Page 95 of The Whispering Night
Not until a command cuts into Winnie’s eardrums like a serrated knife.“RUN!”Then suddenly the mist is melting off Winnie. No weight, no snarls.
She lifts her head. Erica has been captured by mist vines; she is being dragged away like a calf by a cowboy. But her mouth is still free, and she screams again:“RUN, WINNIE!”
Then she is gone. The Crow has hauled her around a corner and out of sight.
Winnie gropes to her feet. She is bleeding on her palms. Her ankle barks out pain. But those are problems for future Winnie. Current Winnie has to get Erica, because in the end, her friend changed her mind. Because in the end, her friend got those hounds off of Winnie. And because in the end, her friend isstill her friend,and Winnie won’t leave her behind.
She staggers away from the fountain—now just a burble of water, so calm. Socruellytender as Winnie lugs herself toward where the Crow dragged Erica. Her vision spins, as if her eyes are playing tricks on her. As if mist and shadows swirl like gasoline on water. In the distance, she hears Tuesdays shouting and maybe a voice like Dryden, furious and demanding.
Winnie steers left, but there’s no one there. She shambles onward anyway, pushing herself faster. Searching, searching. She turns right. She turns left. This is the way out, so surely this is the way the Crow came with Erica.
But she sees nothing. Shefindsnothing.
Until worse—so much worse—a smell like cooked rubber and forest fills Winnie’s nasal cavity. Then a sense of music sweeps over her, except it is no longer Jenna’s haunting melody; in its place is a different song, this one from a night whenyesafteryesfell from Jay’s tongue.
The more I forget you, the deeper you sink in
Fangs at the neck and red paint on a lost cabin
Winnie stops her forward movement. Stops her frantic search for Erica. Gooseflesh ripples across her skin, almost painful, and her eyes are watering. Her breaths start to shake. While ahead, between yew hedges, movement glitters like a portal is being torn apart.
Then she smells something new and unexpected and so, so awful: bergamot and lime.
Ten dollars to kiss, a bet I can never win
Snow on your lips
It’s feast or it’s full famine
The song quavers here. Stopping as if the Whisperer has forgotten the lyrics, forgotten the tune. Until suddenly it remembers. Until suddenly, it no longer sings but speaks.PURE HEART,it says.I AM READY.
The reaction is instant. An explosion rips free, hard enough to topple stars. Bright enough to mimic dawn. Loud enough to silence the approach of Tuesdays. It flings Winnie backward. She hits the yew hedge, missing a nearby bench by sheer luck.
PURE HEART,it repeats.I AM READY.
Winnie has no choice now: she hauls herself once more to her feet and runs. But now, she runs in the other direction. Back toward the fountain, away from the girl who was taken by a Crow.
And away from the boy trapped and singing inside the Whisperer.
CHAPTER
39
Winnie’s glasses are broken. Her face is bruised and throbbing. And her earlier stages of grief are back, stronger than ever. Because this cannot be happening right now. The Whisperer cannotbeJay and now hunting Winnie as if nothing will ever fill him up.
With heat on your skin I spin until I can’t see us
I find no relief, inside I’m still a hopeless curse
None of this can be possible. None of this can be real. The crack on Winnie’s left lens, the pain on her torn-up palms, the shots of heat near her ankle—none of that can bereal.Jay lost, Erica taken. Here one moment, gone the next. And somehow, this whole clusterfuckstillisn’t over.
Because the source was only the first thing that Diana Crow wanted from Winnie, wasn’t it? Clearly Caterina Martedì also wanted Jay, also wanted Erica. Her threats to take them both from Winnie were promises all along.
But why? Why does she need Jay inside the Whisperer? Why does she need Erica shackled in mist vines? What are you still not seeing, Winnie Wednesday?
The Whisperer chomps through yew leaves and branches like they are blades of grass. It will reach Winnie faster than she can escape these infernal bends and turns that Dad etched onto a page all those years ago. Unless she can find something to distract this monster chasing from behind.
Such as Tuesdays.She sees their shapes ahead. A regimented line to guard an intersection in the maze.
