The Devouring Gray(84)

“That’s right,” said a robed figure who was walking beside it, like an aide. “We’ve acquired the girl.”

It stopped only a few feet away from her, then slowly, deliberately, its hands lurched to its hood. And pulled it back.

The eye sockets were rotted away, the forehead half-demolished; the hair clung on to the scalp in patchy bits of frizzy, dark curls.

It didn’t matter.

Violet recognized the face immediately.

He was a funhouse-mirror version of the boy in the photograph. The boy behind the journals. The boy who’d died with the Beast inside his head.

Stephen Saunders.

The corpse was disturbingly young, the slender build and half-rotted face of a boy forever frozen at sixteen.

Bits of preserved flesh flaked off him as he leaned toward her. As he tugged off a glove.

Violet whimpered behind the gag as he reached out a skeletal finger and raked it down her cheek. The smell of decay assaulted her nostrils. Bile rose in her throat; every instinct begged her to flee.

The tether between them snapped into place, like the one she’d sensed with Orpheus. But while the energy that tethered Violet to her companion was a thin, warm strand of effort, this felt different. Something was being forcibly extracted from her chest, leaving her breathless and dizzy.

She tried to pull back against it, to break it. But Violet’s already-sore limbs were going numb. The branches around her blurred. Her vision had begun darkening around the edges when Stephen jerked his hand away, then rose slowly to his feet, leaving her lolling against the tree in relief.

When her vision cleared enough to watch the Church members again, she noticed they seemed somewhat confused. Several whispered among themselves, until finally one member approached Mrs. Moore. She caught snatches of the conversation.

“…late?”

“Supposed to…”

“Start without…?”

“We can’t hold off any longer.” Mrs. Moore’s voice made the other robed figures turn their heads. “It’s time to begin.”

The bells were gone from the trees by now, a discarded row at the edge of the clearing. The Church members assembled in a circle in front of the town border. Violet caught a flash of the founders’ symbol on the ground, made of bones that glowed white against the dirt. They were too small to be human, a minuscule consolation. It hadn’t been there before—the Church members must have made it, a gruesome tribute to her family’s Deck of Omens suit.

Two robed figures stepped out from between the trees. Juniper’s limp body sagged between them.

The sight of her mother, so helpless, was far more frightening than Stephen’s undead body. Violet cried out, but the duct tape muffled her screams. None of the robed figures even flinched.

They dragged Juniper into the center of the circle and laid her diagonally between the lines of bone. A second later, her brother joined her. He raised his hands toward the sky, and the singing began.

Sinners who’ve been led astray,

Wandered through the woods one day…

They were an unnerving sight, their dark hoods pulled back to reveal the reverence on their faces. They were calling on a monster. Calling for it to take Violet’s mother away. The air crackled around them as the line between Four Paths and the Gray began to blur.

She was going to die. So was Juniper.

Her tears grew thicker as she realized that she’d never get to tell her mother she was sorry.

The Gray began to spill open before her, harsh white clouds seeping through a tiny sliver of the night sky. The trees around them turned squat and dark, the ridges on their trunks pulsing to the rhythm of the Church’s song.

Which was when the ropes around her body went slack, pooling at her waist. Violet wriggled her fingers cautiously, her eyes darting to the side.

A familiar head of blond hair peered out from behind a neighboring tree. A moment later, a flash of dark curls and concerned, furrowed eyebrows joined him.

The tears on her cheeks were relieved ones now.

Isaac and Justin had come to help her. Which almost made up for them lying about Augusta Hawthorne.

“Don’t move your hands,” said Isaac. “Pretend you’re still tied up.”

“And don’t freak out,” Justin added. “We’re your friends. I’m not sure what you remember.”

Violet ignored Isaac and ripped the duct tape off her mouth. Half the skin on her lips came off with the adhesive, but she didn’t care.

“What did I just say—” hissed Isaac.

“I know who you are.” Blood pooled into Violet’s mouth from her ruined lips. She would keep May’s secret. But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t know what was going on, not when her mother’s life might depend on it. “I got my memories back.”

Isaac’s face slackened with such undisguised happiness, Violet had to wrestle down a grin.

There would be time later to discuss how they’d deceived her. Right now, she had other things to worry about.

“My mother’s in there.” Violet jerked her head toward the circle, where the singing was reaching a feverish pitch.

“We know,” said Justin. “We planned for it.”

“You’re both getting out of here alive.” Isaac locked eyes with Violet. “Your mom’s going to be okay. I promise.”