her friend’s lockbox open up right before her. As if she, Winnie, had the key all along and all she had to do was check to see if it fit.
The glimpse of grief doesn’t last long. Merely a peek through the keyhole before Erica flips her hair over her shoulder and declares, “Okay, Winnie Wednesday. I guess I’ll see you and Jay tonight at the cabin. I hope you’re ready, though, for what’s in store.”
And that’s all she says—a statement that isn’t quite a threat but is most assuredly more than a promise.
Erica slides into the red convertible. The door slams. In seconds, it purrs sultrily away, quiet as a dryad slipping through the forest. Or a hound prowling on the hunt.
CHAPTER49
Winnie finds Jay where she knew he would be: at the Friday estate on the hunter training grounds. She saw it on the schedule in his desk last night, scribbled in Grayson’s handwriting.Training session on Thursday at 1PM.
It isn’t one o’clock yet, and Winnie is glad for it. She wants just a few moments alone before other Fridays descend upon her, howling and calling her “Wolf Girl.”
She has just rounded the burned-out tower, its crumbling bricks almost beautiful today beneath the burgeoning sun, when she spots Jay at the archery range. He preps the day’s work for his hunters, ancient targets lined up across patchy grass at different heights, different distances, different angles.
Like Winnie, he has cleaned up. He wears fresh training gear—black joggers and a hoodie—and although Winnie can’t tell from this distance if Jay’s face is more haggard than usual, she suspects the answer is no. After all, while everything might have changed for her, this is just another day for him. He has had four years to adjust to this normal; Winnie has only had a few hours.
How does he do this all the time?she wonders.Just continue on as if he didn’t spend last night fighting for his life?Hunters might never have hit him before, but that doesn’t mean he has always evaded other nightmares.In fact, why else would he have an impossible vial of red mist in his drawer unless it was to save him each time he nearly died?
Winnie passes the obstacle course, its swaying ropes and wooden platforms silent beneath a cold wind stealing from the spirit’s forest nearby. Up ahead, at the tables beside the archery range, Jay has arranged compound bows and quivers of bolts. One for each of his hunters.
It’s strange how such a seemingly small detail—the tidy placement of toolsrightwhere he wants each person to stand—can reveal so much about him. How good he is at what he does. How much he cares to do it well.
And how, even if he never looks at the audience while he plays his guitar, he will always pour his nightmare soul into the music.
Jay hears Winnie at last, jerking around to face her, a compound bow gripped in one hand. It ishisbow, she notices, that he lent her a few weeks ago when they first went into the forest to train together.
The sun slides over him. No darkness, only light. And a muscle feathers in his jaw as she approaches. His eyes—those gray, gray eyes… They throb with something more than mere exhaustion.
She can’t tell what. She used to know everything Jay was thinking; now she can’t tell a thing. She is hopeful, though, that in time she’ll learn the new tics and traits of him. He is so much more than just an illustration in her sketchbook, after all.
“Did you sleep?” she asks once she is a few paces away. She has to tip up her head to meet his eyes.
“A few hours,” he answers. “You?”
