The Devouring Gray(21)

The voice was soft and feathery and came from behind her.

Violet whipped around, her defenses rising. Last night had left her jumpy.

But the white girl standing behind Violet clearly hadn’t come to threaten her. She was small and finely sculpted, a porcelain doll with thick, winged eyeliner. Her left arm stopped at the elbow, and a tangle of dark, wiry curls hung down to her waist.

She had seen the girl in homeroom. Which meant, Violet realized, flushing slightly, she’d watched her meltdown. “Why did you follow me?”

The girl’s eyes, dark and doe-like, stirred with something that might’ve been pity. “You ran,” she said. “I think I know what you were running from.”

Violet scowled. “Maybe I was just bored.”

“Mrs. Langham told you someone had died, and it bored you?” The girl’s smile should’ve been reassuring, but it only made Violet realize her skin was stretched a little too tightly across her skull. “Somehow I doubt you’re that heartless.”

Violet took a deep, shuddering breath. “So maybe I was upset. I don’t like death, okay?”

“No one does,” said the girl. “But you just moved here. You didn’t even know him.”

“And you did,” said Violet, a trickle of unease rising in her stomach. “So why aren’t you mourning him?”

The girl stared straight into the woods behind Violet’s shoulder. The silhouettes of the trunks were reflected in her dark brown eyes.

“I am mourning him.” There was something distant in her voice, something hollow. “I know exactly how he died, Violet. Bones sticking out of his sides. White eyes. Gray skin. It’s just not the sort of thing I want to say out loud. Makes me sound like I’m losing it, you know?”

The palms of Violet’s hands went clammy with sweat, her throat contracting until she could barely breathe.

Whoever this girl was, she had seen that body, too.

“How could you possibly know that?” she choked out.

The girl took a step forward, the shadows of the trees engulfing her tiny form. “The same way I can tell you do. I’ve been to the Gray.”

Violet knew immediately what she was talking about. It was the perfect term to describe those colorless trees, that static sky.

“How do you know I’ve been to—that place?”

“Are you telling me you haven’t?”

“No,” she said, with a strange surge of relief. “I’m not. That forest. It’s…here. In this town.”

“Yes and no,” said the girl, which did not help Violet at all. “It’s certainly real. And it’s certainly in Four Paths. But it’s not here.” She waved her hand dismissively in the direction of the trees. “Most people don’t make it out, you know. You were lucky.”

“Doesn’t that mean you were lucky, too?”

The girl chuckled. “No, I wasn’t.” She stuck out her hand. Violet shook it. It was surprisingly callused. “Harper Carlisle.”

“Should I bother to introduce myself?”

Harper smiled—a real smile this time. “Nope. Everyone here knows who you are.”

Violet’s mind was bursting with questions, but the first one that toppled from her mouth surprised her. “What kind of animal can kill someone like that?”

Harper turned to face the woods again, her voice distant and dreamy. The trees had stopped rustling, like they were listening, too. “It’s not an animal.”

“Then what is it?”

Harper was still facing away from her when she spoke next. “I think the word most people would use is monster.”

A day ago, Violet would’ve rolled her eyes at this sentence and walked away.

But now she turned, so she could see Harper’s expression, and chose her next question very carefully. “What word would you use?”

The unflappable veneer she’d first seen on Harper’s face was gone. There was a raw pain etched into her features that Violet had only ever seen in her own mirror. “I’m not sure. I’m not in the business of naming things I’ve never seen for myself.”

“Why did you follow me out here, really?” The answer suddenly seemed very important.

Harper met her eyes. “Because no one should run out of class and have no one to follow them.”

But Violet could tell she was lying. “Try again.”

Harper scowled. “Fine. Because…I saw Justin Hawthorne talking to you yesterday. The Hawthornes wouldn’t be bothering with you unless they thought you were useful to them somehow. So I’m warning you now that everyone in this town is just a pawn to them. Nothing more. No matter how much they pretend otherwise.”

Violet remembered how the rest of the school had looked at Justin. How those adults had stared at his mother.

Their adoration couldn’t have been further from the cold fury in Harper’s words. And Violet could tell that the girl at least believed what she was saying—whether it was true or not.

“What did they do to you?” said Violet softly.

The chestnut oaks rustled above their heads as Harper twined her shaking fingers in her hair. “Let’s just say that when they were my friends, I still had a left hand.”

And then she turned and rushed away.