The Luminaries Quotes
"Spring comes right after winter like it’s supposed to. What is true is how different the spring is in Hemlock Falls from the rest of the world. It’s quiet and lethal. Lonely and inevitable."
"Today is her sixteenth birthday. And today, everything is going to change."
"Minutes tick past. A wolf howls. A real one, she thinks, although she can’t be too sure."
"The night is over. The forest’s slumber is complete."
"Corpse duty might be a job no one else likes—cleaning up the nightmare bodies left behind in the forest each morning, as well as any human bodies—but Winnie has always enjoyed it."
"Winnie doesn’t watch them go. She has been doing corpse duty for three years now and even if today is her birthday, even if her stomach is as knotted as a harpy’s braid, the familiarity of routine soothes her."
"It’s like a college campus. Or at least what Winnie imagines a college campus might look like, based on what she’s seen on TV."
"Death is a part of life in Hemlock Falls. It’s a part of life beside the forest. You lose your family, you lose your friends, you lose yourself."
"It’s the perfect shade of cinnamon brown to complement her auburn hair."
"Winnie doesn’t refuse it. She feels too badass, like a photo her mom has of Grandma Winona, bow in hand, nightmare viscera splattered across her body, and a wide, vicious grin bright as the sun rising behind her."
"School always starts late in Hemlock Falls, to accommodate corpse duty or last night’s hunters."
"People low-key fear or are high-key enamored with Jay, and as far as Winnie is concerned, that’s way better than being actually popular."
"In seven hours, she will be going into the forest. In five hours, she will be doing what she has been practicing, and she will make her family whole again."
"If she fails, then she will be back here tomorrow, still an outcast. Still pretending she doesn’t hear everyone whispering about her as they pass."
"She hasn’t trained with actual gear in four years—she hasn’t held a bow or thrown a flash grenade in four years."
"It’s like she’s been drugged with a phoenix feather and now her heart is going to explode."
"But there’s only so much she can mimic on her own."
"Happy birthday, witch traitor, happy birthday to you!"
"Winnie is also loyalty through and through. Hemlock Falls is all she has ever known. Fighting nightmares is all she has ever wanted to do."
"She regrets eating dinner. She feels like she needs to pee again. But it’s too late to turn back. She is doing this."
"Her confidence is returning, and long-forgotten instincts are prickling to life beneath her skin."
"The cause above all else. Loyalty through and through."
"Known for weeping and wailing, they lure prey to them via the natural human instinct for empathy."
"Mom always warned about banshees because they’re good at disorienting, and one almost took her down eighteen years ago."
"Winnie can’t believe she was naive enough to walk into the forest alone."
"She is not invincible. She is not prepared for this."
"Her chest twists in on itself, a sponge wringing out."
"This isn’t going to end well for her, showing up at the Thursday estate and explaining what she saw and how badly she failed."
"No going back. No rewriting history. Just… broken glass."
"Strength of body and heart. We hold the line."
"Leadership in deed and word. Persuasion is power."
"Here’s the thing, Mario: I don’t think the wolf killed that non either."
"I have no idea. I have gone over everything I can think of."
"Don’t worry about this thing, okay? Lizzy and I are on it."
"That sounds like another dimension piped through a carburetor."
"I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have unloaded like that. I am happy."
"You did what I couldn’t do, and you earned respect that I lost for us."
"I am not giving this to her. I like it. Really, I do. And it’s… it’s good luck."
"No matter the cause, she finds tears welling in her eyes and a banshee-sized grief ballooning behind her rib cage."
"You either trust the forest or you don't, Winnie. You have to make up your mind."
"And we’ve got extra hunters out there tonight."
"If you find yourself up against something you can’t fight, just pull the alarm."
"She realizes too late that she should have sprinted, for the mist has begun to rise."
"The entire world smears away before Winnie’s eyes, the warmth of the mist undulating over her. Erasing her legs, then her arms, then her neck and nose. Any second now, it will turn to scalding."
"Do not sprint, do not sprint. The hunter must keep moving."
