Power was still surging through her, stronger now, too strong, and Harper gasped for control, at last wresting her hand away.
She shuddered, swaying, but was determined not to show any weakness.
“I’m leaving,” she said coldly, doing her best to look formidable. “Don’t come any closer.”
She held it together for as long as she could, hustling through the forest until she was long out of earshot. Then she tumbled to the ground and retched. Nothing came up, but she still felt ill, her body convulsing with exhaustion. Harper groaned, wiped her mouth, and turned—to see that, of course, Justin Hawthorne had followed her.
“Shit,” she hissed, rising to her feet. “Your sister was right about your critical thinking. Don’t you ever listen?”
He stepped forward, his face grim. “You’re shaking. Let me help you—”
“As if I could trust you after what just happened.” She glanced around, waiting for May to emerge, but Justin shook his head.
“She’s not following us this time. I promise. Harper—”
She swayed, and Justin’s arm swept around her back, carefully lowering her to the forest floor and resting her against a tree trunk. His hands were gentle against the fabric of her jean jacket, and for a moment he was close enough for her to see the tiny freckles on his nose, the softness in his eyes. Then he pulled back, and she was left thinking about the way he’d smelled, like soap and woodsmoke, and how deeply annoying it was that she liked it.
He procured his water bottle and she sipped from it, glaring at him. How dare he be kind and helpful after she’d just threatened to turn him to stone.
“You don’t know how to use them, do you?” he asked. “Your powers.”
Harper fought the urge to fling the rest of the water bottle in his face. “Would you like another demonstration?”
“Hey.” Justin crouched beside her. “I didn’t mean that as an attack. More… an observation. Most founders get training after their rituals. You never did.”
“And your point is?” Harper said crankily.
“My point is that I don’t think you know how to fix the hawthorn tree. That’s why you were so willing to scare May off.”
“So what if I don’t?” Harper scowled.
“So… what if you could learn? My mother would happily give you lessons.”
Harper raised an eyebrow. “I am not taking lessons from your mother.”
“I’ll keep her under control,” Justin said quickly. “I may not have powers, but she’ll listen to me. And if she’s training you, you won’t be considered a threat to my family anymore.”
Harper hesitated. It sounded absolutely bizarre, the idea that she could possibly have anything to learn from the woman who’d destroyed her whole life. But Justin was right that it would make things safe for her. There was a catch here, though; there had to be. With the Hawthornes, there always was. And it didn’t take her long to figure it out.
“You want your tree back,” she said flatly. “That’s why you’re offering your family’s help.”
Justin nodded. “It’s a small price to pay for control,” he said.
But it wasn’t just about control. It was about the Hawthornes controlling her. Harper didn’t trust them, didn’t trust any of this. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure she had any better options.
And there was that part of her that still kindled when she thought of him. A foolish, terrible part of her that was impossible to completely ignore.
“I’ll think about it,” she said slowly, and got to her feet.
May had stormed straight home from her encounter with Harper Carlisle, determined to make her mother understand why this was a potential threat. Why May deserved to be listened to.
Unfortunately, Justin had managed to worm his way in first. He’d called Augusta and told her whatever poisoned, twisted version of the truth best suited him. Which meant that May had returned to a furious parent who was pacing outside the reading room, collecting her thoughts before she came inside to yell at them.
May wanted to scream. She wanted blood under her nails and dirt on her fingers. She wanted to reach across her family’s scarred wooden table in the reading room and rip the smug smile off her brother’s face.
Instead, she forced the emotion out of her voice until there was only ice left.
“You gave Harper her memories back,” May said to Justin. It was not a question. “She turned our tree to stone, and you’re still crawling back to her.”
Justin flinched. “My personal life is none of your business.”
“It is when it leads to a direct attack on our entire family,” May said, shaking her head.
“What our mother did was wrong,” Justin said hoarsely. “I wanted to fix her mistake. Isn’t that what you wanted to do with Violet?”
He gave her a pointed look, and panic swept over her. She’d hoped that he had missed Harper’s allusions to what she had done during their argument, but clearly he hadn’t.
The door creaked open before May could respond, and Augusta swept in, her gigantic mastiffs trailing behind her. Brutus’s black jowls quivered as he let out a sharp, accusatory bark in her direction, and May felt a stab of hurt. Even the dogs were pissed at her.
She turned to Augusta, horror dawning on her as she saw the disappointment in her mother’s gaze—directed not at Justin, but at her.
“You told her,” she breathed, rounding on her brother. “You told her—”
“Enough yelling,” Augusta said calmly, sitting beside both of them. “Yes, May, your brother told me that it seems there’s some kind of rumor going around that you were the reason behind Violet’s memories returning. Is that true?”
Faced with direct confrontation, there was nothing May could do but nod, ashamed.
Augusta’s jaw twitched. “Very well. Yet again, you’ve both deceived me. Justin—you’re grounded, effective immediately. No cross-country. No parties. And certainly no patrols.”
