The Devouring Gray

by Christine Lynn Herman

When he looked at her, she remembered them standing at the edge of the lake bed three years ago. His hand twined in hers. His smile. His faith.

  He didn’t smile this time. Didn’t touch her. But there wasn’t a single shred of doubt in his voice. “I know.”

  Harper was grateful for that as she approached her father’s workshop.

  This was her battle to fight.

  The first words on the page were dated the day after the journal entries had stopped.

  But although they were unmistakably in Stephen’s scrawled handwriting, they weren’t a journal entry.

  The Revised Creed of the Church of the Four Deities, September 23, 1984.

  The Church of the Four Deities.

  Violet had heard that before. It was the name of that religion Justin had talked about. The one that had worshipped the founders.

  She wasn’t sure what they had to do with all of this. But she read on anyway.

  I swear to reveal to no one but the most loyal of my followers the contents of this Creed. I swear it on my family, my honor, and my immortal soul.

  A hundred and forty years ago, the Church of the Four Deities was created by the people of Four Paths as a way to show their appreciation for their founders, who they believed had protected them from a monster.

  But I know now that what they believed was wrong. The founders did not seek to protect anyone—they sought to abuse an innocent creature and take its power for themselves, then murder it in cold blood to hide the evidence.

  They did not succeed in their plans. The creature endures in a hellish containment, and the town worships its tormentors, unaware that they have brought their suffering upon themselves through arrogance and greed.

  The Church of the Four Deities was conceived of as a path to salvation. And so I have taken up that mantle, and that sentiment, and I will apply to it the truth. I know what this town has done, and I have been shown a path to redeem us from it.

  I will take these false founders down.

  I will fulfill my destiny. And I will be rewarded most handsomely for it.

  Branches and stones, daggers and bones, will meet their judgment day.

  The stretch of grass outside the workshop was littered with sculptures. Harper’s father dutifully provided Augusta Hawthorne with sentinels for the town border, and the town with sentinels to hang above their doors, but he made other things, too, strange, twisted creatures carved from the stone he excavated from the bottom of the lake.

  Harper knew he was trying to make guardians of his own. But his statues were only getting stranger, not stronger. A fox with a tail that was a cluster of eyes; a squat, hideous frog with a human arm sprouting from its mouth in place of a tongue; and other things that were not recognizable as animals or people at all, disparate parts that somehow melded together.

  The dull partial sentience of the statues made Harper uneasy. They couldn’t move—but they could stare. She tried not to flinch as all those misshapen eyes locked onto her, tracking her movements as she entered the shed.

  Maurice Carlisle was seated at his workbench, humming tunelessly as he chipped away at a block of clay. Three steel blades hung on the wall behind him. Statues and bells peered out from shadowy corners, hung from the ceiling, crowded at the edges of the shelves. An audience.

  “Harper,” he said, not even bothering to glance up from his work. His brow was furrowed with mild annoyance. “What is it? Do you need something?”

  “I have a question.” Harper wasn’t sure how this was going to go. But if Justin Hawthorne could find it in himself to tell her the truth, surely her own father could do the same. “Dad—what does the Church of the Four Deities really want?”

  Her father’s head raised from the block of stone. “To remove the Hawthornes from power, Harper. We told you ourselves.”

  But it was more than that. Harper knew it was more than that.

  She’d seen the Beast inside Violet’s skin. The fear in Nora’s eyes. And she knew there was something wrong with the way she’d been asked to win over Violet without understanding why.

  She was running out of excuses for her father.

  “Maybe you’re trying to protect me,” she said. “But I’m your daughter. Please, just trust that I can handle this.”

  “There’s nothing to handle,” said Maurice Carlisle, his wrinkled forehead furrowing with false concern. “Has your arm been bothering you again? There’s no need for such dramatics; we can take you to the hospital if it’s that bad.”

  Her arm. That was a low blow, designed to make her stop asking questions. Designed to make her feel small.

