Violet shuddered at the thought. “So you were its perfect host.”
Juniper nodded. “Exactly. But when Stephen tried to stab me…”
She didn’t have to finish. Violet understood with a rush of nausea exactly what would’ve happened next.
And she understood now why the Church had needed Stephen to be resurrected. Because an undead boy would be unaffected by Juniper’s abilities.
Juniper grabbed a tissue from the stand beside her cot and dabbed briskly at her eyes. “After Stephen died, his body went missing. His vault in our mausoleum is empty. But the Saunders family kept the entire tragedy a secret, and all of that guilt, that shame, eventually became too much. So I asked Augusta to take it away. I thought if I couldn’t remember my grief, it would be easier to get on with my life. But it was a weak thing to do. My family fell apart after I ran away. And while I’m so grateful I met your father and had you and Rosie…” She gave Violet a teary smile. “That’s not the life I was supposed to live. I’ve always felt like I was running from something. It found me in the end. It always does, I guess.”
Violet choked back tears of her own.
For the first time in her life, she understood her mother. Juniper wasn’t insensitive or clueless. She had weathered incredible loss, greater than even Violet had ever known.
She also hadn’t been strong enough to handle it on her own. It had made her hurt people, even the ones she loved. Violet understood that feeling, too.
“I’m sorry,” she told Juniper. “For what I said, about you, about Rosie.”
Juniper reached forward, clutched Violet’s hand in hers. “I’m sorry, too. I can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been, dealing with all of this alone. There is so much I want to show you now. So much I can teach you.”
“About Four Paths?” said Violet.
Juniper smiled. “Four Paths, yes,” she said. “But what you said about your father’s family…you were right. You deserve to know them, and they deserve to know you, if that’s what you want. No more secrets. No more lies.”
When she leaned in for an embrace, Violet let her.
The front hallway of the Hawthorne House was unchanged. He ran his hand along the stone wall, the familiar touch of the foyer’s cool, oppressive air pushing against his skin. A twisted branch of the hawthorn tree was splayed against the window like a hand beckoning him inside.
The truth about his failed ritual was already spreading through town. But wearing a stone pendant to school instead of his medallion was the easy part. The hard part was just beginning: The whispers in the hallways. The dirty looks in class. People’s faces closing up as he walked past them on Main Street, when they’d once been friendly and open.
It hurt, oh, it hurt.
But it was a good kind of hurt, like sore muscles after a long run.
“Thanks for taking me in,” he told Isaac, who lingered behind him in the front hallway.
Isaac slid his index finger along the edge of an ornate picture frame. His face was clouded; he seemed preoccupied. Justin knew he’d been working to clean up the Diner, even though Augusta had already paid for the damages.
It seemed like that had happened years ago, but it had barely been a week. So much change in such a short time.
Isaac looked at him, and every strange thing Justin had noticed about his behavior in the past few weeks reared its head. He was standing in a battle stance, his shoulders jutting forward like he was about to face down an enemy.
But he and Justin were the only people in the hallway.
“Now that you’re home, there’s something I have to say.” His voice was guarded, careful. “Justin, I’m done.”
Justin wondered if he’d misheard. “What do you mean, done?”
Isaac’s eyes fixed firmly on something above Justin’s head. “Have you ever noticed how I’m always there? You ask me to be your backup. Help Violet. Help Harper.”
He spat Harper’s name out of his mouth with obvious revulsion.
“I always say yes. But I can’t do that anymore.”
Justin thought he’d faced down his greatest fear when he’d failed his ritual. But the feeling building in his chest now was somehow worse than that. “I don’t get it. Are you angry with me?”
Isaac’s face twisted with anguish. “I’m never angry with you. That’s the problem.” There was something strange in his voice. A tenderness that didn’t match the hurt on his face.
It hit Justin all at once, a heady, unpleasant wave of realization, like cold water dumped over his scalp.
Isaac’s hand closing over his wrist at the barn party. Isaac rising from the ashes of the Diner, not to save himself, but to defend Justin. Isaac’s visible dislike of Harper. That half smile that Isaac always gave him, only him, the one that Justin had never been able to figure out.
Justin had known Isaac was bi. That this was, technically, an option.
“So,” he said hoarsely. “It’s like that.”
Isaac’s hand curled into a fist, but there was no spark, no shimmer, just him. “Yeah. It’s like that.”
“How long has it been like that?”
Isaac’s mouth twitched. “How long do you think?”
Justin’s stomach hollowed out with quiet understanding. “I guess I should’ve seen it.”
He’d just refused to let himself believe it. Because it was impossible for him to feel the same way, and Isaac knew that, too.
“I don’t think you wanted to. And I thought maybe it would go away, and we’d never have to talk about it.” Isaac paused, worked his jaw. “I know you aren’t—I never expected anything. Fuck, I didn’t want to make this weird, but I don’t think I have a choice.”
“It’s not weird.” But the words sounded unconvincing, even to him.
Justin forced himself to meet his friend’s eyes, but the hurt he’d been afraid of wasn’t there. The resignation he saw instead was somehow worse.
