Page 131 of The Whispering Night
“Oh no! You’ve made Winnie cry!” Emma tries to slide around her sister, but she can’t release the branches. “Oh, Winnie, hon. Don’t cry.”
Fatima finally looks up, her cheeks fully aflame. “Winnie, if you get tears on this silk, thenyou’llbe the one I feed to a dryad.”
“N-no,” Winnie blubbers. “I’m not… crying.” She sniffles. Then because she has been forbidden to move, she just lets the tears and a little snot slide down her face.
Bretta howls out a laugh, swiveling around to return to the mirror. “I made Wolf Girl cry!” she chants, clapping in time to the words. “Don’t tell Jay, he’ll eat me alive!”
A knock sounds at the door. Tentative. Almost drowned out by Bretta’s repeated chantingI made Wolf Girl cry! Don’t tell Jay, he’ll eat me alive!
“Come in!” Fatima calls.
The doorknob turns. The hinges creak. And there is Erica, poking in her head. “Hey, uh… we’re here.”
“Wheee!” Emma declares, bouncing on her toes—and in turn, making Bretta’s branches bounce too. “Join us, join us!”
Erica obeys, pushing through the door. Behind her are Katie Tuesday and Angélica Martes. All of them carry their costumes in long garment bags, and in mere moments, the bedroom is doused with noise. With laughter and voices and squeals. With questions and teasing and theshkkkkkof hairspray.
And although Fatima continues to snarl at Winnie,Stay still!,and Winnie’s stomach can’t quite stop gurgling with guilt, she also can’tnotjoin in with the laughter and the squeals and the teasing. Her costume might be the simplest one in the room by far, but it’s still so much more than she could haveeverasked for.
She is the Hunter, just like she and Fatima drew (minus the popcorn hands), complete with a jeweled belt and the sleek lines of an Ancient Roman gown—in emerald silk, of course, since Winnieisthe Girl in Green.
Over the next two hours, all the girls dress. Bretta finishes transforming into an oak dryad, her head fully crowned with branches. And Winnie—under Fatima’s somewhat snippy guidance—paints gray lines down Bretta’s bare arms and across her face.
Emma becomes a phoenix, with fully feathered crimson wings to float off her back, and a gown made of slippery orange satin. Her lips are orange, and Winnie gives her feathery swirls across her face. Lastly, the Golden Crown shines like a lantern atop Emma’s head.
Fatima, meanwhile, is a siren in a fully sequined gown that fits her whole body like a shiny glove—and then slithers behind her in a long, magical tail. Her hijab is the same midnight blue as her eyeliner, and the rubber bands on her braces are teal. (Apparently Trevor, who is her date, has a matching costume that is, in Bretta’s words:smokin’ hot sexy.)
Erica metamorphoses into an arassas with (now-familiar) black cat ears, a form-fitting scaly dress, and her usual steel-toed boots. She glows with a radiance Winnie hasn’t seen in years, and rather than straighten her hair as she usually does, to look like Jenna’s, Erica has let the natural waves curl down her back.
Katie and Angélica—who have recently started dating—wear matching white vinyl bodysuits with long whips that come off their hands. “We’re manticores!” Angélica explains when Winnie raises a puzzled eyebrow. “Here’s the stinger.” She swings around to give a booty shake.
And yep. Okay. Winnie sees it now, and she applauds—and laughs—accordingly.
Once everyone is fully costumed, decorated, and accessorized, Winnie and her friends strut out of the bedroom, ready to take on the night. No longer a square of friends, but something bigger. And so,somuch better.
Winnie spent four years as a hypotenuse cast adrift, and for those four, lonely years, she mistrusted anything more complicated than a line. All shapes—whether they were squares or triangles or trapezoids—looked to her like big redSTOPsigns.
But now she not only has a triangle, she notonlyhas a square, she has a complete overhaul of geometry. She has a mixing of angles and lines, of blocks and diamonds, of parallelograms and polyhedrons.
So while Signora Martedì might still be out there somewhere, along with those nine other Dianas from the shore that were never captured, that Crow won’t find such an easy target in Winnie Wednesday if she ever comes back again. No more lines, no more singular photons beaming into space at the speed of light.
Number of shapes Winnie could rely on a month ago? Zero.
Number of shapes Winnie can rely on now? Too many to count.
So with her silk dress gliding over her legs and her jewel knife sheath resting comfortably at her hips, Winnie hooks her arm into Erica’s on one side. Into Fatima’s on the other. And together with this complex fractal of friends to glitter around her, she sets off for the final event of the Masquerade.
CHAPTER
51
It will go down in history as the greatest Nightmare Ball that ever was. Everyone who attends—be they local or foreign—will agree that never in all of Luminary history has the society shined so brightly.
It’s not the false glow of people trying to outrun the night, trying to pretend the ghosts don’t haunt them when they close their eyes or that all they have to do is eat enough pizza. This is the glow of people whosawthe ghosts. Who opened up their compartments and pizza boxes and let the nightmares run free.
Winnie Wednesday shines the brightest of them all. She and her fractal arrive at the ball as an entourage, tumbling out of the twins’ dad’s van like they are real nightmares tumbling from the mist. Somehow Bretta’s branches do not get crushed, nor do Emma’s skirts get flattened. And when they pull up to the awning, Dryden’s old assistant Cindy leaps over to valet park for them.
Because oh yes—didn’t you hear? Darian quit his job. He was offered a new position in Italy with the Mercoledìs, so he and Andrew are moving there in a month. It’s going to beveryexciting. Especially since Dad was able to warn Darian of a certain Martedì to watch out for.
