Page 115 of The Whispering Night
She doesn’t think it’s all in her head when she catches a whiff of lime and bergamot now. Or when she hears, again, his song “Backlit” summoning her in a voice that isn’t really there.
With heat on your skin I spin
Until I can’t see us
Her boots reach the water. The sylphid isn’t moving, and its oozing, silty blood has left a trail.
I find no relief, inside I’m still a hopeless curse
Winnie heaves the body all the way into the water, careful to keep herself from ever getting so deep that the natural whirlpool sucks her down…
It sucks down the sylphid in seconds. And Winnie stares hard, hard at the churning waters. “Help it,” she begs the melusine who lives below.“Heal it because I don’t think—” Her voice cracks. She tries again. “I don’t think it’s a hopeless curse. I don’t think it deserves to die.”
Winnie has no idea if the melusine hears her. No idea if the mist even brought that particular to life this time. I love you. I’m sorry.
Winnie turns away from the shoreline and tromps uphill into the trees.
Melusine: These beautiful, mermaid-like creatures inhabit the rivers and lakes of the forest. They are not aggressive but will attack if humans get near. Their blood, a clear liquid, can heal external injuries when poured on a wound. When ingested, it is an effective antidote against venoms and poison. (Note from Winnie: It leaves a horrible hangover.)
The melusine is following Winnie.
Winnie doesn’t notice it for a full five minutes as she scrabbles up the unfriendly hill. As her left ankle gives out three times, and she nearly face-plants on roots or rocks. Only when she hears a loudboom!like a Tuesday grenade from the west does she look back…
And oh, there it is. Humanoid and hunching. Slippery and scaled. The melusine is only thirty feet away, and it’s not even trying to hide itself. It blinks, eyes vertically pupilled (Like a banshee,Winnie notes). Its chest rises and falls. Its teal scales flicker with shades of purple, winks of blue, and above all, flashes of green.
But what surprises Winnie most—other than the fact that the melusine isthere—is that it has legs. In all Winnie’s readings, in all her obsessive study of illustrations, she hasneverseen or heard of a melusine with anything other than a fishlike tail.
But this is definitely a melusine; it definitely has legs; and it’s definitely following Winnie.
They are not aggressive but will attack if humans get near.Welp, Winnie sure is near! And she can’t help but recall a mutilated vampira she found two years ago on corpse duty. She wassosure a melusine had killed it, but Mario had simply shaken his head while the Council had simply laughed.It’s not your fault,Marcia had told her,that you’re so out of practice.
Well, Marcia,Winnie thinks,I have a surprise for you! Not only do melusine kill, but they will track you before they do so!
With a strangled groan, Winnie hefts up her knife and trudges onward uphill. Wind slants against her, stinking of rotting leaves and musty water. Of fresh-churned soil and gunpowder. Wood smoke too—she catches whiffs of burning trees.
She checks behind her. The melusine is no closer, but it’s also not farther away.
She wants to scream at it. To shout,Shoo, shoo! Leave me alone! I’m only here to help you!But that would most certainly draw other nightmares—such as the salamander probably burning the forest south of here.
Anotherboom!like a grenade. Another glance behind her to check on the melusine.
It’s closer this time. So Winnie claws uphill faster. Her ankle fights her. The ground fights her too, slick with rain that is just starting to topple out. Fat, hot drops that remind Winnie of the mist. That hurt each time they pelt against her skin.
She is almost to the top of the hill. Then she will be a mere forty feet from the Big Lake. If she canjustget that far. If she canjustsee what’s waiting up there. Is it Jay? Is it the Crow and Erica? Is it a single eye opening wide with the wordsGone Fishingwritten in mist around it?
Winnie hauls herself over the final crest, pulling onto the root of a massive black walnut. The low branch of a much smaller white ash. She peers back.
She no longer sees the melusine.
Which feels like a very,verybad development. She whips forward once more, knife outstretched. Wind beats faster here, no longer blocked by the lower terrain. The hot rain falls harder. The roar of the falls is less TV static now, more microwave cosmic background. It all crushes together, compressing Winnie in green chaos. Branches waving. Trunks groaning.
The more I forget you, the deeper you sink in.
She limps forward.SOSthrobs from her ankle. Ahead, a weeping willow thrashes more wildly than the elms or ash trees around it. Winnie skirts to avoid… only to watch as the willow follows her. Because—duh, Winnie!—it’s the dryad from before. She was so focused on the melusine, she didn’t pay attention to what else was stalking her up the hill.
Such as theactualforest.
Branches fling out. Claws form at the ends. Winnie arcs up her knife, tumbling left. But it’s useless. The branches loop around her arm like vines, and in seconds, she is being dragged toward the dryad’s trunk. She digs her boots into the soil. The earth is soft here, sand and pine needles that kick up greenish dust—before getting sucked into the currents slinging toward the lake.
