The Devouring Gray(78)

Violet had seen enough horror movies to know that when an animal tried to tell you something, it was probably wise to listen. Besides, she could feel something pulsing deep inside of her as she gazed at the dusty bit of wood—the same thing she’d felt on the equinox.

“Don’t go inside the circle.” Violet stepped away from the line of white paint. “Got it.”

There wasn’t much in the rest of the room, just a single shelving unit full of odd bits and pieces: the dull edge of a stone sword; a small, chipped bell; an empty, ornate wooden box that reminded her of the one May had kept her cards in.

She’d started to surrender her hopes of finding anything useful when something on the bottom shelf caught her eye.

A sheaf of college-lined pages sticking out of the top of a leather-bound book.

Violet pulled the book off the shelf and flipped it open. The papers had been crammed hastily inside a book of poetry.

She knew from the moment she saw the handwriting what she had found.

“Jackpot,” Violet whispered.

Here, at last, were the missing pages of Stephen Saunders’s journal.



The Carlisle lake stretched before Harper like an open mouth.

Justin, standing next to her, looked slightly ill. He had been visibly uneasy about their plan since Harper had proposed it to him, but she wouldn’t let that stop her. Nothing would stop her now.

“It looks like it’s sucking in the daylight,” he said quietly, gazing down at the silt-clogged water.

Harper looked from the lake into his ashen face. It was true that the sunlight seemed dimmer here, cloaking the stone animals behind them in shadow.

It had barely been two weeks since the last time they’d talked here, and yet everything was different.

He’d lied to her about his powers.

She’d lied to him about the Church.

But back in the music room, she had told him the truth. That she was part of a new faction of the Church of the Four Deities that was actively plotting to take his family down. That she was pretty sure they’d had something to do with what had happened to Violet.

That she needed his help.

Justin had taken it very well—almost too well, but Harper didn’t have time to worry about why he’d reacted with understanding instead of anger.

At least everything was out in the open, now that they’d both confessed. The power balance between them finally felt equal.

And the plan they’d made had led them here after school, ready to get some answers. Ready to figure out what was truly going on in this town.

Harper stared at the shed behind the statue garden and readied herself for what she had promised to do.

Mitzi and Seth were out of the house. Harper’s mother had taken baby Olly for the day, visiting her sister a few towns over, while Justin had agreed to babysit Brett and Nora, claiming he was amazing with children.

An opportunity to catch Harper’s father alone like this wouldn’t come again for a long time.

“I’m ready,” she told Justin.

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.