The Devouring Gray

by Christine Lynn Herman

  “The Beast is still out there. The town is still turning on us.” Justin wondered why she couldn’t understand what she’d done. “What about that person Violet resurrected?”

  “The only proof you have that they even exist is something Violet said. She probably lied about what she saw.”

  Justin had always known his sister was good at ignoring the more unsavory parts of their world. But it hurt more than he’d thought possible to see her face turn sharp and dismissive.

  “They killed Daria Saunders.”

  “Or she had an accident.” May’s voice dripped with cold, patronizing disdain.

  “You’re doing what Mom does. Pretending problems don’t exist.”

  “At least I’m not trying to solve problems I can’t do anything about. Has it ever occurred to you that we’ve all made sacrifices to be where we are? That maybe, if it’s this hard for you, Four Paths doesn’t need your help?”

  Justin saw in that moment that everything he’d done since he failed his ritual had been a useless, futile stand against the inevitable. He’d lost his family’s respect the day the hawthorn tree did not bow for him, and there was nothing he could do that would ever be enough to fix it.

  He pressed the face of his red medallion against the arm of the chair. “I know I can help this town. And you know I can, too. You saw it in the Deck of Omens.”

  He’d expected sympathy at this reminder, some surge of emotion. But May’s face barely changed. He had never seen May like this before, clear as glass and hard as steel.

  “No, you can’t,” she said, each word clipped and precise. “And it’s time you stopped pretending otherwise. Because when you collect damaged people to feel better about yourself, all of you end up getting hurt.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Her fingers strangled the arms of the chair as she bent toward him. “You loved fixing Harper’s messes before Mom got to her, because you were her hero. You get off on Isaac treating you like you pull the sun up every morning. And you’re not upset about Violet because you care what Mom did to her—you just want a reason to be here, and Mom took it away from you.”

  There was something wrong with the walls in the study. They were bending inward, getting smaller. There was a sharp pain in Justin’s chest, as if someone had placed a hand inside his rib cage and pushed the bones against his skin.

  Barks rang through the house, signaling his mother’s arrival. Justin sat, shell-shocked and silent, all his failures laid out in front of him like the deck of cards he’d never be able to read.

  Augusta entered her study with the chill and vigor of a gale-force wind. May shrank back in her seat, but Justin forced himself not to react as she swept behind her desk. He knew deference was exactly what Augusta wanted.

  “I never believed the stereotypes about children who felt the need to deceive their parents.” Augusta’s gloved hands steepled together beneath her chin. “Rebellious teenagers belong in towns where the biggest danger is a drunk driver. But you were raised to understand the stakes we deal with every day. Which means you know how badly you owe me an apology.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” said May immediately, inclining her head. Her hair slid in front of her face, baring the blond, wispy tufts at the nape of her neck. “I should’ve told you about Violet immediately.”

  “Stop,” said Augusta sharply. May winced. “I said apologize, not lie at my feet and beg like my dogs. No one will ever respect you if you don’t take responsibility for your actions.”

  “I’m sorry!” May said frantically. “I’ll do that, too. It was my fault, I know it now, just don’t—” She broke off.

  Augusta looked at her askance. “Don’t what?”

  May twisted her hands together in her lap. “Don’t take Isaac’s memories away.”

  Justin’s insides spiked with surprise. This didn’t excuse any of the things May had said to him, which were still rattling about in the ruins of his chest. But he realized now that she was terrified. Isaac was one of the few people who didn’t just tolerate May, but liked her.

  “I’m not going to punish Isaac Sullivan,” said Augusta gently. “At least, not for this.”

  May nearly flopped over the desk with relief. “Thank you.”

  Justin and May were immune to their mother’s powers. They were blood, and so her touch didn’t work on them the way it did on the rest of the town. Only they knew how she kept herself in the sheriff’s office. Only they knew how many people were walking around with gaps inside their heads.

  “Enough,” said Augusta, looking slightly pained. “Now, Justin? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  The easy thing to do would be to copy May. To beg. But the words wouldn’t come.

  This wasn’t just about Violet anymore.

  His mother had never apologized for Harper. For threatening Isaac. For pushing Justin away after he’d failed his ritual. He didn’t see why he should be expected to show her the respect she’d never given him.

  “I’m not sorry.”

  Augusta’s marbled features twisted into an ugly smile. “I thought you might say that. May, you can leave. It’s time your brother and I had a talk.”

  May scurried out of the room, a blond mouse. There was a miniature founders’ symbol carved into the arm of Justin’s chair. He scratched at it with his fingernail as Augusta began to speak.

  “So, you don’t think you owe me an apology,” she said.

  Justin shook his head.

  “Do you need me to list what you did wrong?”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Oh, Justin,” said Augusta. “You put this town in incredible danger for a girl you’ve known less than a month. And you lied to me. I know you love to act like some sort of local hero, but surely even you can’t think this was justified.”

  “I’d do it again,” Justin said softly. “To keep her safe from you.”

  Augusta groaned, pressed two gloved fingers to her temple.

