Page 44 of The Whispering Night
“You mean other Dianas?”
“I mean your mother.” The smile returns, predatory now. A scorpion about to attack. “Maybe you should start with her, Winnie. Little Franny has even more secrets than you do—ones Jeremiah could never pry loose. But you… well,you’reher daughter. Maybe she’ll share them with you. And if not?” The signora shrugs. “Wednesday morning will be here soon enough.”
CHAPTER
20
As far as Winnie knows, on the night her dad disappeared, events unfolded as follows:
It was a Monday, and Mom was supposed to be gone until 8P.M.with hunter training. She sprained her ankle, though, so she left Aunt Rachel in command and came home early. Winnie was at Erica’s house doing homework. Darian was on his second date with Andrew (they went for coffee at Joe Squared).
When Mom reached the house, she found Dad in the middle of the living room with a glowing light in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. The paper vanished the instant she stepped into the living room; the light did not.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, total shock mixing with rigid horror. “Is that a source?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Dad replied. His hair was apparently a mess. “Fran, you can’t be here.”
In the time it took him to say those words, Mom realized there was magic all around. She smelled it, she felt it. Dad tried to run. She tried to give chase, but her ankle was busted. She barely made it five steps before he was through the kitchen and opening the door.
He looked back once. The light around his hand spread. An explosion, Mom thought, before it hit her. She blacked out.
When she came to, she dragged herself to the Tuesday estate. Not that Darian or Winnie knew this. They came home; they went to bed; then they were both awakened by Tuesday scorpions hours later and locked into handcuffs.
The rest… ah, well, the rest is shitty history. Winnie and Darian were hauled underground at the Tuesday estate and blasted with Jeremiah’s probing questions—in separate rooms, of course.Were there burn marks on your dad’s fingers? Did you ever smell strange things in the house? Did he have small wooden coins in his possession?
No, no, the answer to everything was no—including the biggest question of all: Can your family still be in the Luminaries?
Four years later, after months in denial, then years in rage… then the sudden flip of the script in which Winnie learned Dadwasactually framed… Now here Winnie is, and everything has been flipped all over again.
Dadwasframed, and maybe Mom has always known about it.
It makes a frowning, chewed-up sort of sense. After all, Mom never really fought the punishment passed down from the Council, even though it ruined her life and her children’s. She just kept her gaze forward, never complained, and trudged on.
And then there was always that nagging question of why Mom kept the birthday cards that mysteriously appeared in the mailbox each year.What if,Winnie now wonders,there were more than just birthday cards? What if Mom found other things too?
Winnie’s mind is alight as she walks through the Carnival and the calliope music nips after. One turn on the Ferris wheel was all she endured before she got right back off again. The Crow trilled,“Ciao ciao!”while Marcia leaped into Winnie’s place. Winnie ignored the Crow—and ignored Marcia and everyone else too. She simply set off, walking south. Then once she reached the carnival’s exit, she strode through and didn’t look back.
She wants to go to the Friday estate and search for Jay.
She wants to track down Mom and confront her.
And shewantsto pound that Diana’s face in, then pound in Jeremiah Tuesday’s too.
But it’s time for Sunday training, and so back to the Sunday estate Winnie will go. By foot. She will walk and walk and walk because there’s something about the steady pounding of her feet that seems to fire up her brain. Like one of those bicycle-powered engines: as long as her wheels are spinning, her brain has computational function.
People slow down to offer her rides. Casey Tuesday in his Wrangler. Fatima in her Mom’s Taurus. But Winnie waves them on. It’s not that shedoesn’t want company right now (although she doesn’t) so much as her brain can’t spare the processing power. She needs to think through what it might mean if Mom has always known. She needs tofeelwhat it might mean if Mom has always known.
Could that mean Mom also knows where Dad is right now?
Winnie pushes into a jog, savoring how her Converse slap on pavement. How her breaths get shallow and fast. Heat saturates her muscle fibers. She has to stop at one point to pull off her green sweater, revealing her white tee now speckled with green fuzz. She holds the sweater in one fist, losing her bilateral symmetry, but the challenge feels good. Like it used to feel when she would run and run andrun,thinking only of the hunter trials ahead. Knowing onlyshecould save her family by passing them.
What if Mom could have saved them all along? What does thatmeanfor Winnie and for Darian?
It’s too much for Winnie to reckon with, so she just keeps slamming one foot in front of the other until she reaches the middle of the dam. No floats or boats are here now. Just water and cold.
At this point, her emotions are running along familiar fault lines. And frankly, if she could have her way, she’d just skip the wholefeeling thingsquake and jump straight into the aftermath of dusty stillness.
Winnie cranks out her arm, sweater still clutched there, and imagines dropping it into the Little Lake, where it can sink down and join all the plastic candy wrappers. And also the Tuesday Hummer Grayson Friday drove in there four years ago.
