Page 98 of The Whispering Night
Ms. Morgan is withdrawing. Grappling toward the window and pulling herself through. She kicks into the Little Lake, vanishing like a kelpie into the waves.
Winnie is only a few seconds behind.Eat the pizza, eat the pizza. Move and swim and get away.She tugs off her glasses, stuffs them in her zipped-up hoodie, and finally launches into the lake.
The water is so cold, so heavy, she instantly loses dexterity. Worse, it is so dark, she cannot tell which way is up. What little light is in the sky cannot reach here, especially with the water so churned. It’s like cloud cover, like thunderstorms. And there are no lanterns from the Saturday woods to guide Winnie, no gunfire flashes from Tuesdays holding the line.
Until Mom’s voice tickles against her submerged brain.
To determine which way to swim, exhale into your hand and feel which way the bubbles move. Air will always rise up.
Winnie covers her mouth, her fingers numb and clumsy. She exhales, and yes. It’s hard to tell, but yes. The bubbles are at the top of her hand; she is facing the right way.
She swings out her arms, scissors her legs, and swims.
Swims and swims and swims until she no longer needs Mom’s voice to guide her—for new lights now glimmer. Blinking from the Floating Carnival.
Winnie breaks the surface. Freezing air steers over her. Then she hears Ms. Morgan nearby, “This way, Winnie. Come on, we’re near the dock.”
This is not the first time Winnie has been to the Floating Carnival at night. She came as a girl, of course, and then more recently when her Midnight Crown forced her to watch fireworks surrounded by Sundays.
Thisis,however, the first time Winnie has been here with absolutely no one else around. It’s eerie. Super eerie, like a continuation of the horror film she imagined in the hot room.
INT. HOT ROOM,the script read two hours ago.Winnie and Erica sneak through an empty hot room while unseen monsters shiver and hide in dark, concrete corners—and while Tuesday soldiers hunt.
Now it reads:EXT. FLOATING CARNIVAL. Winnie and her English teacher creep through the empty carnival. The full-moon Ferris wheel winks a golden glow across the booths and stands. Fairy lights glimmer, strung down aisles. In the distance, engines rev from Tuesday search boats launching on the other side of the Little Lake. Voices echo, the words inaudible but urgent.
Urgent is what Winnie feels too. She and Ms. Morgan haven’t died of hypothermia, but they will soon if they don’t get moving. If they don’t find dry clothes and heat.
Except that isn’t what Winnie is actually fixated on right now. Survival? Whatever. She’s a lot more worried about all the things shecouldn’tprocess as she sprinted for her life. Like how the Crow has Erica—butwhy? What is Erica to Martedì? And where is she taking Erica?
And then there is the Whisperer. There is Jay.
Winnie swivels her body on the dock. Cold air pierces all the frozen parts of her. She squints at the bridge. It’s lit by tens of headlights now, as well as an ambulance from the Monday hospital. Putting on her busted glasses doesn’t improve the view. “Is the Whisperer gone?” she croaks.
“For now,” Ms. Morgan replies, her voice just as waterlogged. “It’ll come back, though. They always come back.”
“Good,” Winnie murmurs.
Ms. Morgan blinks. “Good?”
Winnie nods. Then says it again: “Good.”
“Winnie, thatfamesspell just ate half the freaking bridge. And now you’re saying you want it to come back? Are you okay?”
But what if it’s not afamesspell?Winnie wants to ask.What if it’s Jay and I can bring him home?She doesn’t offer this out loud. There’s a heat sparking to life inside her. Steel striking against flint at the wordfames.
“So you knew it was a Diana spell all along, Ms. Morgan? For this past month, you’ve known exactly what the Whisperer was, and you’ve done nothing to stop it? Nothing to help me? And when you called it the Rustler at school, you were just saying that to mess with me—”
“It’s not like that.” Ms. Morgan’s hands whip up.
“Then whatisit like? Because I spent weeks with no one believing me—” Winnie breaks off as a massive searchlight carves down from the bridge. A circle of light that pendulums across the water, exactly where the Hummer went down. Then it skirts toward the western shore, suggesting it’s only a matter of time before it swings east too.
Winnie doesn’t care.
When she thought the Crow was the lesser of two evils compared to Jeremiah Tuesday and his scorpions, she was wrong. She was more wrong than she couldeverhave guessed.
You ever want something so bad,Erica asked her,and then you finally get it, but it’s just… What if it isn’t what you think it will be?
Winnie should have listened more closely to that question. She should have noticed that Ericawassinging a second pitch.
