Page 63 of The Whispering Night
Winnie wets her lips and pushes backward until her vertebrae, sacrum, and skull can rest against the bus seat. The fireworks blast and zoom outside in a boisterous display of defiance.You cannot snuff us out tonight.
She wonders if the nightmares see the lights and hear the noise. If they gaze in awe or cower in fear. She wonders too what the hunters must think; is it a distraction? Or is it a reinforcement of the mission that propels them each night?
Above all, Winnie wonders what all this noise must do to the sleeping spirit at the bottom of the Big Lake. If such a noise cannot awaken it, then what in all the universe can?
The cherry taste recedes from Winnie’s mouth. She rises, her blue paper clutched in one hand, the pencil forgotten on the floor. Then with careful, contemplative steps, she exits the bus. The night outside is warmer than she expects. The fireworks are louder, their colors brighter. Luminaries trickle into the parking lot, exiting the after-party to watch the glittering show.
Winnie spots Dryden, fireworks reflecting colors on his pince-nez. And oh, there’s Darian snuggled close with Andrew.Good.Everyone smiles—even Marcia, whose face wears an unfamiliar serenity as she leans against Antonio. She looks less like hisAntonio-nym(as Winnie and Erica used to joke) and more like a partner very much in love. A wife, a mother, a councilor just doing what she can for Hemlock Falls.
For several seconds, Winnie feels wholly suspended in time, in place. Her teeth feel no urge to click. Her breaths come steady and full. There’s no panic, nor onslaught of ghosts.
Instead, she thinks of the oceanic bathypelagic zone, where the water is so deep, not even a single photon can penetrate. Where the pressure is so intense, few creatures can survive. And yet, life still goes on there at the pure heart of the ocean. The fish and squid and microbes manage to see and find each other.
Because they create their own light.
“Ah,” Winnie sighs, and her skeleton softens within its fascial suspension. All this time, when she thought the lights of Hemlock Falls were lying to her—they weren’t, were they? They wereneverswamp fires pretending to be fairies, but instead bioluminescence inside the ocean.
Winnie twists again toward the Little Lake and the fireworks. A breeze coils against her, coming not from the forest, but from the east with smells like funnel cake and gasoline. Like gunpowder and cotton candy. Beyond the boats wobbling as they launch fireworks, the full moon of the Ferris wheel spins.Aspire to become me,it says to the waning gibbous in the sky.
The last time a waning gibbous hung, Winnie was beginning her first trial. She was an outcast. She was alone. Now here she is, one month later, literally surrounded by other people.
In a finale of color and chaos and joy, the last fireworks launch into the night. The cheers from nearby Luminaries build, competing in Winnie’s brain for acknowledgment, and she finds she’s holding her locket in a fist she doesn’t recall making.
Number of people depending on Winnie a month ago? Two.
Number of people depending on Winnie now? Thousands.
Her phone vibrates in her pocket. She doesn’t check it. Instead, she turns away from the Little Lake and sets off toward the family Volvo. She feels taller; she feels fuller; and she realizes this must be what Aunt Rachel meant when she talked about exorcising versus compartmentalizing. It’s what Ms. Morgan meant too, when she talked about eating the pizza.
Winnie might have ghosts to haunt her—some of which aren’t even her own—hovering like all these stamped lanterns bobbing on the breeze. But right now, at this particular moment, Winnie can’t look at the lanterns. She can’t listen to the ghosts.
Because the human eye can detect a single photon of light.
And that light is what she needs to be following.
As Winnie walks, as she methodically shreds her blue paper—rip, rip, rip—a feathery hope fills her ribcage. And far to the north, a will-o’-wisp watches the same fireworks, its own pure light shining into the trees.
CHAPTER
26
As far as venues go for rowdy meetups away from snooping adult eyes, you can’t really beat the old museum. Art deco and white stone, it’s got four long galleries, seven side chambers, a glass conservatory, and—the most popular spot of all—a domed rotunda perfect for booming bass lines.
Winnie of course knew from Bretta’s text that there would be a party here tonight. What she wasn’t expecting was for it to be a masquerade.
This isn’t like the grand ball coming on Saturday, where a string quartet will play and all will marvel at the elegant, elaborate nightmare costumes that people like Fatima have designed. This is a party for teenagers, where booze flows in abundance (along with nightmare contraband), and the costumes are comparable in quality to what you’d find at a Halloween party for nons.
And although some of the costumes tonight are indeed mimicking nightmares, most are just… well, there are a lot of sexy nurses, sexy pirates, and sexy superheroes in attendance.
Winnie is, at the moment, the onlynot-costumed partygoer—which doesn’t seem to bother anyone, since they haven’t actually noticed her lurking against a column near the entrance with her hood pulled over her face and her hands stuffed into her pockets.
Except Casey Tuesday, whohasmanaged to spot her and now stands uncomfortably close. He’s dressed like Dracula (which has no connection to actual Luminary lore, for the record, although some historians do speculate the Count might have been a Diana tapping into vampira magic).“Punch?” he asks. His breath plumes; the warm breeze from before has fled. Forest cold dominates again. “It has vodka in it.”
“No punch.” Winnie tugs her hood lower and wonders how the heck Casey noticed her. She’s far enough from the main entrance that none of the disco or strobe lights can reach her. Only music does, blasting from speakers she knows hang inside the main rotunda.
Casey tips back his cup. A scent like nail polish remover and strawberry sears up Winnie’s nose. Casey chokes. Then coughs. Then rubs at his now-tearing eyes. “So, I, uh…”Cough, rub.“I hear you and Jay Friday are dating. Is that true?”
Winnie grunts. If only she had some garlic with her. Or some holy water. Or hell, a wooden stake. Maybe if she waved it at Casey,thatwould get him to leave in a way that social cues never do.
