The Deck of Omens

by Christine Lynn Herman

  “I love you,” she said hoarsely. “And I’m so glad you trusted me enough to tell me. I know neither of us is very good at this kind of thing, but I promise, you can always talk to me about whoever you might want to date, and I’ll always support you.”

  Violet let out a soft snort and tried not to think about Isaac’s dark curls. “There’s nobody to talk about.”

  “Well, if that ever changes, I’m here.” Juniper paused, then added, “Honestly, Violet, I’m glad to see you making so many new friends. I’ve never seen you tolerate such a large group of people before.”

  “You mean the group of people who all hate each other right now?”

  Juniper paused, guilt crossing her face. She pulled her hands away from Violet’s. “I didn’t mean to drive a wedge between you and your friends, you know. I just… I failed my family all those years ago, when I ran away from Four Paths. This is my second chance, and I can’t fail again.”

  “I understand that. But if you handle this the same way Augusta does, you’re no better than her.”

  “You’re right.” Juniper shook her head; the words were hesitant in her mouth, and Violet knew they both weren’t used to talking like this. Like they were mother and daughter, but something else, too. Mutual survivors—the only ones left to carry on their family name… and to shoulder all their family trauma. “I was wrong to try to use you to get to Harper, and I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Violet said, and meant it. “I’ll do my best to talk to Harper about this meeting, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

  Violet twisted a red lock of hair around her finger. No, her mother wasn’t wrong that the Hawthornes did not deserve to have Harper on their side. But Violet wasn’t sure her family could do a much better job running the town than they had. That wasn’t the problem here—the problem was, as long as the Beast existed, the founding families would never stop fighting. And they were too caught up in their own petty struggles to see the bigger picture.

  She’d been too scared before. Too concerned about the ghosts she’d see if she said yes to Isaac’s plan, the cost of failure if things went wrong.

  But now Violet was ready. Now, at last, she understood that reckless gleam behind Isaac’s eyes.

  Isaac watched the sunset from the edge of an all-too-familiar clearing, squinting miserably into the forest as he waited for Violet to show up.

  It was early October, and the trees had started to show it. The forest was alive in the way things could only be when they knew they were dying, every leaf shot through with color, drifting through the air with points outstretched like it was trying to touch the sky one last time before being crushed into the dirt. He had always thought the autumn leaves were at their most beautiful in their final days, as if reminding the world that they should be mourned once they drifted to the ground.

  Violet emerged from the trees. Her gray tabby cat loped at her side, his yellow eyes gleaming in the twilight. The red yarn tied around his ear matched her new hair color.

  “You’re sure you can handle this?” he asked when she was close enough to hear him.

  It shouldn’t have surprised him that Violet initially had been so unwilling to re-create what had surely been one of the worst moments of her life. But Isaac had been surprised anyway. Violet was cranky and cynical, but more than anything else, she was brave. He’d seen that time and again as they dealt with the Church of the Four Deities, as she went head-to-head with Augusta Hawthorne and the Beast. The idea that she could be hitting her breaking point unnerved him.

  So when she rolled her eyes at him in response and said, “Of course I can handle it. What, are you scared now?” he couldn’t hold back a grin.

  “Nah,” he said. “I’m not scared.”

  She raised a still-dark-brown eyebrow. “This is a weird time to be smiling.”

  “That’s my monster-killing face.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Together, they stepped gingerly into the clearing where, just a few weeks ago, the Church of the Four Deities had tried to free the Beast from the Gray by allowing it to possess Juniper Saunders’s body. Isaac’s last memories of this place were pure chaos. Church members being escorted away by the Four Paths police force. The circle of bones they’d created being roped off by deputies. Blue and red lights flashing everywhere, illuminating the relief in Justin Hawthorne’s eyes.

  Isaac remembered it so well not just because of the ritual, but because of a moment that had happened after, when Justin stopped him on the way back to the Hawthornes’ pickup truck and squeezed his shoulder.

