The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,9
had ever made her feel special. She knew he wasn’t perfect?—but neither was Augusta.
“I’m certain,” she said. “Mom’s pretending it isn’t happening. But it will. Those cards don’t lie.”
But they’d changed?—changed for May. Justin didn’t know that, though. Nobody did. And although Augusta had reacted to the news of her ex-boyfriend returning to town about as well as she’d reacted to her ex-girlfriend returning to town?—which is to say she’d firmly refused to talk about it?—May knew that the future she had chosen would come to pass.
She trusted the cards. She trusted herself.
“I know,” Justin said quietly. “But he left so long ago. I thought maybe this time, he was finally gone for good.”
May remembered their father’s last day in town. It had begun with a fight, as most days did, but this time, when Augusta had told him to get out, he’d listened.
I’ll be back soon, he had told May, planting a kiss on her blond head. She’d clung to his waist, her head buried in the soft leather of his jacket, and wailed like a banshee when Augusta peeled her away. It was the last time she had cried in front of someone else.
Take me with you, she’d asked her father, and Augusta would never forgive her for it.
It had been seven years, long past soon, but May still held out hope for his return.
The birdsong had faded away now, and there was only the sound of their footsteps as they crunched through the underbrush.
“He promised he’d come back,” May said to Justin.
Justin shrugged, his broad shoulders silhouetted in the moonlight. What little she could make out of his face was frowning. “Yeah, well, he broke every other promise he ever made to us. Why would he have told the truth that time?”
The words flew out before she could stop them. “You’re not really one to talk about lies.”
Justin scowled in response. “Neither are you, May. Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you sold us out to Mom.”
“I didn’t sell you out,” May said. “I was worried about you. And I apologized for going too far.”
She had said some awful things to Justin. She felt bad about that. But she had been tired of tagging along while he dragged people into dangerous situations, and worried that his propensity for playing the hero would only end in tragedy. Isaac cared about Justin far too much to ever call him out, and Augusta indulged him too much to see the truth. May had been the only one to hold him accountable for his decisions?—and in the end, it hadn’t even mattered.
Justin got to be the hero who helped save the day, and May’s hawthorn tree got turned to stone. It wasn’t fair.
“I know you said you were sorry,” Justin said. “But our mother has been taking peoples’ memories away for years, and you don’t seem to care about it at all.”
“That’s not true,” May whispered. “I care more than you know.”
She had cared enough to give Violet her memories back?—but she wasn’t Justin. She couldn’t just go around flagrantly disregarding her mother’s rules and expecting to be welcomed back with open arms. Justin would never understand how hard she had to work to be treated half as well as he was on a bad day. Which was why she hadn’t told him about Violet.
Because he wouldn’t be impressed. Because he wouldn’t understand what a big deal it had been for her to act against Augusta at all.
Justin coughed, grimacing, and turned toward her, jolting her away from her rising fury.
“Holy shit,” he said. “Do you smell that?”
May breathed in deeply. She knew the smell of Four Paths’ woods well?—earth and oak. This time of year it was often tinged with the slight scent of dying leaves.
But May held a hand up to her mouth as a wave of decay washed over her, frowning. Dead leaves didn’t smell like this. Perhaps there was some kind of rotting animal?—but no. This was more than that. It was the kind of smell that felt like a tangible thing, like the very air around her was somehow diseased.
“Yeah, I smell it,” May said, pulling her flashlight out of her pocket and shining it on the thicket of branches in front of them. Again she noticed how silent it was, but this time she felt a twinge of unease. She should’ve picked up on the strangeness of that ages ago, but she’d been too busy arguing with Justin. “Something’s wrong.”