The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman
PART ONE
THE SEVEN OF BRANCHES
CHAPTER ONE
All the most important moments in May Hawthorne’s life had happened beneath the tree in her backyard.
She had come into the world there sixteen years ago; her mother, too stubborn to admit she was in labor until it was too late, gave birth all on her own as night faded into dawn on a blistering summer morning, then drove herself and her newborn daughter to the hospital.
May had touched the Deck of Omens for the first time beneath that tree. Challenged her older brother to see who could swing themselves up into its branches more quickly. Whispered a thousand secrets to the knot in the center of the trunk, forever frozen in the shape of a half-shut eye. When sleep eluded her, she would sneak outside and curl up beneath the hawthorn’s gnarled branches on a bed of moss and fallen leaves. Its deep, steady heartbeat never failed to lull her into slumber.
It was the only place in the world where she felt safe, the only place where she didn’t have to be someone’s daughter or sister to garner attention. And now, after a century and a half of watching over her family, it was gone.
May rested a hand against the hawthorn trunk that had given her family its name, warm bark turned to red-brown stone, and listened desperately for a heartbeat.
“There’s nothing,” she said, panic turning her voice raw and scratchy. “It’s dead.”
“We don’t know that for certain.” Augusta Hawthorne, May’s mother, stepped out from the other side of the tree, her feathery blond hair slicked back from her forehead. She wore black silk pajamas and a matching pair of gloves, her feet shoved hastily into work boots. The weak light of dawn seeped in behind her, turning the dark circles beneath her eyes into cavernous pits.
The tree had called her, just as it had called May. Its cry for help had woken May at the break of dawn, her heart pounding in her chest. Her throat constricted in a silent scream as she shoved her curtains aside and stared out the window. The hawthorn’s branches were frozen and stiff instead of swaying softly in the early morning breeze.
The tree had not called to Justin, her older brother. May had found her mother in the backyard, then run to fetch him. But he’d refused to even open his bedroom door, and she’d realized that he did not?—could not?—care about this the way she did.
Her mother cared, though. They stood in the backyard together, May pretending she didn’t see the tears glistening in Augusta Hawthorne’s eyes as they both surveyed the hawthorn’s frozen corpse.
“We’ll have to handle this,” she said now. “Just us. No sense in burdening your brother.”
And for once, May wasn’t angry with her mother for letting Justin off the hook.
When a Hawthorne turned sixteen, they asked the tree to give them access to the powers that were their family’s birthright. These powers enabled them to protect the town of Four Paths from the monster that lurked in the woods in a lifeless prison called the Gray. But Justin had failed his ritual. Which meant there were powers he would never have?—and responsibilities he would never bear. Keeping him around to watch them work would only have hurt him more.
It also gave May a chance to show her mother why the tree had chosen her over him in the first place. Because she could handle everything Four Paths threw at her. Even this.
“No one can find out,” Augusta continued, staring at the branches. “If the town discovers this attack on our family, the consequences will be catastrophic.”
“An attack,” May said, the words sour in her mouth. That was the right term for it, but it still felt dangerous to say. Because this attack hadn’t come from the monster they were supposed to be defending the town from. It had come from one of their supposed allies, someone she’d once considered a friend.
“This is Harper Carlisle’s fault,” May whispered. Harper, who was immensely powerful but had never known it?—until now. “She got her memories back.”
Her mother nodded grimly. “It’s the only possibility.”
May stared at the hawthorn tree, its corpse turning more red than brown in the light of the rising sun, and thought of the past few weeks. The way the roots that connected Four Paths had split apart and woven themselves back together.
From the moment she flipped over Violet Saunders’s card a month ago, a passageway had opened up in her mind, roots tunneling