It was hopelessly, cruelly unfair.
“You’ve never lied to me before,” Isaac said.
“So it’s a little weird.” Justin’s voice was hoarse with desperation. “But that doesn’t mean we have to be done.”
“Yes, it does.” Isaac bristled with conviction. “You own me, Justin, even if you never realized it. I’ll do whatever you want because your happiness trumps my misery. So we can’t be friends right now. I have to do this for myself. And after everything I’ve done for you, you don’t get to try and stop me.”
Isaac had been there when Justin’s family turned on him. His unflinching loyalty had given Justin the courage to stand up to Augusta, to tell Four Paths the truth.
He needed Isaac—but for the first time, that wasn’t enough to make him stay.
Thinking about how much this would hurt Justin churned his stomach; made him raw with fury. But it would be incredibly selfish to protest further.
Isaac had made up his mind. Justin owed it to him to listen. So he didn’t speak as his best friend walked, each footstep careful and measured, out the door.
The piece of music above the piano was a long way from perfect. Violet had struck through half the handwritten notes. Potential alternate phrasings were scribbled everywhere. Violet played slowly through the piece, pausing to scribble down new notes, new possibilities.
It was scary, beginning to compose. The blank sheet of music had daunted Violet when she first sat down to start, her mind blank. But once she’d pushed past that initial wave of doubt, it had been hard to stop. She would play other pieces, of course. But there was a special thrill that came with creating something new.
The song Violet had written was simple and clunky. She couldn’t get the countermelodies to properly weave together. But maybe one day, she’d be able to write something other people would want to play.
She wasn’t doing it for Rosie. But she knew Rosie would’ve been proud of her, all the same.
Juniper had started opening up. Not just about Four Paths, but about Violet’s father’s sid
e of the family, too. Violet had narrowly avoided bursting into tears when her mother gave her the contact info for her Caulfield cousins. They’d all added each other on social media, but she was still working up the courage to say hello.
A lot of her conversations with her mother had come out wrong, fumbled words and awkward moments. But it was a start. Violet could feel them learning how to pull together, like two knitting needles tangled in a ball of crimson yarn.
Violet’s phone buzzed, jolting her from her thoughts. She glanced at it, smiled, and bundled her composition away. Orpheus trailed behind her as she went to get the door.
Justin was waiting for her, hands stuffed in the pockets of his bomber jacket. Fall had come to Four Paths in a sudden rush of orange leaves and chilly air.
“You wanted to see me?” he asked her.
Violet knew he was surprised that she’d invited him alone. But she didn’t want an audience for this.
“I have questions,” she said delicately as he stepped into the foyer.
“Questions?”
“About Harper.”
Suddenly, the light streaming into the sun-soaked foyer was too bright, the air around them oppressively stuffy and warm. Justin’s hand froze on his coat zipper.
“That’s not your story.”
Violet met his eyes. “You’re not a bad person. In fact, all I’ve ever seen you do is advocate for people who probably don’t deserve it. Me included. So what the hell made you give up on Harper Carlisle?”
Harper had told her about the Church of the Four Deities. Violet had decided, as she spoke, that Harper had been through enough with her father. There was no sense in being angry.
It was easy to forgive someone who’d made the right choice before it was too late.
“It’s none of your business,” Justin said now.
“No, it is my business,” said Violet. “Because if I’m going to trust you, I need to understand why you would betray someone like that.”
Justin’s neck inclined slowly and stiffly, like a robot in need of joint repair.
“Fine.” The carefree ease that had been there when she opened the door was completely gone. “I’ll tell you.”
They ended up in her room. Violet couldn’t help but think of Isaac perched beside her window. She would have much preferred him slouching on her bed instead of Justin, still wearing his jacket, uncomfortably stiff.
“The truth is…” He paused. “The truth is, Harper’s the most powerful person in Four Paths.”
Violet jolted with shock. “What?” She’d suspected Augusta had taken Harper’s memories away. But she had never thought this was the reason why. “So she didn’t fail her ritual.”
“No. You’ve probably noticed by now that people’s powers work by touch. Your touch raises the dead. Augusta’s touch takes people’s memories away. It’s why she wears the gloves—to avoid accidents.”
Violet nodded. “So what does Harper’s touch do?”
The expression on Justin’s face was pain and desire in equal measure. “Harper’s touch turns you to stone. And it lets her control you.”
Violet remembered the statues littered outside the Carlisle house. The bells, the swords, the sentinels.
“Control you?” she whispered.
“The Carlisle founder petrified things, then commanded them, like a stone army,” said Justin, his brow furrowing. “The town called them guardians.”
“And she could do that, too.”
Justin nodded.
“Holy shit,” Violet breathed. “That’s terrifying.”
“That’s what my mother said,” said Justin dully. “The Carlisles do their rituals alone, and return to their families once they’ve figured out what their powers are. They don’t know this, but my mother’s been supervising every Carlisle who comes of age for as long as I can remember, to make sure their powers aren’t a threat. My mother was there the night of Harper’s ritual. When she walked into the lake. When she came out.” He paused. “I know, because I followed her.”