  “I don’t use my ability lightly, you know this. It’s a last resort. But the town is safer if she doesn’t have access to her powers. Not when they are so clearly a direct pipeline to the Beast.”

  Justin wondered, deep inside, if the words she was saying were true. Maybe Harper, Isaac, and Violet really were too dangerous to be let loose on the general public. Maybe it would be better to make them live their lives without powers.

  It would be easy to grovel like May had, until the whole town moved on like none of this had ever happened.

  But there were already so few founder descendants remaining. The town had noticed. The town was turning. It would make so much more sense to nurture founder children instead of snuffing them out. And all Justin could see when he opened his mouth was the rage in Harper’s eyes as she pressed her blade to his throat. Rage she didn’t even properly understand, because she didn’t know what Augusta had taken away. The powers she couldn’t use.

  For so long, Justin had dwelled on all the things he couldn’t have. But at least he knew what he was missing.

  Harper believed she was powerless. So did Violet. And there was nothing he could do to save them.

  But he knew what they would’ve done if they’d been the ones sitting across from Augusta Hawthorne.

  They would’ve fought back.

  And he owed it to them to prove he’d learned something from what they had lost.

  “You didn’t take Harper’s and Violet’s memories away because they were dangerous to the town,” he said, rising to his feet. Their rage was his rage, filling in the places May had collapsed, bolstering him until he understood what he needed to say. “This town desperately needs strong founders. They threatened your authority, so you made them forget. Isaac’s done more damage than they ever did, but you keep him around because he listens to us. But you couldn’t control Harper and Violet, so you got rid of them. And you’re trying to get rid of me, too.”

  For once, Augusta was silen
t, her pale face tinged with just a touch of pink, her gloved hands frozen at her temples. They stared at each other, mother and son, as Justin backed away from the desk.

  When Augusta spoke again, it was in a quiet, hateful whisper. “Being a founder is all about sacrifice. If you cannot learn to put others’ safety above your own emotions, then it’s a good thing you failed your ritual. Because you are unfit to serve this town.”

  Justin didn’t say anything more. Didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. Just fumbled for the doorknob, rushed down the hallway, and sprinted out of the house.

  He ran farther than he ever had before, until the world was wide and blurred and strange around him and his body was ablaze with pain. And when his feet came to a stop, hours or days or years later, he stood at the door to Isaac’s apartment.

  “I can’t go home,” he said, and then he yelled it, banging his palm against the cracked, peeling wood, as if that would somehow make the words hurt less. When the door creaked open, he was trembling and weary, ready to collapse.

  “I can’t go home,” Justin told him again, and Isaac’s mouth did that same thing it had done back at the Diner, that almost-sad almost-smile he couldn’t read.

  “So don’t,” Isaac said gruffly, pulling the door open wide enough for Justin to stumble inside.

  He was used to Isaac trailing behind him, but tonight, it felt right to be the one following Isaac’s broad shoulders and dark curls as he led him to the couch. Where he could finally, mercifully, rest.

  Harper hated how easily she could be left behind. Mitzi and Seth had taken her home after the sheriff showed up in the clearing. She tried to talk to her father about what had happened to Nora, but he reassured her time and again that it had been an accident.

  She did not believe him, but she had no proof otherwise.

  The next few days passed quietly.

  Justin, Isaac, May, and Violet were all out of school. Violet didn’t answer her phone, and Harper couldn’t bring herself to contact Justin. So when she walked into homeroom a few days later and saw Violet sitting in her usual seat, looking well-rested and peaceful, she was confused, to say the least.

  Harper sat down across the room and watched as Justin and Isaac slid into the back row. She waited for something to happen, some acknowledgment of the things they’d all seen, the monster inside Violet. But nothing happened at all. Violet didn’t speak to anyone, just stared at Mrs. Langham with a vague half smile on her face.

  The same thing happened in history and biology, so when Harper saw Violet fumbling with her locker before lunch, she swallowed her nerves and marched up to her. After all, Violet had called Harper a friend on the equinox. Maybe she was processing the events of the previous few days.

  “Do you need help with your lock?” Harper said.

  “I should know the combo, but I can’t remember it.” Violet scowled. “Pretty embarrassing, right?”

  “I’ve been here my whole life, and I still mess it up sometimes,” said Harper.

  Violet chuckled. “Thanks for making me feel more adequate. What’s your name?”

  Harper’s stomach sank through her shoes and into the floor. “What? Violet, that’s not funny.”

  “I’m sorry, have we met?” Violet’s face was still fixed in that odd half smile. “You do look familiar. Is it Hailey? Holly?”

  Harper couldn’t stand the way Violet was looking at her. It was the same look Justin had given her three years ago, vague and apathetic. And although she knew something else had to be going on, that Violet wouldn’t just forget her, she could not stop the panic rising inside her.

  “I have to go.” Harper fled to the music practice room where she usually ate her lunch and tucked her knees up to her chest.

  Something was wrong with Violet. Either that, or she had chosen to ignore Harper on purpose.

  But no. That was too cruel. She wouldn’t do that, not after Harper had told her what Justin had done to her. Violet knew, she had to know, that Harper could not handle that again.