  “I know when you’re lying, Dad,” Harper said softly. “Why are you lying?”

  Maurice Carlisle’s face tightened. “Harper, please,” he said, rising from his seat, a slight note of panic in his voice. “Don’t push me on this.”

  “You took me to a meeting,” said Harper. “You got me to take Violet out on the equinox—”

  “I promise you,” he said tersely, “that if you just stay quiet and do as you’re told, you’ll be perfectly safe.”

  It occurred to Harper, then, that she was being used.

  Just like she’d warned Violet the Hawthornes would use her.

  All this time, and she still hadn’t learned that there was no one she could trust.

  “Is that all you think I care about?” she asked. “Following instructions? Staying safe? Do you really think I’d go along with whatever this is for long without a real explanation?”

  Her father met her eyes. “You’ve done a great job of only hearing the answers you want so far. I’m not lying about the Hawthornes. Look at how Augusta treats you. How she treats everyone who isn’t powerful.”

  “But, Dad, you have powers!”

  “Not enough,” he said bitterly, widening his arms and gesturing at the rest of his workshop. “Our family is weak, Harper. And no matter how hard I work, these sentinels will never match my mother’s guardians.”

  His eyes met hers, and there was something feverish in them, something that made her stomach churn. “Our family made a horrible mistake when they imprisoned the Beast. They’ve put us through generations of strife and turmoil. And I am going to set it right.”

  From then on, every entry ended with that same line. Violet’s stomach clenched more tightly every time she saw it.

  November 20, 1984

  The first meeting went wonderfully. Some were skeptical at first, but when I laid out our plan, they were swayed. All who attended have been sworn to secrecy. If they break their vows, they will be punished accordingly. I’ll make sure of that.

  My father is grateful that the woods have been calm. I wish I could tell him it’s because of me, so that the Beast can gather strength, but he cannot know. Not yet.

  Only four months remain until the spring equinox. There is much preparation ahead of us, but I know the end will be worthwhile. I have full confidence in the might of the Church.

  Branches and stones, daggers and bones, will meet their judgment day.

  “Dad,” Harper said slowly. “What do you mean, you’re going to set things right?”

  Her father hesitated. “The leader won’t allow us to say.”

  Harper realized that if she wanted to get any real answers here, she would need to lie. So she drew on the rage that was always bubbling beneath her skin, and she let it show.

  “You recruited me because I’m a fighter,” she said. “I want to fight for the Church. The real Church. But I can’t do that if you won’t tell me what you’re really doing.”

  The words came out perhaps a bit more emphatically than Harper had wanted them to. But they seemed to work. The fear in her father’s eyes was gone now, replaced entirely by that feverish glee.

  “Are you sure?” he said softly, starting toward her, gripping her remaining hand in both of his. “Because, Harper, if I tell you this, there is no turning back from the Church. Our mission is of the utmost importance.”

  Harper swallo
wed, hard. She thought of Justin, waiting for her with her siblings. Of Nora, terrified in the woods. Of Violet’s lost memories. Of Daria Saunders.

  “I understand,” she said. “Now tell me about the Church’s mission.”

  The dim light of the workshop spread the shadows of his smile across her father’s face. “It’s very simple, really,” he said. “The founders imprisoned the Beast because they wanted its power. So we’re going to set it free.”

  It took everything Harper had not to react to her father’s words.

  The Beast still killed people. The founders had imprisoned it because it was dangerous, and it had cost them their lives. Everyone knew that. So to hear her own father, a founder, a Carlisle, insist that their ancestors’ sacrifice had been wrong—it was horrifying. It was blasphemous.

  “Set the Beast free,” Harper echoed. “I see. And how exactly are you planning to do that?”

  But she wasn’t lying as well as she’d been lying before. There was a wobble in her voice.

  Suspicion stole across her father’s face. His grip tightened on Harper’s hand, and for the first time, true fright stirred in her.

