The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,25
the entrance to the restaurant?—a pizza place May had found a thirty-minute drive away from Four Paths, far enough that nobody would recognize either of them. Since then, they’d attempted small talk that had lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, May stirring too many sugar packets into her coffee, Ezra simply watching her. She wasn’t sure what either of them was waiting for. She was starting to wonder with every second that passed if this had all been a terrible idea.
“I’ll confess, I’m not quite sure how to do this,” he said at last, from across the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”
His words were casual, but May could feel the undercurrent of despair in them.
“Funny,” she said. “Since the last time I saw you, you promised to come back.”
He winced. “I know. And I assure you, I had every intention of keeping that promise.”
“So what changed?”
Ezra wrapped a large, square hand around his own coffee cup, looking uncomfortable. “I was told that if I came back, I wouldn’t be wanted.”
May didn’t have to ask who had told him such a thing.
“Of course she said that to you,” she said sharply. “Why on earth did you believe it?”
The words rang out a bit too loudly across the mostly empty restaurant. The only other patrons?—an older couple with matching baseball caps?—turned their heads.
“You and Justin were very young when I left,” Ezra said, lowering his voice. “It was painful, but I knew that when I was around your mother, we brought out the worst in each other. It didn’t seem healthy for you both to see us acting like that. So as the years passed, I grew convinced it would be best for us all if I left the three of you alone.”
“You mean you gave up,” May said hollowly. This wasn’t the father she remembered?—this sad, quiet man who was looking at her now with shame in his eyes.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “I suppose I did.”
May hadn’t anticipated this, but it made a strange sort of sense. Ezra had left town for good because Augusta had finally driven him away. But Augusta had made a critical mistake: She hadn’t considered how May would feel, or what she’d want.
May reached into her purse and pulled out one of the old photographs she’d kept in her box. It was the only one she had of just the two of them. She was maybe four or five, wearing pink overalls and a gap-toothed grin. Ezra’s hands were wrapped around her waist, lifting her up so she could grasp the bottom branches of the hawthorn tree.
She slid the picture onto the table and tapped her father’s smiling face.
“Maybe you gave up,” she said. “But I didn’t.”
For a moment, there was silence. Ezra stared at the photograph, and May did not let herself breathe, did not let herself hope. Then Ezra smiled in a way that May had almost forgotten?—teeth bared and wide, a smile identical to Justin’s creasing in his cheeks.
It was a smile that meant the man she’d come here to find was still in there.
“You said you needed my help,” he said slowly, and May nodded, hope flaring in her chest.
She had contacted Ezra for reasons beyond simply wanting to reconnect. He’d been a PhD student at Syracuse University, doing research for a dissertation on local theological movements, when he’d met Augusta Hawthorne during her undergrad years. She didn’t know how he’d wormed the truth about Four Paths out of her mother, only that he’d become just as fascinated with the town as the founders were. One of her most prominent childhood memories was Ezra’s multiyear attempt to catalog the founders’ archives in the town hall.
“I don’t know if you abandoned your research when you left,” she said. “But there’s something dangerous happening in Four Paths, and if you’re willing to brave Mom’s wrath, I think you might be able to help me stop it.”
Ezra leaned forward as she explained the corruption she’d seen to him, detailing the strangeness of it, the way it had disappeared, and her determination to get to the bottom of it. His face was alight with interest.
“I know you’re scared to come back,” she finished. “But I really do need help. So what do you say?”
Their waitress appeared at the table, sliding two slices of pizza toward them before silently backing away. Ezra eyed the half-congealed cheese before him with distrust before meeting her gaze. His gaze was thoughtful and solemn.