The Deck of Omens

by Christine Lynn Herman

  Harper had not been home in a long time. She’d known that this would hurt, but seeing the Carlisle cottage come into view for the first time in weeks was still unbearably painful. The sloping red-brown walls had once held her entire life inside them. Now they held far too many memories for comfort. Her eyes moved to the workshop behind the house, where her father’s hands had closed around her throat, and she froze. Again, she felt that swell of phantom pain from her residual limb.

  Maybe she wasn’t ready for this. Maybe she would never be.

  “Steady,” Violet murmured gently from beside her. “You’ve got this.”

  It was enough to keep Harper walking. She forced her legs back into action, and together, they rounded the edge of the lake. Corruption laced through the trees around it, but it had yet to sink into the water the way it had in the Gray, and there were no buds on the trees like the ones extending from the hawthorn or hanging in the Sullivan ruins. Harper was grateful for that small mercy as they approached the statue garden in front of the house.

  “Those are terrifying.” May gestured at the watchful eyes of dozens of half-crumbled stone animals. She looked extraordinarily out of place in her fuzzy pink jacket and her shiny platform sneakers, like a flamingo that had wandered into a herd of geese.

  “They’re heirlooms,” Harper said. True Carlisles were supposed to be able to control those animals, but Harper couldn’t control anything. Maybe nobody would ever make them move again. She sighed and led the way up the front steps, her hand skimming the splintered wooden railing. A few of Nora’s and Brett’s toys were scattered across the porch.

  The moment she knocked, she heard the familiar thump of running feet, and she knew who would be waiting for her when she pulled the door open. Not the father she had fled, but the siblings she had left behind.

  “Harper!” Nora didn’t wait for a hello before she rushed at her, wrapping her spindly arms around Harper’s knees. Harper knelt in the front hallway and hugged Nora back, fighting down a sob. Her sister was so achingly familiar—the way she smelled like Play-Doh and soap, her wispy red pigtails, the freckles etched across her nose.

  “Hey, kid,” she said softly. “I missed you.”

  “Mom said you were sick,” Brett piped up from beside her. It was her turn to hug him then. Harper was pretty sure he’d grown taller in the last few weeks. “Are you better now?”

  “Mostly,” Harper said. “I’m… working on it.”

  “Can you come home?” Nora asked hopefully. “Mitzi doesn’t know how to make oatmeal the way I like it. And Seth taught me some new words that Mom says I’m not allowed to say—”

  “Mom is probably right.” Now that Harper was here, the thought of leaving again felt as if it would split her in two. It was why she’d stayed away in the first place. “I’ll come home soon, okay? I promise.”

  It was a promise she had no idea if she could keep or not, but it seemed to make Brett and Nora happy. They were both clamoring for her to play with them when she saw a familiar pair of work boots appear in the far corner.

  Harper rose to her feet as if in a dream. Her body stiffened on instinct; the man in front of her might not remember what he had done to her, but she did. His hands around her neck. The bruises on her throat. The pure, unrestrained violence in his eyes.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Maurice Carlisle said, his words ringing across a hallway that had suddenly gone silent. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  The Carlisle kitchen usually had at least five or six people in it at a time, but with the four of them it suddenly felt too small. Harper sat anxiously between Violet and May as her father pulled out the chair directly across from her.

  “We understand that coming into your powers so late has been a shock to your system, Harper,” he said. “We’ve given you time to come to terms with that. But it’s been long enough, don’t you think?”

  Again, Harper was frozen. He was acting so normal. He didn’t know the terrible things he’d done in the name of the Beast. He didn’t know why she’d left. It hurt her more than she could articulate that her family believed her to be selfish and undisciplined, that they blamed her uncontrolled powers for her abandonment of them all.

  She’d left for her own safety, but as she sat in her kitchen, Harper realized how messed up it was that she had been driven away from her own home by someone else’s mistakes. She was not the one who deserved to be punished.

  “I’m not here to talk about coming home,” Harper choked out. “Can you please respect that?”

  “All right.” Maurice’s brow furrowed. “Just know that we love you, Harper. No matter what.”

  Harper shuddered. Beside her, May and Violet looked deeply uncomfortable. She couldn’t believe she had to do this in front of other people. In front of a Hawthorne.

  “Uh, Mr. Carlisle.” Violet’s voice was the most formal Harper had ever heard it. “If we could switch the focus of this meeting to the matter at hand.”

  “Right, right.” Harper’s father knitted his hands together atop the table. “You said there was something you needed to discuss with me, about the corruption?”

  “Yes.” May reached into her quilted cream purse and pulled out a familiar wooden box with an all-seeing eye etched into the front. “We believe you may be able to help us provide clarity on a potential solution. Would it be all right if we did a reading with you?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Maurice said hesitantly. “You really think this old man could help you?”

  “Oh, I really do.” May pulled out the Deck of Omens. Instantly, she looked much more relaxed. Harper envied the peace on her face as she clutched the cards. Her powers were part of her. She understood them, she loved them, while Harper could only think about the stone spreading from her fingers with a latent feeling of dread.

  She began to shuffle them, the cards disappearing one by one. Maurice hesitated. “Aren’t you supposed to ask them a question?”