  She sized him up, not as her father, but as an opponent. One who had an arm and at least eighty pounds on her.

  He’d believed in the Church of the Four Deities enough to strand Nora in the woods.

  She didn’t know what he was capable of. She didn’t know him at all.

  “Harper,” he said, a tinge of something ugly creeping into his voice, “do you doubt our mission?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m just…I’m just trying to understand….”

  “But if you really believed that the founders were wrong,” he said slowly, “you would understand.”

  “Well, I do,” she said quickly. “But this is all so new to me. Surely, you had doubts at first? There are so many questions I still have.”

  “Of course you do,” he said. “Please. Allow me to dismiss your doubts.”

  Harper’s throat went dry. She had to make him see what he was doing led nowhere good. “What will you accomplish, Dad?” she said. “After the Beast is freed—what are you hoping to gain?”

  His eyes went slightly glassy. “It has told our leader that it will reward us,” he whispered. “With power—real power, beyond the founders’ wildest dreams. Don’t you want that, Harper?”

  Harper felt a rush of relief. His suspicion was ebbing away.

  And it all might have been fine—if Isaac Sullivan’s loud, angry voice hadn’t drifted through the workshop door at that very moment.

  “You need backup,” he said. “You can’t just keep running off without me—” His voice abruptly dropped in volume, but it was too late.

  “You didn’t come here to pledge your loyalty,” her father breathed, his eyes glimmering with fury. His grip on her fingers tightened until it hurt. “You’ve betrayed us.” One of his hands slipped away from hers, and Harper realized a moment before she saw the familiar glint of steel what he was reaching for.

  His dagger.

  “Dad,” she said, her voice breaking with panic as she struggled to pull her hand away. “Dad, what are you doing?”

  “I’ve told you too much,” he hissed, panting softly. The point of his dagger glittered wickedly; his hand trembled, but still, he pointed it toward her. “The Hawthornes—they can’t know. Not when we’re so close.”

  The change in his behavior was terrifying, as if something else had shrugged on her father’s skin.

  But this wasn’t like what had happened to Violet.

  Harper recognized her father’s posture, his body language, the way he carried himself.

  This was her father. And he was going to hurt her, maybe kill her.

  Harper broke out of Maurice Carlisle’s grasp a second before he lunged for her. She reacted purely on instinct, bolting for the wall behind her, yanking down one of the swords, and whirling toward her father.

  The length of shining steel in her hand was enough to keep his weapon at bay—at least, for now.

  “Harper, think about what you’re doing,” said her father. “That’s not a toy.”

  Harper’s hand was shaking, anger and fear rushing through her in equal measure. Pain surged through her left arm. “Neither is your dagger.”

  This didn’t feel real, none of it: the shadowy interior of the shed, the watching eyes of the sentinels, the ugly rage spreading across her father’s face.

  “Please,” Harper whispered. “Don’t come any closer.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Are you really threatening me?”

  And then he lunged for her, for real this time.

  Harper’s training kicked in. She ducked beneath his outstretched arm, pivoted, and swung her blade around in a perfect strike, knocking the dagger from his hand.

  It skittered across the floor in a flash of silver.

  Harper swung her sword up to her father’s chest as he made to dive after it, the tip of the blade quivering at the edge of his shirt. A torn strip of fabric peeled away from the tip of her blade, revealing his bare chest.

  She was so close to hurting him, really hurting him.

  Harper took a deep, shuddering breath. She wanted to throw up.

  “What the hell is this?” her father hissed, touching the torn fabric of his shirt with quiet disbelief. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

  “I’m protecting myself.” Harper’s voice was shaking. Tears glimmered in her eyes, blurring the fury on her father’s face. “I’m saving my friend. I’m saving our town. And if you try to hurt me, I’ll use this again, I swear I will. So tell me how the Church is going to set the Beast free.”

