Page 123 of The Whispering Night
Just like how you keep dreaming of the Pure Heart.
There goes the scratching at the lottery ticket again. Winnie can see the first numbers. Important numbers that add up to something bigger, like a jackpot for her friends, her family, for all of Hemlock Falls…
Water sloshes behind her. Impatient. Filled with galaxies and fish food and nightmares.Go on, little hunter. Make your move or we will make it for you.
Wednesday, witch, werewolf.
Bear, bell, sparrow.
Three circles on a Venn diagram; three petals on Dad’s favorite nodding wakerobin.
Luminaries. Dianas. Nightmares.
Oh.Oh.There goes the last of the scratch-off silver. Becauseoh,this must be why Dad left Winnie all those clues. Why he didn’t simply hide Jenna’s source away forever, but left a complex scavenger hunt for his daughter to follow. A secret exit from a twisty maze.
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Yet neither are they my enemy.Because in a system, there are no enemies. There are no friends. There are predators, there are prey, and there is survival—all kept in a careful, cautious balance. To remove one piece of the system means the whole thing will collapse.
The spirit was awoken because the balance was broken by a Diana who fed it a half nightmare made from pure, Friday heart. Now if Winnie wants to reassemble the balance again…
She sucks in a sweltering breath. The green lights dart around her, blasting photons that no one will ever see. They aren’t swamp fires, but rather fairies who will guide Winnie where she needs to be.
You either trust the forest or you don’t, little hunter. You have to make up your mind.
Winnie steps into the light.
CHAPTER
48
Ghost-deer, ghost-squirrel, ghost-raccoon, etc.: Much dispute remains around their origins: Are they creations of the dreaming spirit? Or are they phantoms left over from the creatures that inhabited the wood prior to the spirit’s arrival? In the forests surrounding the Earth’s oldest spirits, there are apparitions of primitive creatures long since lost to time.
What happens next will be the topic of discussion for decades to come. Papers, dissertations, conferences, and debates amongst scientists and philosophers—both Diana and Luminary alike—as they try to break down the exact mechanisms at play. There will be terms likeecological nicheandsystem collapseandmagical biotic potential.
But no one will agree.
Because no one will ever really know what happened at the Big Lake or inside the spirit.
Not even Winnie, despite being the one who chose to step inside. All she will ever be able to articulate is this: she enters the spirit. It feels like she has always imagined stepping into a car wash might feel—specifically that part at the end where all the dryers blast you. Except instead of air, there is light. There is static. There is a silence so complete, it is matched only by the vacuum of outer space.
Above all, there is the greenish full-moon light. It engulfs her, it consumes her, it breaks her apart into the most basic of subatomic particles.Yet somehow, Winnie has enough awareness and physicality to still search for her best friends’ hands.
First she finds Erica, the girl she spent every Friday night with, giggling under bedsheets. As soon as their fingers connect, Erica’s eyes pop wide. Her russet brown irises glow like phoenix flames as she takes in the situation. Takes in Winnie, Jay, the endless and total light.
Jay?she asks without a real voice.
Yes,Winnie answers, and together, they each grab one of his hands.
Then Jay, the boy who was cursed before he was even born, but who never stopped loving his friends, finally opens his eyes too. They are the exact same shade as the green moonlight that surrounds him.Winnie,he says—also without a voice.Erica. What’s going on?
It’s kind of hard to explain,Winnie replies.But I’m pretty sure we’re inside the sleeping spirit.
This is all she can say before suddenly the three of them begin moving. Spinning as if they are in a centrifuge. Faster, faster while their base components get separated even further apart.Here are the solids. Here are the liquids. Here is the forest. Here are the last four years of pain.
Distantly, Winnie thinks she should feel sick. But no nausea touches her. Her senses are simply too deluged by the sleeping spirit. Her extrasensory organs toggle on: the one for inertia. The one for the four dimensions of space-time. They tell her that she’s rising and that the rules of gravity no longer apply.
Tears rip from Winnie’s eyes. Her ears still absorb no sound. And she wonders if her collection of atoms might end up trapped forever like this, orbiting in this centrifuge.
Until gradually, the light does fade, and Winnie can see that she and her triangle are back underwater—although they aren’t actuallyinthe water. Instead, the depths of the Big Lake churn around them. Dark, cold, ravenous.Pick your nightmare, spin the wheel! You’ll need all three pieces to finally heal.
