Page 13 of The Whispering Night
The forest still looks like it wants to kill her, though.
Because it does.
“This… this shouldn’t be so hard,” Winnie pants out. “All the stuff in the forest—my trial, the Whisperer, the…” She can’t make herself saydead Dianas.“It bothered me at first, but I thought I’d moved on.”I thought I’d learned to eat the pizza.
Rachel snorts in a truly mama-bear fashion. “Yeah, that’s not how traumaworks, kid. Which is why we do this run.” With no disruption to her stride, she straps the water bottle to a holster on her hip. Then the first aid kit too. “You’re not the only one with bad memories of the forest. But the only way we can exorcise our ghosts is if we keep on facing ’em. Until you go out on the hunt again, this will be your exorcism.”
“And if I can’t exorcise? If I can’t compartmentalize?”
“I never said compartmentalize.” Rachel’s arms settle into a steady, effortless swing. Like her hands are pendulums with no friction or gravity to act upon them. “That’s a good skill to have, sure, but only while you’re in the forest. Most of us—we can’t compartmentalize forever. All the ghosts have to go somewhere. And if you can’t find a way to exorcise them on your own, then we have trained professionals who can help you do so.”
Winnie, her own arms mostdefinitelyaffected by friction and gravity, lets her brain gnaw at Rachel’s words. Nine nights ago, in the forest, Winnie decided the darkness that always drags at the light in Hemlock Falls must come from everyone eating their pizza, from everyone pretending pain, violence, and nightmares can never harm them. She decided, too, that Rachel must have a lockbox full of such ghosts.
And it’s true. Rachel is saying as much right now. But she’s also saying that she knows they’re in there—and that she knows when to ask for help setting them free.
Winnie side-eyes her aunt. In this dim light, Rachel might as well be a younger version of Mom. And Mom, Winnie knows, has plenty of ghosts too. Except she never asks for help; she never even acknowledges their existence.
“You should be dead,” Winnie repeats to Rachel.
And her aunt nods. “Many times over.” A pause. A glance ahead to ensure they’re still alone. Then, in a voice that is simultaneously harder and softer—like she’s really straining to be gentle here, but the Lead Hunter part of her demands aggression: “Who else knows about Jay?”
“Just me and you.”Pant, pant.“And Mario Monday.”
“Mario knows?” A thoughtful frown folds Rachel’s eyebrows. It’s a look Winnie’s mom makes with great regularity, particularly when watching reruns ofMurder She Wrote. A look that says:Well, that’s a twist I didn’t see coming.“That explains why he was so ready to sign off on my Proof of Kill last week. I thought it was just because I was in the hospital and he didn’t want to wear me out.”
Winnie snorts. “Knowing Mario, that’s probably what he wanted everyone else to think too.”
“Have you talked to him about this?”
Winnie shakes her head. “Every time I try to find him, he’s either out of his office with Science Fair stuff or Councilor Monday is right there.”
Rachel winces at that because Theresa, as the councilor for the Mondays, isdefinitelynot someone Winnie—or Rachel or Jay—wants noticing them.
“And what about…” Winnie hesitates. Wipes sticky hair off her sweating brow. “What about the Tuesdays?”
“Yeah.” This is all Rachel says at first, and it could mean a million different things, ranging fromYeah, they have come to talk to metoYeah, I’m wondering why they haven’t shown up yettoYeah, they are indeed a clan in the Luminaries, Winnie.
But then she finally elaborates: “Yeah, they talked to me, but it was weird.”
“How so?”
“It was, ah,spare,I guess. Jeremiah came to my hospital room, asked a handful of vague questions, and that was it. No one has followed up with me since.”
“Whoa.” That could not have been more opposite from Winnie’s experience four years ago, when she thought the interrogations would never end.Thoseghosts still haunt her today; she knows she will never exorcise them.
“My thoughts exactly.” Rachel rubs her forehead with a sleeve. A lotlesssweat drips off her than Winnie. “I don’t like it, Winnie. And I wish I hadn’t told Marcus that Dianas jumped me, because now he’s terrified to sleep.”
“Ah.” Winnie wants to feel bad about that. She and her younger cousin shared a brief moment after Rachel nearly died… But it was short-lived. Marcus is back to pure, unadulterated goblin these days. “Has he told anyone about the Dianas?”
“No. I asked him not to, so we could keep from frightening the city. And the kid has kept his word.”
“Well, maybe the Tuesdays are keeping it under wraps because of the Nightmare Masquerade? Like maybe, once the Masquerade passes, they’ll investigate more publicly?”
“Maybe. But there was an awful lot of uproar over that werewolf.”
Winnie almost trips at the wordwerewolf.
Rachel doesn’t notice. “We had forums, we had testing sites and daily broadcasts. But Dianas are so much worse than a daywalker. They’rewhywe have the siren downtown: to warn against our greatest enemy.” She glances at Winnie, as if expecting Winnie to contradict this somehow. As if Winnie might have some insight that says,Nah, Dianas aren’t so bad.
