Page 108 of The Whispering Night
The more I forget you, the deeper you sink in
Fangs at the neck and red paint on a lost cabin
Winnie startles. She just heard those words as if they were right beside her, sung directly into her ears by Jay’s rasping throat. She looks around. But of course, the tent is empty save for her and Ms. Morgan.
Ten dollars to kiss, a bet I can never win
Snow on your lips
It’s feast or it’s full famine
Winnie doesn’t actually notice when her feet begin moving. She just knows she is suddenly pivoting toward the tent flaps, marching once more toward the pier.
“Winnie?” Ms. Morgan calls after her. “Where are you going?”
“Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That song. Jay. He’s this way.”
“Winnie, there is no song.”
No, there is definitely a song. It is Jay, singingthesong he wrote about Winnie. Just like she heard him in the maze. Just like she heard him at Joe Squared two weeks ago. And it’s coming from outside the tent.
She pushes back into the early morning. Wind, cruel and venomous, bites at her face. It’s so at odds with the grayscale twilight rippling over white-tipped waves. Tuesday boats still chug; lights still beam off the dam; her ankle still throbs.
I miss you more now
Now that it’s been so long
Ms. Morgan barges out of the tent to join Winnie. “What are you doing, Winnie? What do you hear?”
“I already told you. Jay’s song. ‘Backlit.’” Winnie reels about, feeling like a compass drawn by the earth’s magnetic field. And just like a compass, her finger abruptly points north. “It’s coming from that direction.”
“Winnie, I don’t hear anything.”
“I told you: the Whisperer ate Jay. Itoldyou I heard him in the maze. And I… I hear him again now. He’s not dead, Ms. Morgan. He’s not gone.”
“I never said he was, but—wait.” Ms. Morgan grabs at Winnie’s shoulder because Winnie is yet again moving. “You can’t just walk all the way up to the forest. Assuming Jayisthere, what will you do once you find him? We need a better plan.”
Yes,Winnie thinks. We do. A plan like Dad would make.
Her feet stop again. Her eyes stare at nothing. Her mind clicks and whirs as new punch cards get fed through her processor.Agent Wednesday. What would Agent Wednesday do?She can see her drawing of Jay before the Whisperer ate him. She can see her drawing of Erica channeling Lady Justice.
And she can see all the pieces of the last week—of the carnival, of the Masquerade, and of Hemlock Falls connecting like constellations through her telescope.Here is Lyra. Here is Hercules. And here are the Lyrids, shooting across the sky.
“I… have an idea,” Winnie says, and now her compass swivels south. Toward the dam, toward all those Tuesdays hunting for her. “We’ll have to split up—”
“No.”
“—because I’m going to need you to make a distraction.”
“Winnie,no. We can’t split up. It’s too dangerous.”
To kiss across shadows into a bright fever
The dawn mist rises inside me like a wildfire
