Page 39 of The Whispering Night
“Wait.” Winnie’s eyes leap around the office while her mind leaps through every drawer she just opened. Erica doesn’t know the Tuesdays are in cahoots (still a funny word) with Dianas. She doesn’tknowthat the Lead Liaison to Italy is a Dianacornixwith Jeremiah Tuesday in her pocket.
That means Erica can’t solve for the sameythat Winnie can. Erica likely thinks Jeremiah is here to find evidence, while Winnie is 99 percent sure he’s here to destroy it.
“Keep looking,” she commands.
Erica coughs. “Are you off your rocker? There’s nothing here, Winnie, except Tuesdays who would love to lock us up for a very long time.”
Except there is something here. There has to be.Winnie crawls on her hands toward the desk. They have only minutes before the Lambda scorpions get up here, but sherefusesto leave. She’s like a horse who’s just had blinders slotted on: there’s nowhere she can look but ahead, and ahead is Samuel’s desk with three drawers.
Stapler. Scotch tape. Another stapler (unnecessary). Package of black dry erase markers (opened). Package of colored markers (untouched). Post-its.While Winnie digs through, cataloguing everything mentally, Erica launches toward the cabinets. The metal drawers clang open. Clang shut.
“Nothing,” Winnie says, shooting to her feet. “There’snothingin his desk.”
“And there’s nothing in his files. I mean, there might be.” Erica’s voice is rising—not in volume, but in pitch. As if she’s sucking back helium from a balloon. “But I can’t go through every single paper or grade sheet in theone minutewe have left before Tuesdays show up. We’re stuck here now, Winnie!”
“Not yet, we aren’t.” Winnie zips toward Erica, barely avoiding a collision with the telescope. “Maybe if we camp out in another office we can see what they grab.”
Erica pales. “Uh, they’re going to grab everything because they must have finally figured out Samuel was the dead guy in the forest. All of this is evidence.”
At those words, they simultaneously realize the office is in disarray around them—and they simultaneously burst into action to clean up. Bythe time the last drawer is closed, there’s a vibration quavering into Winnie’s feet, so she hooks Erica by the arm and propels them both into the hall. They cut diagonally into a different office. Curtains blanket a window that would otherwise stare at the obstacle course and training lake. Without discussion, both girls hurtle behind the desk and crouch there.
It smells like chai latte, which Winnie recognizes asL’eau de Professor Il-Hwa.And unlike Professor Samuel’s room, there are plenty of portraits of family.People would mourn her if she died, while Professor Samuel has no one.
Winnie shakes off that thought. She likes her spite blinders; she wants to hang on to those as long as she can.
“Last office on the right.” Jeremiah speaks with the same voice he always uses, and somehow, the fact that he sounds so appealing, so smooth, only makes him that much more terrifying. Like this is just one more task on his to-do list:Get milk; drop off mail; destroy Diana evidence.
Boots tramp faster. Louder. Then stop at Samuel’s office, which audibly fills up like a can of sardines. Grunts take over the soundtrack. Fabric rustles. Cardboard scrapes as boxes are assembled.
None of the scorpions speak. And Winnie and Erica definitely don’t either.
Entire galaxies are birthed and collapsed during the time they huddle there behind Il-Hwa’s desk. Winnie’s brain, of course, wants to latch on to its usual refrain of Nightmare Compendium factoids.Changeling: These daywalkers can perfectly mimic any human they see, though claws give them away.
Except now she hates the Compendium. Shehatesthat it’s always going inside her brain and that a spell has hijacked it. Worse, Diana trivia sneaks in there too.Sagitta aurea: These spells are used to kill or maim a target. Fames: These spells are self-feeding and sustain themselves in the forest.
On and on it goes, until at last, the sound of scraping cardboard ceases. Drawers stop slamming. And one by one, people stamp past Il-Hwa’s office, their steps more labored now, as if they carry heavy loads.
After a full minute of quiet, Erica shifts to rise. But Winnie grips her sleeve, head shaking. She can’t say why she’s certain they’ll be seen… but she is. There’s a coil of cool air in the office when there should only be heat. Like a scorpion waits at the door.
More nebulae form into stars. Then become red giants. Then supernova. Then lastly, black holes.
A creak. A squeak. Another coil of air that doesn’t mingle with the rest.
Erica’s eyes are enormous and white. Winnie’s lungs, meanwhile, have become two balloons she can’t deflate.
The footsteps patter away. Only after a full three minutes ofrealsilence—counted in one hundred and eighty Mississippis—does Winnie finally nod. Finally breathe normally again. “Come on,” she whispers.
“Where?”
Winnie doesn’t answer. Instead, she runs tippy-toed to the door, pokes her head out, finds the hall beautifully,deliciouslyempty, and darts right back into Samuel’s office. Everything looks as it did before, since Samuel had nothing on display to be confiscated. Nothing but the telescope and the shooting-stars book, both now gone.
And why take them, unless…
Winnie slithers to the parking lot window, slotting herself just out of sight so she can peer through the glass. Sure enough, there’s Jeremiah Tuesday with the telescope stretched over his shoulder. “Gotcha.” Winnie grins and finds Erica’s eyes across the tiny room. “Did you happen to see where the telescope was aimed?”
“The… sky?”
“That’s helpful.”