  The journal entries from December onward were monotonous and vague. The lack of detail was incredibly frustrating, but Violet kept reading anyway, searching for clues, trying desperately to understand what Stephen had been planning.

  March 1, 1985

  Juniper talked to me today. She said I’ve been acting differently lately, that I’m not the brother she knows. I told her I’m growing up. I’m stronger. She told me this was good. We need strong founders to fight.

  I wish I could give the Beast what it needs on my own, but I do not even have a companion. I am not Juniper. She is the strong one.

  Branches and stones, daggers and bones, will meet their judgment day.

  March 18, 1985

  Two days until the world is made right.

  I didn’t want to do it at first, but the Beast has shown me Juniper is the proper choice. When it joins with her in blessed unity, the world will bend before them.

  I have prepared the circle of bone.

  It is almost time.

  Branches and stones, daggers and bones, will meet their judgment day.

  “The Beast’s body is bound to the Gray,” said Harper’s father, his back against the wall of the shed. “But there is a way to let it out—by giving its consciousness a new body.”

  Harper was still shaking. She tried not to think about what her life would look like after this. The lines her father had crossed by attacking her. The lines she’d crossed by defending herself.

  “Like Violet?” she asked, thinking of the way her friend’s fingers had changed to gray.

  Maurice Carlisle shrugged dismissively. “The girl is a temporary measure. She’s not strong enough to hold it for long. No, there is a perfect vessel, one the Beast has wanted for decades.”

  “Who is it?” said Harper.

  Her father bared his teeth in a poor facsimile of a smile. “Juniper Saunders, of course. Because Juniper Saunders can’t be killed.”

  He lunged forward, kicking her in the knee, and Harper toppled to the floor.

  Violet turned the last torn-out page over, her heart hammering against her chest, but the back side of the loose leaf was blank.

  There were no more entries in the journal.

  What had happened to her mother on the night of the spring equinox? Was that when Stephen had died? He’
d wanted her for something. And whatever blessed unity with the Beast was, it didn’t sound good.

  Frustrated, she lowered the journal to her lap. Turquoise flashed into her peripheral vision, and she whipped her head around as Rosie materialized on the floor beside her, sitting in the middle of that circle of white paint.

  This time, Violet saw the flatness in her dark eyes.

  And it all fell into place.

  The Beast had gotten inside Violet’s head, the same way it had gotten into Stephen’s.

  She wondered how it was possible that she’d never seen it before. That it had taken her this long to link together why she had been pulled into this.

  She’d allowed the Beast—and the Church—to pick up where they’d left off.

  “You’re not my sister,” she said hoarsely.

  Not-Rosie’s mouth creased into a cruel smile. “But I gave you the power to bring her back,” said the thing beside Violet. It was still using her sister’s voice. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  Harper’s father was crushing her. They rolled around on the wooden planks of the workshop, scrambling for control of the blade between them. A lock of Harper’s hair swung to the side, sliced off by the sword’s edge, and then the blade bit into her shoulder, drawing blood, as her father struggled to rip it out of her hand.

  He was not a particularly big man, but he was so much stronger than her, and she only had one hand. Soon he was kneeling above her, pinning her to the ground. He kicked the sword across the floor behind him. Harper’s breath rose in her throat, sharp and panicky, as she stared up at his face. Ropes of hair were caught in his gnarled hands.

  There was a deep sadness in his eyes as he closed his hands around her neck.

  “I never wanted this,” he said, digging his fingers into her throat. “Believe me, Harper, if there was any other way…But the Beast demands that we put secrecy first. No matter what we sacrifice to do it.”

  Harper sank her nails into his arm, but it did no good. She wanted to cry for help, but she couldn’t get the words out. Her lungs felt like they were filling with dark, muddy water; her body was cold and limp, as if it were sinking beneath the surface of the lake. Her eyes fixed on the sentinels that hung from the ceiling as her vision began to blur.