Justin tensed, but he nodded. “And what about Harper potentially joining us?” he asked, jutting out his chin.
“Juniper Saunders and I will be meeting shortly to discuss the situation. You are invited to participate, if you wish. Now.” Her gaze turned toward May. “Leave. I need to talk to your sister.”
This was barely a punishment, May realized. Justin was getting rewarded for his transgressions, as per usual, while she was about to be eviscerated for hers.
She met her mother’s eyes and waited for the ax to fall.
“Oh, May.” Augusta’s face was so similar to May’s, and yet May still struggled to read it—she had mastered control of it long before May was even born. “The future of this town has rested on my shoulders for a long time. Soon it will rest on yours, and I need to know you’re capable of holding it all together.”
May heard the unspoken doubt behind those words. It was the same undercurrent of distrust that ran between her and Augusta constantly, because she would never be her mother’s first choice, and neither of them would ever forget it.
“I am capable,” May said, exhausted.
“You didn’t tell me you could override my powers.” The words were soft, dangerous. “Why?”
May hesitated. There were so many reasons why she’d kept her ability a secret, and none of them felt safe to say aloud.
“I wasn’t sure I could,” she said at last. “Violet was… a test. And after everything that happened with her, I wasn’t sure how you’d react to the news that I was behind it.”
This was a blatant lie. May knew her mother would react poorly to news of what she could do, because it would make her a threat to Augusta. Because she’d spent her entire life seeing how her mother dealt with threats. Because already, it felt like anything she did would be scrutinized and punished, and she did not want to give her mother any more reasons to watch her closely.
Her palms itched, and she was reminded yet again that her mother could never know what she’d done to change the
future—or the secret that lurked beneath all her others, in the wounds on her hands that had long since faded away.
“I’m concerned about you, May,” Augusta said. “You’re fixating on this corruption you insist you saw in the forest and on Harper instead of focusing on patrol and damage control after the Church of the Four Deities incident.”
“What do you mean, insist I saw?” May’s stomach churned with unease.
“I sent deputies to the location you and Justin showed me. There was no evidence whatsoever of what you two claimed to have seen.”
“I have photos—”
“Enough.” Augusta’s voice left no room for a rebuttal. “I need some time to come up with the proper punishment for your deception. But for now, I want you to simply follow orders. Go on your patrols. No side missions—and no questioning. Understood?”
The word felt like a stone in May’s throat. “Understood.”
Back in her bedroom, May collapsed onto her pristine white bedsheets and released a strangled yell into her pillow.
“You’re all alone,” she whispered, curling into a ball on the bed. She hated how broken it sounded, how true it was.
No matter how hard she tried to be Augusta’s perfect daughter, she would mess it up. She would never make her mother happy.
Which meant she had nothing left to protect anymore. Nothing left to lose.
May sniffled and rolled over on her side, an idea coalescing in her mind.
Then she scrambled off the bed and tugged out the lowest drawer of her vanity, sliding away a false bottom. After her father had left, her mother had eradicated every trace of him she could find. The small box May had hidden in her vanity contained the few items she’d saved from Augusta’s purge.
Several photographs—her father hadn’t liked pictures, but May had managed to save a couple of faded snapshots of his blond hair and thin-rimmed glasses. A heavy silver watch. A folded flannel shirt, musty now, although May imagined that some remnant of her father’s whiskey-and-oak smell still clung to it.
And—scribbled in pen on a yellowed scrap of paper—a phone number.
Her father had pressed it into her hand the day he’d left, and she had kept it all these years, waiting for him to reach out.
She was done waiting.
May fumbled for her phone and dialed the number.
CHAPTER FIVE
Violet’s life had changed tremendously in the past few months, but at least one thing had remained the same: Sitting down at the piano brought her automatic comfort. She’d been working on a composition, a piece that was turning from experimental scales and chord progressions into the first clumsy movement of a piano sonata. She didn’t know if it was any good, but she was enjoying working at it anyway. Composing meant flexing her pianist’s muscles in a way she’d never used them before, and it was incredibly reaffirming to create something that belonged entirely to her.
It was good to have a distraction. Because she didn’t want to think about the plan Isaac had proposed to her—or how quickly she had shot it down. Violet played a C-sharp minor chord, enjoying the satisfying way it rang out through the music room, then absently added a harmony with her left hand.
“Are you still working on that new piece?” Her mother’s voice was hesitant. “It sounds… interesting.”
Violet snorted and turned. Juniper Saunders stood behind her, wearing her reading glasses and an expression of gentle bewilderment.
“It sounds bad, you mean,” she said.
“It absolutely does not!”
“You’re protesting too much,” said Violet, raising an eyebrow. Orpheus slunk out from behind her mother, his ears twitching. She could have sworn the gray tabby cat looked relieved that she had stopped playing. “It’s okay. You don’t have to cheer me on when I suck—I know you don’t like the hair, either.”