  “I have,” May lied smoothly.

  The cards disappeared until only a few were left, and then May held out her hands for Maurice’s. “Go on.”

  He grasped them across the table, and Harper watched, her stomach twisting, as May shut her eyes and screwed up her face in concentration.

  She saw the exact moment her father remembered. His jaw tightened, the veins in his neck sticking out, and then his eyes flew open, wide with horror as they locked on hers.

  “No,” he gasped, trying to pull away from May’s grasp. “That can’t be true.”

  “It’s true.” May didn’t release her grip. “It’s all real.”

  He stopped struggling then. His head drooped in defeat until May pulled her hands away. She was panting softly, sweat beading across her forehead.

  “I’ve never done that before,” she murmured.

  “What do you mean?” Violet asked. “You’ve given me my memories back.”

  “You wanted them back.” May jerked her head at Maurice. “He didn’t.”

  Guilt and dread welled up in Harper’s stomach, a deadly cocktail of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. But she did not run from this. She’d done enough running already. Instead she watched her father as he tipped his head up and met her eyes.

  “You remember?” she asked.

  “I remember,” he said. “Harper, I’m so—”

  “Don’t apologize.” Harper barely recognized her voice. “You know that’s not enough.”

  He nodded slowly. The horror on his face was bone-deep. “You left because of me.”

  “Yes,” Harper said. “It wasn’t safe.”

  “I see.” There was so much packed into those words. They threatened to shatter Harper right there at the table, to take the tears she’d shoved down and force them to the surface. But she could not break, not yet. Right now she, May, and Violet had a job to do. And her father’s distress and guilt was something they could use.

  “We didn’t give you back your memories for this.” Harper kept he
r voice as even as she could. “We gave them back because we have some questions about the Church of the Four Deities. Are you willing to cooperate with us?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good.” Harper cleared her throat. “The Church communicated with the Beast quite a bit, yes?”

  “We did.” Maurice looked at them all, shamefaced. “We used our ritual to contact it, to allow it deeper access into our heads. It was a bastardization of the Saunders ritual that Stephen taught us.”

  “And when you talked to the Beast, did it ever mention anything about this corruption?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Yes?” Violet leaned forward, and Harper gave her a look. This was her interrogation to direct.

  “It talked about… a threat.” Maurice hesitated. “Something that the Gray kept out. Something that would hurt everyone.”

  “So the Beast didn’t create the corruption,” Harper said, unable to stop the smugness that rose in her.

  “No, I don’t believe it did. It is older than any of us—its fear went back to the very beginning of Four Paths.”

  “So, then, why now?” Harper asked. “Why would this corruption be breaking through all of a sudden?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know,” Maurice said. Harper scowled and sat back in her chair, discouraged.

  “Great,” mumbled May. “This has been super helpful.”

  “I may not know,” Maurice continued, “but the Church did have our own paperwork. There was a great deal of information in there. Some of it didn’t make any sense to us, but perhaps you could make use of it now.”

  “My mother confiscated those papers,” May said. “They didn’t contain anything valuable.”

  “She didn’t confiscate all of them.” Maurice gestured to the kitchen door. “Our most important documents were hidden in my bedroom. I can show them to you.”

  Harper’s heartbeat sped up. This might actually help them.

  For so long, she had been scared to go home because it was the place where so much had been taken from her. But now she understood that it was also the place where, against all odds, she’d survived.

  She was Harper Carlisle, betrayed and betrayer. She had endured the Gray, first by accident, then on purpose. She had won over the Hawthornes. She had made friends who would stand by her when she could not stand on her own.

  Now, staring at her father, she finally understood why she was so frightened of the power she had fought so hard to gain. She’d looked up to Maurice Carlisle her entire life, and he had used his power to intimidate, to lie, to hurt others and threaten the safety of the town. Her attack on the hawthorn tree had done exactly that.

  But that was one mistake. It did not define her or limit her unless she allowed it to. It was nothing like the guilt her father would carry for the rest of his life, the lengths he’d been pushed to by his own foolishness and greed.

  She would never be like him. Not now, not ever. Which meant there was no longer anything in this house for her to be afraid of.

  Harper pushed back her chair and rose to her feet.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The archives Maurice Carlisle was talking about were a collection of notebooks and ancient accordion folders hidden beneath a false bottom in his bedframe. Violet carted them back to the Saunders manor, where she and May set to work spreading them out on the dining room table. Harper joined them at first, but Violet could tell the last few hours had shaken her up.

  “I’m going to my room,” she said finally. “I need a break from founder stuff for a little while. Tell me if you find anything good, okay?”

  “We will,” Violet said. “Get some rest.”

  Harper nodded gratefully. Her footsteps were slow and labored as she climbed the stairs. Violet had no idea how her friend had managed to deal with her father like that. After what he’d tried to do to her, it had taken all of Violet’s willpower not to curse him out on Harper’s behalf. But Harper had told Violet beforehand that she would handle it, and somehow she had.

  “All right,” she said, turning back to May. “I guess we should divide and conquer. It’s not really that much stuff.”

