The Deck of Omens

by Christine Lynn Herman

  Thank you, it whispered, and then a roar of screaming, howling wind swept it away.

  When May opened her eyes again, the four of them were crouched in the center of the town square, their bodies braced against a storm that had finally passed.

  They moved apart from one another, all staring with wide, silent eyes at the world around them.

  The tree stump was gone. The sky was cloudy and beautiful above their heads, and the air was brisk and fresh, the smell of decay nowhere to be found.

  May got to her feet and stared at the trees that still coiled around the seal, at the silver veins already beginning to wink out of view.

  Something drifted down from the air above, a single fleck of white. May reached her hand out automatically to catch it, gasping as it dissolved on her palm, wet and cold. And then the relief came, the understanding that it was truly over, it was done.

  Because it was not ash falling from the sky. It was snow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  It surprised Violet more than anything else how quickly people came back. She’d wondered if the evacuation would be enough to turn Four Paths into a permanent ghost town, but it wasn’t. People were stubborn about things like home, even when home was a place where the trees still looked a bit too much like flesh from the right angles and the smell of rot sometimes wafted mysteriously across the town square.

  It surprised her, too, how much she missed her powers. They had only been part of her life for a few months, but she’d grown used to them, and although she’d never asked for them, she still felt their absence. Much like everything else in Four Paths, they’d grown on her.

  Four Paths High School opened again within a week, as did all the businesses on Main Street. And the corrupted people got better, even Justin. Violet was well acquainted with everyone’s progress due to her own elongated stay at the county hospital, where a seemingly endless string of medical professionals commented on how strange it was that two such brutal puncture wounds hadn’t done more damage to her vital organs. Violet just smiled and nodded.

  She had visitors—Justin, who was also in the hospital and extremely bored, and Harper, May, and Isaac, who all talked over each other to update her on what was happening in town.

  But it was Juniper’s visits that mattered the most. When Violet had awoken in the hospital for the first time, the sight of her mother sitting at her bedside, her face creased with concern, had been a massive relief.

  “I’m sorry about our argument,” Juniper said after she updated Violet on everyone else; Juniper, Augusta, Gabriel, and Harper’s siblings had been incapacitated by Richard during the battle, but he had not done any lasting damage. Violet understood the thinly veiled panic in her mother’s voice now. Their reconciliation was so recent—it was hard for her to fight with Juniper and not worry that it would return them to the way things had been before. “And I’m so glad you’re safe. I nearly turned back from the Hawthorne house to go look for you when I realized how dangerous it was outside.”

  “The same thing happened to me,” Violet said, remembering Harper and Isaac refusing to let her charge into danger. “I’m sorry, too. About the way I reacted. It was just hard, knowing there was something so massive you hadn’t told me about Four Paths.”

  “I wish I had been brave enough to tell you the truth a little earlier,” Juniper said. “But it’s all done now.”

  Violet hesitated. “Not quite.”

  The hospital stay had given her time to think this through. The Beast was gone, and so was Richard. The truth Juniper had kept hidden for so long could fade away if they let it, crumble as easily as a bit of iridescent ash.

  But Violet had learned by now that the most dangerous thing in Four Paths had never been the Beast, or the Gray. It had been everyone’s secrets.

  “How?” Juniper asked.

  “I want us to tell the town the truth they’ve always deserved,” she said. “About what really happened with the founders.”

  “Violet.” Juniper’s lips pursed. “You know we can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Violet asked.

  “Because someone else might try to do what our ancestors did,” her mother said. “You four were altruistic enough to give it up. But the world isn’t like that.”

  “I know it isn’t,” Violet said. “But we have to be. We’ve always been meant to guard the forest, right? I don’t see why that has to change. But we can’t guard it by lying about it. We guard it by being honest about how our ancestors messed up. Even if it makes us look bad. Even if they can’t forgive us.”

  Because Juniper was right that there would be more people like Richard. More people like the Church of the Four Deities. But there would be more people like Violet and Isaac and May and Harper and Justin, too, she hoped. If they told the story right.

  “It isn’t going to be easy,” Violet continued, squeezing her mother’s hand. “But even if they hate us, if it means this never happens again, it’s worth it.”

  “I don’t know where you get that bravery from, Violet.”

  “I do,” Violet said softly, the wounds in her stomach aching as she stared at the woman who had somehow walked through hell and come out the other side.

  Violet spent three days being treated for her wounds and another night under observation before they let her go home. To her surprise, Augusta Hawthorne had taken to Violet’s proposal more easily than Juniper had. By the time Violet went back to school, Augusta had issued a public statement describing the facts of what had occurred, then promptly tendered her resignation as sheriff of Four Paths.

  With the announcement came endless unwanted attention—stares, rumors, and strange DMs. Violet did her best to ignore it all. She had other things to focus on, like her recovery. But it did not escape her notice how much time Augusta had started to spend at the Saunders manor.

  And so she was radically unsurprised when her mother sat her down the week after she came home from the hospital and launched into an awkward speech about changes.

