Page 136 of The Whispering Night

Winnie kisses Jay back. With all the torment, all the strength, all the need that he offers and then some. She doesn’t care what people think or how they’llabsolutelytalk about this tomorrow at Sunday training. How Bretta will probably start singing,K-I-S-S-I-N-G!in the van later. Or how Erica will use this moment to maximize her teasing.

Jay is her nightmare; Winnie is his hunter; and the forest north of Hemlock Falls is that magic, secret place they will always share.

“I love you too,” Jay says, when he eventually pulls away. He is having to yell to be heard over the whistles and the laughter and the howls. “Like Ireallylove you, Winnie.”

“Good,” Winnie yells back. “But thereisone more thing I need from you to make this moment perfect.”

Jay laughs, one of his raspy laughs. “Homeostasis?”

“Ah, Jay.” She kisses him again. “I love you.”

The crowd’s pitch passes feverish. It reaches boiling. It reaches the Planck temperature. Until L.A. finally gets impatient and declares into the mic, “Okay, you guys are getting annoying now. We need our bassist back, please, Wolf Girl.”

More laughter, more howls, more applause, and finally Jay withdraws. Seconds later, he’s on stage again, his fingers once more flying across his bass. But now with his cheeks a violent pink, and his lips too.

The song croons on, L.A.’s sultry voice at the fore. Beneath it—the microwave cosmic background to so much light—are the Luminaries celebrating the start of spring. Celebrating that the forest and its sleeping spirit haven’t gotten them yet.

That’s why we’re called the Luminaries, Winnie. We are lanterns the forest can never snuff out.

The sounds of music and revelry carry onto the river. Upstream they flow, gliding over the Little Lake like fireworks. Then farther upstream, until they hit the thunderous falls. But even that roar cannot kill the reverberations from the party. The sound rises to the top of the hill. Drifts onto the Big Lake, where the pure heart of the forest still resides.

Nightmares smile from within the blue spruce and silver maples, fromwithin the balsam firs and hemlock trees. Hunters too, even if they’re bummed to miss the party.

The last person the soundwaves reach is a single Diana, stalking northward through the forest—and even she can’t keep a tiny smile from twitching across her face.

For they are one in sleep and dreams.

Although for now, there will be no waking.