“I imagine that didn’t go so well.”
“It didn’t,” said Justin. “When my mother realized I’d followed her, she forced me to stand alongside her, said that if I was going to be the Hawthorne heir, I would have to make tough choices. So we met Harper at the edge of the water and Augusta demanded a demonstration of her new powers.
“Harper was so scared. My mother had her cornered. And when Harper gets scared, she panics. So she grabbed Augusta’s arm. And I saw—” He shook his head. “I saw it start to turn to stone. And I knew she’d been pushed too far. She wouldn’t stop.”
“What did you do?”
Justin’s voice had gone so low, so ashamed, Violet could barely hear him. “I couldn’t let her kill my mother, so I pushed her away. Into the lake. I thought she’d be fine, I just wanted her to stop, but I didn’t…” He broke off.
“What happened?” said Violet softly.
Justin shook his head, staring out at the branches that waved beside her window. Violet pretended she didn’t see him rub clumsily at his eyes before he spoke again.
“The Gray took her. She was lost in there for days, and when she came out, half her arm was missing. Augusta removed her memories in the hospital, before her family could ever find out the truth.”
It was rare that Violet opened her mouth and found there weren’t words waiting to spill out. But Justin’s guilt over Harper was justified. He’d made a mistake he couldn’t fix.
“Now do you understand?” Justin said. “She doesn’t remember I betrayed her. She doesn’t remember she was dangerous.”
And then Violet realized that she did know what to do. What to say. “Would you give her those memories back?” she said. “If you could?”
Justin turned his head away from the window. His face was ashen. “Absolutely.”
Violet had seen the feelings for Harper that lingered beneath the story he’d just told her. The ones he may as well have confessed to aloud.
She could try to handle this on her own. But after all Justin had done to help her, all the guilt he carried with him, he deserved the chance to make this right. And if he didn’t take this chance—well, then she would help Harper herself. And she would know that what Harper had said about the Hawthornes was true: They would always put themselves first.
Violet didn’t tell him the truth about May. But she told him enough.
After Justin left, Violet walked all the way to the edge of town, until she stood before the WELCOME TO FOUR PATHS sign.
A month ago, she and Juniper had driven into town. Now her boots crunched across the gravel of the road as she stepped beneath the sign. She expected to feel something, a rush of power leaving her, the harsh embrace of the Gray even, but there was nothing.
The sign swung behind her.
She was gone. She was out.
Violet turned her back on Four Paths, stared at the road snaking away from town. She was back in a world without rituals, without founders, without power.
She turned around.
She thought of Harper and Justin and Isaac and May. She’d given them so much trouble, yet each of them somehow decided she was worth fighting for.
It was time to fight for them, too. All of them.
Violet stepped back into the leafy embrace of the great chestnut oaks teeming at the side of the road, reaching out to her in welcome, in recognition. Determination rushed through her, thrumming in her chest like a second heartbeat as the WELCOME TO FOUR PATHS sign swung above her head.
She was going to make things right in this town, once and for all. And she knew where she wanted to start.
The inside of the Diner looked like a battleground. The fluorescent lights were shattered, their plastic casing mixing with ceramic and glass on the shadowy floor. Violet had expected resistance when she tried to walk inside, but the restaurant was gutted, empty.
Empty except for Isaac, who swept debris into a great pile in the corner. Justin had told her that des
pite the termination of Isaac’s employment, he’d insisted on helping. The overturned booths around him looked like the discarded playthings of a giant, the OPEN sign above his head a cruel mockery of the restaurant’s current state.
Violet took a second to watch the light streaming in through the cracked plate-glass windows at the front of the Diner, casting fragmented shadows across Isaac’s neck and shoulders. He wasn’t even trying to hide the scar anymore. She’d noticed it at school, too. She was proud of how little he’d reacted to the stares.
The light hit his face when he turned, casting a perfect diagonal line from his left eyebrow, across his lips, and into the planes of his neck.
“What are you doing here?” Isaac asked.
“Looking for you.”
He frowned. “How did you…?”
Violet shrugged. “You’re the kind of person who likes cleaning up their messes.”
Isaac’s lips curved into a wry smile. “Well. I’ve had a lot of practice.”
Behind him, a row of black garbage bags were stacked neatly against the wall. Evidence of many hours spent like this one, making amends.
Violet didn’t know the details of Isaac’s ritual. But she’d gleaned enough to understand that something horrible had happened to him.
The Beast had broken him the same way it had broken her family. The same way it had broken Harper.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “About what we’re all really doing here. Why the founders actually locked the Beast up.”
“They locked it up because it’s dangerous.” Isaac’s response was rote, automatic.
But Violet could not shake what the Beast had told her in the Gray, the words it had spat out of Rosie’s mouth.
Do you really think I was bound here out of altruism? They wanted my power, and they achieved it.
The Devouring Gray Page 28