  “Thanks,” he’d said, voice gruff and low. “We’d all be dead without you.”

  And Isaac had known then that if he didn’t learn how to say no to Justin, he would spend the rest of his life craving those tiny moments of gratitude. So he’d decided to stop it for good. Even though it would mean telling Justin the truth about his feelings. Even though it would hurt almost as much as his ritual had.

  “Isn’t it so messed up that they can’t remember what they did here?” Violet’s voice floated through the clearing, anchoring him back in reality. “The Church, I mean. Augusta’s power is terrifying.”

  Isaac shook his head and trained his gaze on her bright red hair. “I asked Augusta to help me forget, once,” he said quietly. “She told me no.”

  Violet turned her head sharply, but there was no accusation on her face—only understanding.

  “So did my mother,” she said. “That’s why she couldn’t remember what was going on here. That’s why she almost died. I promise you, whatever you wanted taken away—it wouldn’t have helped.”

  Isaac let out a long, shuddering breath as a gust of wind whipped through the clearing, rustling the leaves of the chestnut oaks. It was a beautiful night, clear enough to see the shine of the half-moon above them reflected in Violet’s dark, solemn eyes.

  “I know. But I wanted it to be easier. Even though I knew it was the weak thing to do.”

  “There’s nothing weak about wanting to skip a step. To heal faster. To erase something terrible.” Violet stepped toward him, her voice gentle. “I wanted Rosie back so badly, it almost cost me my life. But I’m learning how to live without her, even though it’s hard.”

  Isaac nodded, tears stinging the back of his throat, and turned away. Working with the Hawthornes, it had always felt as if he were the one putting everything on the line for them. Risking his life over and over again for their reputation, their safety, their comfort.

  But Violet was risking just as much as he was to be here. More, maybe. It was new for him to feel another person making room for him the way he’d always been taught to make room for someone else.

  “Um. Let’s get started,” he said gruffly, kneeling in the grass and gesturing to an outline in the dirt. It was the founders’ symbol, the circle with four lines spearing through it, nearly meeting in the center. “This is where they did the ritual.”

  The police had done a reasonable job clearing the bones away, but fragments of ivory still shone beneath the glow of his phone’s flashlight. Unease prickled down his spine as Violet knelt beside him, her brow furrowing. Her cat lurked behind them, his tail twitching.

  “The Church did the ritual by singing outside the circle. But if we want to lure the Beast here, I should probably be inside it. Like my mom was.”

  Isaac swallowed hard. “Then I’m going inside, too. I can open the Gray for you.”

  Violet sighed and stood up, her toes poised at the edge of the circle. “When I teamed up with you, I really thought you’d help me figure out something logical and reasonable—”

  “Do you have a better plan?”

  She rolled her eyes and stepped over the circle’s edge. “Obviously I don’t.”

  They stared at each other nervously, but nothing happened. So after another moment, Isaac stepped over the line and joined her. Violet’s cat waited outside. Isaac figured Orpheus was the only smart one here.

  Everythin
g felt normal. So normal that as they sat down on the grass, Isaac spared a moment to wonder if this would even work at all.

  “Okay,” Violet muttered, pulling out her phone. Isaac did the same. They’d gotten the song lyrics from the Church’s confiscated papers, and the picture he’d taken of the words made his chest feel tight with worry. “I can’t sing for shit, you’ve been warned—”

  “I actually can,” said Isaac, feeling a little self-conscious.

  Violet glared at him. “Of course you can.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” She cleared her throat. “On three?”

  He nodded. “One, two—”

  Sinners who were led astray,

  Wandered through the woods one day,

  Stumbled right into the Gray,

  Never to return.

  Hear the lies our gods will tell,

  The prison the Four wove so well,

  But listen to us when we say:

  Branches and stones, daggers and bones,

  Will meet their judgment day.