“First of all, I’m your mother, and therefore I support you in all hair-dyeing and musical endeavors, because at least they’re not you running around in the woods in mortal danger,” Juniper said dryly. “And I would like to remind you that being seventeen and teaching yourself to compose is no small feat, nor were you ever going to master it overnight.”
Violet was slowly but surely getting used to this new version of her mother, one who sought out her daughter’s company instead of avoiding it, one who seemed determined to make them a two-person family. They weren’t going to master all that stuff overnight, either, but at least they were both trying.
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “I just… hate this. I wish I could be good at it right away.”
Juniper sighed and reached down to scoop up Orpheus, stroking his head between his twitching ears. “Life doesn’t work like that.” Her brow furrowed, and she gestured to the couch. “Sit? We need to talk about something.”
Violet sat, staring out the window at the forest sloping down the hill behind the house. Four Paths wore October well. The leaves hanging from the chestnut oaks had turned into rich reds and golds that her sister, Rosie, would have loved to paint, and the air had grown crisp with the promise of frost.
“Let me guess,” she said quietly. “Harper?”
Her mother hesitated. “Have you heard what happened?”
“You mean besides the tree?”
Juniper sighed. “Yes. I received an interesting call from Augusta Hawthorne this afternoon.”
She detailed what had happened behind the school—the display of power Harper had shown. The fact that she still hadn’t come back, even though the sun was setting.
“I thought you might know where she is,” she finished.
But Violet shook her head, suddenly concerned. “She’s not answering my texts.”
“Well. She might answer your texts if you tell her that Augusta Hawthorne wants to meet with her to discuss a deal.”
Violet gaped at her. “A deal? What kind of deal?”
“Harper needs training,” Juniper said calmly. “She’s powerful, but unpredictable, and the Hawthornes wish to rectify their earlier mistakes by formally inviting her to join them and hone her talents.”
“They just want her to fix their problems the same way Isaac does,” Violet muttered.
“But the thing is, the Hawthornes aren’t the only people who could train Harper.”
Suddenly Violet understood.
“You want me to convince her not to take Augusta’s deal. You want her to stay with us.”
Juniper nodded. “Our family has a chance to take this town back, Violet. The Hawthornes have done nothing but lie and put this town in danger. If we play this right, we can change things.”
Violet hesitated, unease pooling in her stomach. Her mother was right that the Hawthornes could not be trusted with the fate of Four Paths. They’d taken half the town’s memories away, including hers and her mother’s. People had died under their watch. The Gray had grown stronger. But something about this still felt wrong.
“I’m not going to force Harper into anything,” she said, knotting her hands together in her lap. “She deserves the chance to make her own decision about what’s best for her.”
“Do you really think this choice is hers?” Juniper shot her a pointed look. “Justin Hawthorne is laying it on thick, I’m sure, trying to sway her to his side.”
“Justin’s not a bad person.” Violet frowned at her mother. “I’m your daughter, not your tool. And Harper isn’t your tool, either.”
“Of course she isn’t,” Juniper said. “I’m just concerned that Augusta has some sort of personal vendetta here, especially considering our history.”
“Your history,” Violet echoed.
They hadn’t talked about this, but Violet had seen the way the two women looked at each other when Juniper got her memories back, and a whole lot had started to make sense. She’d been waiting ever since to see if it was something Juniper was ready to talk about.
Violet had been doing a lot of waiting lately, she realized. For Isaac to open u
p to her. For Harper to cool down. It was starting to make her antsy.
“Yes,” Juniper said. “Augusta Hawthorne and I dated back in high school.”
“I sort of guessed,” Violet said. “You know you could’ve told me, right?”
There was a vulnerability on her mother’s face that Violet had never seen before, but she recognized it all the same. She’d seen it in the mirror.
“I always told myself I would talk to you and Rosie about my sexuality, but… it was hard for me to do. People weren’t as open when I was growing up as they are now.”
“Yeah,” Violet said. “I get that.”
The only person she had ever come out to was Rosie, and she’d always felt like that had barely counted. Because Rosie had come out to her first, and she’d been delighted to show Violet her favorite queer musicians and TV shows and books that had helped her figure out her own sexuality.
She knew that whatever she and her mother could give each other would be different. But she saw, suddenly, that this was something they could share, that she had been so lonely without realizing it. And Violet wanted there to be someone, somewhere, who knew the truth about her.
So she took a deep breath and looked Juniper in the eyes. Her mother’s face was backlit in gold and orange, and Violet realized that she looked anxious, too, that no matter how old you were or how many times you’d done it, coming out was scary. It was weirdly comforting to know that they were both frightened about the same thing.
“Thank you for telling me,” Violet said softly. “And, Mom? Um. Me too.”
Juniper’s eyes went wide. “Violet—are you saying—”
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve never dated anyone, period. But I’m bi. And one day, I’d like to date someone.”
Juniper leaned forward and took both of Violet’s hands in hers. Her grip was firm and reassuring.
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