Page 118 of The Whispering Night
And Jay, and Jay, and Jay.
To kiss across shadows into a bright fever
The dawn mist rises inside me like a wildfire
Yes, it really is a wildfire now because the salamander’s flames have reached the shoreline in some spots, choking out smoke and sparks.
The water is to Winnie’s knees, warm and feral like a hot tub with all the jets on. The current pries at her, wanting her to go toward the waterfall.
You either trust the forest or you don’t, Winnie. You have to make up your mind.
She trusts it. She trusts it to the very purest heart of her. But to follow the current—to let it tow her over… That is not the way she’s meant to go today. The forest is going to have to trustherinstead.
Green continues to burst around Winnie’s legs. Even the waking spirit and its hot, hot rain and merciless winds cannot stop these lights from shining. Honest lights. True lights.
Ahead, the sadhuzag has been forced to slow because more nightmares infest the western shore. More Compendium entries spewing out willy-nilly.There are Tuesday scorpions here too, and as Winnie drags onto the shore, shedding water like a sodden bear, she thinks she spies a graying redhead fighting against a manticore hatchling.
Well done, J.T.Winnie smiles grimly as she pushes into a walk. Then a canter. Then a run.You finally picked the right team.
Except… no. There it is again. That burst of faulty code that says,You’re missing a semicolon. Try again, Winnie.
She rushes on. The TV static volume is turned so high now, it’s a disharmonic overtone to an unshackled superstorm. Her hair is wet from the rain, wet from sweat. Hemlock Falls never gets this hot; the forest won’t let it.But the forest,she thinks,isn’t in charge anymore.
And it seems to have realized this. Because as Winnie and the melusine rush down the sandier western shore, the nightmares they encounter stop fighting. They leap back from their Tuesday targets or from each other. Whatever match they are locked in, they cease entirely. They fix gazes onto Winnie—some beady-eyed, some eight-eyed, and some with no eyes at all but simply cold sentience. Then one by one, they scuttle or paw or lope after her.
Some Tuesdays take advantage of this, shooting or stabbing at a back that flees. But most gape, just as the nightmares did, at Winnie while she cannons past. She tries to smile at Mason, whose knife she has… well, not stolen, butborrowed.She doesn’t think he sees the grin.
It is right as the sadhuzag flings itself into the stretch of forest that dips all the way down to the shore—the place where Winnie came with Mario only two nights ago for the safari—that she has a sudden vivid memory of a rowan tree with leaves bursting fresh along its spindly branches.
Some Dianas will craft small coins from rowan wood that has been harvested in a spirit forest, believing such amulets can protect against nightmares.
Winnie could almost smack herself for not remembering this sooner. There was a rowan tree beside the granite pit, as if planted there to protect while a spell was cast. So of course, the rowan tree by the shore might also have been strategically grown. Which meansthatis where the Crow—and Erica and Jay—must be.
Winnie glances behind her. She has hundreds—hundreds—of nightmaresfollowing her. She hopes the rowan tree doesn’t harm them. She hopes the Crow doesn’t either.
T minus thirteen minutes.
The forest here looks like it did on Monday night. The light is that same awful gloaming that Winnie’s eyes hate, and the shapes in the trees might as well be her fellow science nerds. She can almost pretend that wulver over there is Mario.
Wulver: These creatures are often mistaken for werewolves, but in fact are full nightmares with no daywalking abilities. With furred, humanoid bodies and lupine heads, they are not aggressive unless provoked.
Ripped-up earth and roots mark the sadhuzag’s passage—and Winnie follows it. The green light feels weaker here, and now that Winnie is paying attention, the wind is softer too. She thought it was just a result of entering the trees. That these aspens and silver firs were protecting her. But no, there is actually less wind.
Static scrapes over her skin. A whispery keen that means magic happens nearby. And Jay’s song grows louder. But it’s like he’s singing through a wind farm; like she canhearthat he’s right there, but everything is distorted by the waking spirit.
I’m coming, Jay. Wait for me.
Then Winnie sees it: the sadhuzag. It has stopped fifty feet ahead, more silhouette than vibrant beast, its proud body at attention, head and antlers upright.
Two hellions charge by on Winnie’s left, spraying tendrils of flame and tearing up underbrush. Next, a banshee on her right in a streak of silver and green.
Grief wells in Winnie. Unbidden, burning.Jay, Erica, Dad.But it dissolves as soon as the banshee is past.
The hidebehind leaps from tree trunk to tree trunk—laughing and laughing. Then come three vampira on their stilt legs with mandibles wide. Even two ghost-raccoons smear by like glowing exhales.
What is happening?Winnie thinks. Her brain accepted that the melusine and the dryad were helping her. It accepted that all the nightmares of theforest were following her. But now it has decided to revolt and go,THIS IS WEIRD. MAYBE YOU SHOULD WORRY.
Winnie unstraps her second knife. Nightmares are still marching or crawling or zipping by her, and one by one, they’re stopping behind or around the sadhuzag. Assembling like soldiers in a row…