  At first, their voices were awkward and strained. But Violet had warned him that the Church had chanted the lullaby again and again, so when they finished, they merely started it over, their voices unsure and cautious in the night. Isaac did not know when he realized something had changed, only that it had. The words were no longer voluntary; they poured from his throat like water, smooth and clear, blending with Violet’s voice until it felt as if something else were singing through them both.

  The founders’ symbol around them began to glimmer, the fragments of ivory oozing iridescent liquid. Isaac had never seen anything like this before, and it made his voice falter slightly, his heartbeat speed up. He watched uneasily as the liquid ran through the grooves of the dirt lines, carrying with it a choking scent of decay. Isaac raised his hands, still singing, and concentrated.

  The air around his hands grew warm as he summoned his power, light fragmenting across the entire clearing. His power always hurt. Made a dull ache rise beneath his skin, turned him flushed and feverish. Use it for long enough, push it hard enough, and he’d pass out. But Isaac was used to the pain.

  He set his jaw, curled his fingers in the air, and tore a hole in the world.

  It didn’t always work, opening the Gray. But it did this time. Isaac held his hands out, widening the gap, as mist poured into the circle. He’d opened it on his left so both he and Violet could stare through it, and as the fog thickened and their singing continued, he sensed her stiffening beside him.

  The entire circle seemed to shift around them, and Isaac had the sense that they had been flung through the door he’d opened. There was no Four Paths anymore, just grayscale, the iridescence still oozing ever closer. Around them, trees crowded into his peripheral vision, their branches undulating grotesquely, and the sky was an undying, staticky white.

  They stared at each other, no longer singing. Violet’s face was grim. They hadn’t just called the Gray—they’d gone inside it. He’d expected this to happen after what Violet had described, but that didn’t make it any less unnerving. Humans weren’t supposed to be here; that was impossible to forget.

  “It’s here,” Violet whispered, the words ringing out through the circle a moment after her lips moved. Isaac shuddered. He’d never entered the Gray for longer than a few seconds, and already every bit of him wanted to leave. He didn’t belong here.

  He was opening his mouth to ask Violet how she knew the Beast was close when a voice spun around the edges of his mind, cruel and cold. It hissed, tinny and hollow, and Isaac gritted his teeth against the sound. The fog around him began to thicken, until it had become a humanoid form that Isaac recognized all too well.

  “You need to leave,” Maya Sullivan whispered. She wore a hospital gown that could not quite hide the ritual scars snaking across her shoulders. Tubing wound around her arms and legs, puncturing her flesh. “Now.”

  Isaac had steeled himself for the possibility that the Beast would show him some sort of vision designed to throw him off. But it was still hard to look at his mother like this: awake but trapped by the medical devices that kept her alive, her face animated with fear. It sent a chill through his entire body, a bone-deep fear that took him back to his fourteenth birthday. He could hear the faint sounds of his brothers screaming. A memory, he told himself—it was just a memory.

  Beside him, Violet looked confused. “Who is that? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a trick,” Isaac whispered. “You know it’s a trick.”

  He forced himself to look away. There was nothing the monster could show him that was worse than the images that played in his own mind every night as he tried to sleep. The knife. Blood dripping onto the leaves. The smell of charred flesh, the distant sound of screaming.

  “Run,” his mother hissed, her hand outstretched, fright contorting her features, and then a gust of wind rushed through the Gray, blowing her away into smoke.

  The smell washed over them again, decay so strong it nearly made Isaac gag. He had just enough time to remember what others had told him about the Gray—that there was no smell in there at all—before he felt something twining around his legs.

  He glanced down and gaped. The iridescent liquid from the founders’ symbol had become roots, and they’d snaked forward, viscous and oily, to wrap around his thighs. Isaac summoned his power and gripped the roots, shuddering at the way they felt against his palms—warm and soft as human flesh, almost like he was touching someone else’s hand. He concentrated as best he could and burned the roots away. But they grew back faster than he could destroy them, encasing the tips of his boots in bark. He shook them off and stumbled backward.