"She is boiling from the inside out and the outside in."
"Melusine: These beautiful, mermaid-like creatures inhabit the rivers and lakes of the forest."
"Banshees: Known for weeping and wailing, they lure prey to them via the natural human instinct for empathy."
"She is so relieved for half a moment that it doesn’t occur to her what the vanishing mist might mean—what it heralds."
"To eliminate the bellwether is to slow the horde."
"Amazing how she ever thought the forest was dark. There is so much light here it feels like day."
"Gone is Winnie’s guilt over the banshee lie. As she climbs the hemlock, finding the iron spikes Jay put in—spaced in such a way as to be almost invisible—she can’t stop thinking how this is where she is meant to be."
"Ghost-deer, ghost-squirrel, ghost-raccoon, etc.: These ghostly apparitions pose no threat to humans."
"You either trust the forest or you don’t, Winnie."
"It’s like molasses sliding down a mixing bowl—if molasses could click."
"And oh god, it’s more than ten. There are least twenty directly between her and the burbling stream."
"But Winnie has already started her own attack—she can’t stop it now even if she wants to."
"She grabs for the stun grenade on her belt. Assuming every vampira is following her—a safe assumption—she can stun maybe half of them."
"The thick fog coils upward from the forest floor, first encasing the vampira—which still screams, still strains to move across the stream. Then it moves over the trees, and over the Whisperer too."
"She belongs in the forest. She belongs as a Luminary. She belongs as a hunter."
"Except that when the mist finally subsides—the sun a sharp wink on the horizon—she realizes there is still a bulbous, bilious shape wandering through the trees."
"Winnie faced down vampira and she didn’t pull the alarm for backup. The rest of the night is going to be absolutely peaceful compared to that."
"Mom is clearly worried about Winnie but also seems to intuitively understand (in that way only moms can) that Winnie needs space."
"It only wants death, and it only knows how to betray."
"The hunt is in your blood. You belong out there and always have."
"The more likely situation is that Dad didn’t even put the note in a book. He wrote in code; he was obviously being careful; if the message isn’t here, she should just keep looking."
"I think we need to prepare ourselves for the very real chance we might never find it. At least not before the creature is ready to be found."
"Tonight is Mom’s first night entering the Wednesday estate in four years, and though she has seen Rachel, she has yet to face the entire clan."
"We leave at six," Mom tells Winnie as she parks the Volvo at the curb. "Be ready, or I will leave without you."
"You look nice," Mom says, when Winnie finally comes downstairs and joins Mom in the living room.
"Right." Mom winces too, though she quickly schools it away. She doesn't believe Winnie; Winnie feels like the worst daughter who ever lived.
"You ready?" Mom asks without really waiting to see if Winnie is.
"Never was there such a display of loyalty," Leila declares.
"A toast to Winnie Wednesday. May we all be as brave and loyal as she!"
"Sit at the table with me," Leila says, giving Winnie a little pat before she pulls away.
"I taught you," Mom makes a fuzzy face. "Two weeks ago. Three. Sometime I taught you."
"We were here all along! You could have talked to us all along!"
"Did you know he once challenged Rachel to a drinking contest at Wednesday dinner, and hellions and banshees did he lose."
"Definitely." Winnie laughs while Fatima claps and giggles—and yet again, Winnie wishes she'd let the twins and Fatima into her world sooner.
"But maybe if Winnie can just listen and stay still, she can wait out the creature’s passage."
"She has stopped breathing altogether. Eventually, the basilisk will leave the area."
"Scales. Ribs. Heart. The stake pierces the monster."
"Emma doesn’t say anything. Her breaths are ragged. Her eyes are shut."
"She folds her arms to her chest, points her toes, and closes her eyes."
"The impact is brutal. Like a sledgehammer to her legs, it beats up through her."
"Her lips part. She lets water into her lungs, too lost to notice because the cold is gone and she is happy."
"She is so cold. She is sluggish with it, freezing cell by cell into a sculpture that cannot move."