The Devouring Gray(16)
She would not let this be the place she died.
She turned again, ready to run, but she’d scarcely taken a step when a great cacophony of sound erupted, the rich, eerie pealing of a thousand bells. And as Violet jolted backward, shocked at the sudden burst of noise, color rushed into the world in a swirl of brown and green and blue.
All around her were lush, healthy chestnut oaks, their branches weighed down by leaves tinged orange around the edges. Above her head, the three familiar spires of the Saunders house rose over the trees, backlit by the thin, rosy light of dawn.
The first thing Violet did was cry, really cry, great sobs of relief as her lungs flooded with proper breath.
Maybe she had sleepwalked, and all of this had just been a nightmare. The body, the trees, Rosie—it couldn’t have been real.
But when Violet looked at her left hand, a single gray twig was still clenched between her fingers.
The Hawthorne mastiffs began to bark at dawn.
Henry and Brutus were too well trained to make a sound unless there was trouble. And Justin’s mother had been out on patrol the night before.
Justin took the stairs two at a time, his backpack forgotten on his bed, and reached the front door just as Augusta Hawthorne swung it open.
Her cheek was bruised, her knuckles scraped raw. The founders’ medallion pinned to her sheriff’s badge was caked with dirt.
But the thing that truly frightened him was the panic flitting behind her neutral expression. Because his mother didn’t show fear the same way May didn’t admit to making mistakes.
“What happened?” Justin’s voice was hoarse. Behind them, the dogs let out a series of mournful howls.
His mother’s face tightened. “Reading room. Now. I’m getting your sister.”
She disappeared before he could say anything else. Or mention that it was a school day, although the thought of attending school had vanished the moment she walked in the door.
There was only one reason Augusta Hawthorne was summoning her children to the reading room.
She wanted to see the future.
May and Augusta were waiting for him at the scarred wooden table—the only piece of furniture in the reading room, older than everything on the Hawthorne grounds except the tree that had given them their name. Justin slid into his usual seat across from the window, where the indistinct shapes of branches pressed against the side of the house.
“Are you ready?” said Augusta. Above her head was a portrait of Hetty Hawthorne, one of the founding members of Four Paths and the matriarch of their bloodline. Her face was a testament to the consistency of the Hawthorne gene pool—a blunt, blond, severe attractiveness pulled together by a smile that was just a well-disguised smirk. Hetty had painted it herself, just like she’d painted the Deck of Omens a century and a half ago. Justin was fairly certain he’d once seen the portrait tuck a loose strand of hair behind its ear.
“I can read your cards, but I’d prefer an explanation first. It will make my process easier.” The only clue that May was anxious was the slight tremors in her fingers as her hands folded around the Deck of Omens. Not every Hawthorne could read the future, but their power was tied into predicting and influencing the roots and branches that knotted the town together, the same way the Carlisles worked with stone and the Sullivans could hurt or heal with a single touch. Each family protected Four Paths in a different way.
Or at least, they were supposed to. Lately, Justin wasn’t sure they were protecting Four Paths at all.
Augusta sighed but nodded in acquiescence. “Early this morning, I was alerted that there had been a disturbance at the border. I was skeptical, but I investigated the matter personally. The deputy was correct; however, we were unprepared for the consequences.”
“Consequences?” Justin couldn’t stop the question.
There it was again; that flicker of fear across his mother’s face, even though her words were perfectly steady. “Deputy Anders is dead.”
The reading room went blurry and Justin’s insides froze as he fought a sudden, overwhelming wave of guilt.
Just last week, Anders had warned him to be careful. He thought of the man’s broad shoulders, his wispy mustache, the holster at his hip.
The gun never had a chance of saving him. But if Justin had powers, maybe he would’ve.
Justin’s ritual day was still frozen into his memory. How his palm had burned as he sliced the knife across it, then pressed it to the heart of the hawthorn tree, blood dripping down the bark.
How he’d waited. How each excruciating second had passed as he hoped desperately for something to happen, while May and his mother shifted uneasily behind him.
But when Justin finally felt the tree spring to life, heard its deep, glorious heartbeat, it did not bend in submission the way he’d believed it would. Instead a great dullness had spread through him. The air had split and the Gray had rushed around him—the static sky, the dark, pulsating trees—and he had felt so helpless, so small.
A choking panic had seized him, and he’d dropped to his knees, a tinny, hollow voice hissing in his ears. He hadn’t understood the words, but being close enough to hear the Beast’s voice meant he was already dead.
Yet he’d been too petrified to fight back.
That was what the Beast did to people who didn’t have powers—it made them see and hear whatever it wanted. It made them believe, long before it killed them, that they were better off dead.