Page 62 of The Whispering Night
She doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead—and with a firm leash on any wayward ghosts—Winnie starts a second list.
What I don’t know:
1. What my locket does
• If three stars means MESSAGE, was I supposed to use it for contacting Dad all along?
• Why did Grandma Harriet have the locket—or did she really?
2. What S. hid in his office
• Is the telescope important or not?
3. Why Jenna created thein Norway, revenants are called draugr
• Why Jenna went on her second trial
4. What Mom knows and what happened four years ago
5. If any of Mario’s theories about Jay are true
• How Jay got a wolf’s jawbone under his pillow
6. WHO AM I MEETING AT THE OLD MUSEUM????
Technically this second list is shorter than the first, but that fact coaxes no triumph from Winnie’s chest. Instead, her eyes dart fromwolf’s jawbonetoMEETING AT THE OLD MUSEUMtoWhat Mom knows.Back, forth. Up, down. A quick glance attelescope important or not?Then it’s back towolf’s jawbone.Back toMEETING AT THE OLD MUSEUM.
Winnie hears her breathing pick up speed. Sheseesher pencil start shaking against her thigh. And she knows what’s coming next—except this time, it’s not only ghosts unleashing. It’s also theoverwhelming sensethat she is up against more than she can handle. That her Don’t Know list istoo longand there istoo muchfor her to reckon with inside of Hemlock Falls.
Because the Crow isn’t the only bad guy out there, is she? There are other Dianas too, and there’s the Whisperer, churning through trees and nightmares and people as easily as Winnie will soon tear through this paper…
And oh god, now that Winnie considers it, if Jenna created the Whisperer and the Whisperer killed Grayson, does that mean Jenna killed Grayson? The boy she loved? Somehow, that is almost as awful as learning there’s a chance Jay’s father was the werewolf who slaughtered peopleseventeen years ago. There’s no escaping tragedy in Hemlock Falls. Death really is a part of life, and the forest really does break everything.
Wolf’s jawbone.
MEETING AT THE OLD MUSEUM.
What Mom knows.
Telescope important or not?
Winnie drops the pencil. She doesn’t hear it clatter to the bus floor. Doesn’t hear it roll, or feel when it bumps against her boot. She leans forward until her forehead hits the back of the seat in front of her. Her glasses press into her brow. Her eyelids close, pinch, squeeze until she sees shooting stars.Shooting stars like the ones Samuel used to observe through his telescope.
No, Winnie can’t think of Samuel either. She can’t think of the other dead Diana, totally unknown, left smoking on the forest floor. She can’t think of the lanterns bobbing outside, with the hundreds of Monday names lost over the century. And above all, Winnie can’t think about Dad.
Because what if it’snothim at the old museum tonight? What if he’s also dead and gone forever just like everyone else on her list? Like Grayson, like Jenna, like both Jay’s fatherandmother? And what will Winnie do if all her sleuthing and searching leads her to absolutely nothing but afamesspell with no end?
Winnie tastes cherries in her mouth. She feels like the bus is moving, though it’s not. She wishes Jay were here to wrap her in his hoodie. She wishes Aunt Rachel were here to give her water. Hell, Winnie would even take Ms. Morgan right now, just to hear the lady say,I’m always on your side.
A whistle sounds outside. Then a crackle like bubble wrap. Then a thunderous boom that means the fireworks have begun.
For several seconds, Winnie lets the noise hammer into her. It’s a battlefield. A thunderstorm. She feels the light off the fireworks, even though she knows her eyes are shut too tightly to see them.
The human eye can detect a single photon of light.
She can’t remember where she learned that fact, but she does remember being flabbergasted. A photon of light is the smallest packet of electromagnetic energy in existence. It’s not a particle, it’s not a wave. It has no mass, no diameter. It is one dimension of energy, momentum, and angle.
Yet the human eye can detect it. Asinglephoton traveling along a lineat the speed of 299,792,458 meters per second—the human eye can sense when it’s there.