  Her father had stranded Nora in the woods. And Violet, the only person she wanted to talk to about it, was no longer an option.

  She was lost and scared and sad and more alone than ever.

  A surge of phantom pain from her left arm jolted through her. Harper shuddered and clutched her residual limb in her right hand.

  Three years ago, she had let her panic win. She’d bent to the Hawthornes’ will, become the person they’d told her she was, small and scared and forgotten. But Harper knew, now, that she was so much more.

  She tucked her hair behind her ears and wiped her eyes, and as her heartbeat began to decrease, the pain in her arm fading away, someone knocked on the practice room door.

  “Sorry,” she called out. “This one’s occupied.”

  “Harper? Is that you?”

  Harper lifted her head, adrenaline coursing through her. “Justin?”

  “Can I come in?”

  She wanted to say no.

  But if she was going to figure out what had happened to Violet, she’d need help. And she wasn’t really in a position to be picky about it.

  So she swallowed down the remains of her tears, stood up, and pulled open the door.

  Justin looked even more unraveled than he had on the night he’d confessed his lack of abilities to her. There was something gaunt in his expression now, a raw, unveiled part of his gaze that hadn’t been there on the equinox.

  “I know you told me to leave you alone,” he said. “But do you mind if I join you? I’m not sure I can face the whole school today.”

  She was too surprised to do more than nod her head, watching with abject disbelief as he balanced his backpack on a music stand and plopped down in a chair. The door swung shut behind him. Harper retreated to her own chair, conscious of how little space there was in the practice room.

  Even with their backs pressed against opposite walls, their knees were almost touching.

  “Where’s Isaac?” she asked.

  Justin pulled a hand through his thatch of blond hair. An image sprang up in her mind: her hand on the back of his neck, strands of hair shining like spun gold between her fingers.

  She forced it down, but not before her fingers twitched.

  “Sitting with May,” he said. “Trying to keep the pretend peace.”

  “Pretend peace? I don’t understand.”

  “I was kicked out of the house,” said Justin. “Well, kind of. I ran away. But I think I would’ve been formally kicked out if I didn’t.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I couldn’t do it anymore. My mother told me it was a good thing that I failed my ritual. And I’m starting to think she’s right. Because it’s forced me to look at the damage my family does to this town.” He let out a deep, shuddering breath. “No one deserves to be treated the way I treated you.”

  Harper had wanted to hear him say those words for so long. But as they echoed through the practice room, through her skull, she didn’t feel relief. She just felt empty.

  “There’s a point when it doesn’t matter,” she said slowly, unaware at first that she was even speaking out loud. But she didn’t want to stop. “You don’t get to absolve three years of guilt with this. And you don’t get to crawl back to me when it feels convenient.”

  “I know. There’s no taking back how cruel I was, or how I hurt you. I just wanted you to know that I see now. I should’ve stood up to my family. I should’ve helped you. And everything I’ve done for Isaac and Violet is because of what I couldn’t do for you.”

  Harper didn’t know if the words he was saying were real or not—but, oh, she wanted them to be.

  She choked back a sob. “I don’t forgive you.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t forgive you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Harper’s heart tightened, because this was the Justin she had known. Kind, honest, loyal to a fault.

  The night before her ritual, they’d snuck out to the lake, wa
tched the dark, lapping waves eroding the muddy bank at the water’s edge.

  “What if I don’t come out?” she’d asked him, and he had twined his fingers through hers and given her a grin of utmost confidence.

  There had been a promise in that smile, in the way he held her hand. “You will.”

  And Harper had loved the boy Justin had been, so she’d believed him.

  Maybe she loved him still.

  But she was pretty sure love was supposed to feel like growing stronger, not rotting from the inside out. Whatever remained between them was a knot of lust and anger and regret that had festered inside of her for so long, she wasn’t sure who she was without it.

  She couldn’t shake the knowledge that Justin had been content to ignore her when he still believed he was powerful. He’d taken full advantage of the opportunities being a Hawthorne provided him: girls, friends, unquestioned respect.

  Only when he was broken had he come back to her. Because she was broken, too.

  Harper would not mistake his desperation for affection. So when she opened her mouth to speak again, it wasn’t to give Justin hope for reconciliation. It was to get answers.

  “Something’s wrong with Violet,” she said.

  Justin didn’t even try to look surprised.

  “I know,” he said. “My mother got to her.”

  “Got to her? What do you mean?”

  “That’s what my mother does,” said Justin. “Takes people’s memories away when she thinks they’re too dangerous. They can’t access their powers anymore, because they don’t remember that they have them.”

  Perhaps the news should’ve shocked Harper, but it immediately made sense. Of course the Hawthornes had leverage they weren’t sharing.

  More secrets. More lies.

  Tears built in Harper’s throat again as the full implications of this surged through her. Violet couldn’t remember her. Which meant the girl she’d known, the girl who’d actually cared about her, was gone.

  “Her memories?” she said. “Can she ever get them back?”

  Justin’s voice was thick and raspy when he said, “I don’t think so.”

  Violet had really mattered to him, if he’d truly fought with Augusta over this, if he’d really left home.