  “Isaac!” Violet’s voice was shrill and panicked. He glanced up and saw her struggling to kick more roots away. Tears snaked down her cheeks, the same iridescent gray as the liquid that pooled around them. “Get us out of here!”

  He’d never seen anything like this before. Never even heard of it. But he didn’t need to see more to know that if they stayed here for much longer, they would die.

  He summoned all his strength, wincing, and sent the biggest shock wave he could manage through the roots, disintegrating most of them into ash. Then he reached upward and tried to rip the air open again, gasping—but as it opened wide, instead of relief, he felt something else.

  Dread.

  The world around him faded. Fog engulfed him like a second skin, and suddenly, he was gone.

  Isaac floated, ephemeral, in a sea of static. His body was frozen; when he glanced down, he saw that he had turned as smoky and transparent as the vision of his mother. Roots twined around his arms and legs, crawling toward his nostrils, his ears, the corners of his eyes. They burrowed through his hair like centipedes, hooking around the edges of his mouth and pulling it open as they tried to snake down his throat.

  Everywhere they touched hurt like nothing he had ever known. He could feel himself decaying, knew that when the roots finished growing over him there would be nothing left of him but bones.

  And then something smacked against his cheek, hard, and his eyes fluttered open.

  Above him was the familiar half-moon in Four Paths’ night sky. Violet’s face appeared in his field of vision a moment later, tendrils of red hair framing her small round face.

  “That better be you in there,” she whispered. “That better not be the Beast.”

  “My eyes are way prettier than the Beast’s,” Isaac said, coughing.

  She broke into a relieved grin that made something warm flare up in his chest. “There you are.”

  Isaac hauled himself up on his hands, the side of his face stinging. He could feel blood trickling down his cheek. “Did you… did you just punch me?”

  “Not exactly.” She lifted her hand up to display the wriggling, sluglike remnants of a root. Just the sight of it dissolving in her fingers made him want to retch.

  “It was trying to go und
er your skin,” she said matter-of-factly. “I yanked it out.”

  “But the Gray,” Isaac said, gesturing weakly at the forest behind her. “How did we escape?”

  “You opened the portal and immediately collapsed.” Violet shrugged. “You’re tall, but it was still pretty easy to drag you out.”

  Now that he was no longer in immediate mortal danger, Isaac could feel a whole new host of aches and pains. He inspected himself, wincing; there were freshly singed holes in his jeans, and that strange iridescent liquid had dried into a hardened scab on his arm. He scratched it off and shuddered.

  Isaac didn’t know what any of this meant—the way Maya had told him to run, that vision he’d had, this new weapon the Beast seemed all too adept at wielding. He just knew that none of it was good.

  He saw now how reckless and foolish both of them had been. If they were going to kill the Beast, it would take a lot more than this.

  “I don’t think our plan worked,” he said softly.

  Beside him, Violet winced. “No. I don’t think it did.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Harper had, technically, agreed to this meeting. But it was still hard for her to suppress the urge to get up from the Saunderses’ kitchen table and run.

  It was an uncomfortable group of people who had come together to argue about her: Juniper and Violet in one corner, Justin and Augusta in the other. Harper was already tired of this, and no one had even broached the subject of her powers yet. Instead, Juniper and Augusta had argued over the quality of the coffee, while Justin and Violet made strangely hostile eye contact with each other across the room. As if Harper was beholden to any of them besides herself.

  Violet had been somewhere the night before. Harper had heard her come home in the wee hours of the morning, when she was lying in bed thinking instead of sleeping, heard her curse and slam the bathroom door and run the shower for far longer than was necessary. Harper hadn’t asked, and Violet hadn’t offered any explanation. She’d been too busy trying to figure out what she wanted out of this meeting. Unfortunately, she still didn’t know.