  “I hope it’s actually helpful.” May looked doubtfully at the pile of papers in front of them. “This is the first day in ages I haven’t had a patrol. I don’t want to spend it wasting my time.”

  “Hey, you agreed to help us with Harper’s dad.” Violet turned to the first file and tugged out a sheet of paper. It was a blueprint of the library. “You could have said no.”

  “You know very well I couldn’t have.” May sighed and flipped open a yellowed newspaper clipping. “I consented to my mother taking the Church’s memories away because it seemed easier. But I knew deep down that it was wrong. I know I can’t fix everything she’s messed up, but I’d be the frosty bitch you all think I am if I didn’t try.”

  May said it very flippantly. Violet knew that meant she felt just the opposite.

  “I don’t think that,” Violet said, and she meant it. May was deeply private in a way even Isaac wasn’t. Maybe at first Violet had mistaken that for disinterest and even disdain. But she knew by now that it was a defense mechanism against a world that she did not trust.

  “Sure you don’t.” May cast her a glance. “I’ve heard the shit people say about my mother when they think I’m not listening. They say it about me, too.”

  “They might. I don’t.” Violet looked away from the blueprints. “I know we’ve rarely been on the same side here. But I promise, we both want the same thing: for this town to be safe.”

  “I know,” May said. “But I’m not so sure my family has ever kept it safe.”

  Violet had never heard May say something like that before. She certainly had her own doubts about the Hawthornes, about all the founders, but it was different to hear it from someone who was always so tightly wound. Her actions indicated that she didn’t approve of her mother’s conduct, but she was still helping Augusta. Or at least, Violet had thought she was.

  “What do you mean?” She tried to keep her voice gentle.

  “It’s complicated.” May’s glossy lips were parted slightly, her eyes a little unfocused, like she was watching something that only she could see. “Being Augusta Hawthorne’s daughter, I felt like I had something to prove—to show I was worthy of her consideration. Justin made our family look good, and she kept all our secrets hidden. I never really understood what she wanted from me, but I knew that if I wanted her to care about me I’d have to be an asset, too.”

  “But you read the cards. Doesn’t that make you a major asset?”

  “You’d think so.” May frowned. “She still defended Justin, though. She still lied for him. Because he knows how to make people care about him, and I… I don’t.”

  Violet remembered, in a rush, a part of Rosie that she did not like to think about. The girl who’d easily made friends while Violet ate lunch alone. The girl who let Violet tag along, sometimes out of pity. Rosie had been her best friend, her only friend, but Rosie had made a much bigger world for herself that Violet had never belonged in.

  Violet still missed her sister terribly. But she knew what it was like to feel adjacent to the spotlight.

  “Yeah, about that,” Violet said. “Justin’s my friend, but I have never understood Four Paths’ infatuation with him.”

  May snorted. “Honestly, me neither. He can’t even make toast without setting something on fire, he won’t stop using Axe, and his room smells like something died in it.”

  “Forget the corruption. This is the real mystery in town.”

  May giggled, then paused, pain rushing over her face.

  “Mystery solved, though,” she said. “They don’t like Justin anymore. And I don’t know how to be confident like him or powerful like Augusta. I can’t fill the holes they’ve left with their mistakes, but I keep trying anyway.”

  “So don’t try to be them,�
�� Violet said. “Be you. Whoever you are, whatever strengths you have.”

  “You sound like a birthday card,” May said, rolling her eyes, but Violet could tell from her tone and the slight smile on her face that her words had landed.

  They fell into a silence that was a lot more comfortable than the one before as they went back to riffling through the archives. Violet knew that Harper and Justin thought this kind of thing was boring, but for her it was a welcome break from seemingly endless patrolling. Now that her powers had an offensive use, she’d spent a lot of time in the woods, charting the spread of the corruption. It was grueling and demoralizing work that left her physically exhausted, so exhausting her brain was a nice change.

  “Huh,” May murmured beside her. Violet turned and saw that she was examining a fragment of something—a piece of paper ripped down the center. It was ancient and yellowed, so fragile it looked as if it could crumble in her hands if not for the plastic sleeve someone had thought to store it in. “Where’s the rest of it?”

  Violet’s entire body froze.

  “Hey,” she said, trying to stay calm. “Can I see that for a second?”

  “Sure.” May placed it carefully on the table. “It’s a shame it’s so torn up. Look…” She tapped the name and date in the corner. “They must have saved it because it’s from Belinda Carlisle. She was one of Thomas Carlisle’s kids—Harper’s great-great-grandmother, I think. Although I guess it’s a letter she never sent.”

  Violet stared at the scrawled script, the date. October 24, 1910.

  It was unmistakable. The handwriting was exactly the same as the fragment she’d found in the Sullivan archives.

  Her mind whirled. May Hawthorne was on her side for now, yes, but could she trust her with whatever this could be? Just a few weeks ago, the girl had been threatening to storm her house in order to yank Harper to the tree. Trust was a precious and fleeting thing in Four Paths.

  But May had also given Violet her memories back. And she was starting to open up to her—their conversation was clear evidence of that. Violet didn’t want the families to be divided the way they’d been for so many years, and that wouldn’t change if she continued to keep her cards close to her chest.