  “I know it’s been quite a year for us,” Juniper said, “and I have promised you honesty, so in the interest of total transparency…”

  “I know you and Augusta are dating again,” Violet said, which earned her a sigh and a rather rueful look from Juniper. “What? You expected me not to notice that she’s basically moved in here?”

  “I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” Juniper said, wringing her hands. “I know that we have a lot of complicated history between us, and I know that the two of you haven’t always gotten along.”

  Violet had been thinking about that a lot lately. May had shared the full truth of Augusta’s past, and while it was not an excuse, it still felt like valuable perspective. Juniper and Augusta had both lost so much. She was glad on some level that they’d found each other. She was leaving for college in a few months anyway, and she would not get in the way of the happiness that they had fought so hard for. As long as Augusta behaved herself, anyway.

  “Mom, it’s cool,” she said gently. “Just tell her to stop trying to cook for us, because she’s really bad at it.”

  And that was that.

  There was one more thing, though. Something Violet had been studiously avoiding, something she had grown immensely gifted at shoving into the back of her mind. But it would not disappear forever, and it found her shortly after she talked to Juniper about Augusta as she sat at the piano, fiddling with the final notes of the Gray Sonata. She had originally planned for the last movement to be loud and furious, emphasizing the minor key before fading into an uneasy silence. But Violet had decided, now that she knew the whole story, that it was better to include a key change. To resolve the chords back to major, just for one brief moment—and then bring the minor chord back in again.

  She didn’t want all of this to be forgotten. But she did hope that it could be forgiven.

  Orpheus was curled up on the couch beside the piano bench, sleeping. She’d worried about him, but although the tethe
r between them was gone, he seemed utterly fine. Whatever magic they had given back to the forest was clearly enough to sustain him—he belonged to Four Paths, and he seemed to enjoy the kind of second life it had given him, one where he was the permanent lord and master of the Saunders manor.

  She was playing with the chord progression, thinking of those last few moments where the Gray had disintegrated around her, when Isaac walked into the music room. The wounds in her side ached as the November sunlight streamed in through the window behind her, emphasizing the sharpness of Isaac’s nose, the curve of his cheekbones, the way his undercut had grown back into a messy nest of curls behind his ears.

  “Hey,” he said quietly. “I think we should talk.”

  Violet’s heart stuttered in her chest.

  She and Isaac had shared so much with each other over the last few months. But she’d mistaken human decency for romance before—she wouldn’t do it again.

  So Violet had decided to give herself some space. To get over him. She had thanked his brother profusely for saving her life, of course, and she was polite to Isaac in person. But she’d deliberately stayed distant. Because it was the only way for her to handle this that didn’t end in humiliation.

  “You could’ve called or something,” she said.

  “You’re avoiding my calls. And my texts. I’ve been forced to resort to talking in person.” Isaac walked over to the bench and peered over her shoulder. “You finished the sonata?”

  “Sort of.” Violet frowned at it. “It still needs a lot of work.”

  “Still better than anything I could do.” He was so close to her. She could feel the edge of his flannel brushing her shoulder. “How’s the recovery? Are you doing all right?”

  “The doctors say the wounds will probably scar,” Violet said, shrugging away from him and flipping the sheet music binder closed. “But I’ll be okay.”

  “Scars aren’t so bad,” Isaac said, sitting on the piano bench beside her. She had noticed while trying very hard not to pay attention to Isaac that he’d started displaying his own scar. Not flaunting it, exactly, but not hiding it either. “Better than the alternative, anyway.”

  “You mean death,” Violet said flatly. “You can just say it, Isaac. I think we’re both familiar enough with it by now.”

  Isaac’s smile was rueful. “This is kind of what I wanted to come here for, actually.”

  “To talk about death?”

  “No. To thank you. You’ve made me think differently about the ways I’ve been handling my trauma over the last few months. It’s changed me for the better, I think. And I also wanted to tell you that I get it. Why you’re avoiding me, I mean.”

  Violet turned her head sharply, horrified. She could feel her cheeks flushing. “You do?”

  “Yeah. I put so much on you. You handled it really well, but, like, of course you need a little while to process it. Everything that happened to me… it’s a lot for people to deal with. I mean, I’m still figuring out how to deal with it myself. I found a therapist, and I’m talking to Gabriel about coming with me. But I have a long way to go. Anyway.” He shrugged. “I’m rambling. The point is, I understand why you took a step back.”

  He was so off base, so adorably, absurdly off base that Violet couldn’t help herself. A laugh slid up her throat.

  “Holy shit, Isaac,” she said. “You think I’m running away from you because of your baggage? Do you realize how much baggage I have, too? I’m glad you understand how intense the stuff you told me was, and you’re getting outside help for it. But I also know what a big deal it was for you to tell me any of it at all.”

  “Oh,” Isaac said. “I just thought… I mean, I didn’t want to burden you.”

  “You are not a burden.” Violet turned to face him. She hadn’t meant to hurt him with this; she saw now that she had, that she’d miscalculated. “There is nothing you can say to me that will scare me away. I promise.”

  “Nothing?” he said softly, and suddenly he was looking at her with a fresh intensity, with something that looked a lot like nerves.

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay,” said Isaac, the next words tumbling out of him in a rush, like a dam breaking. “Because I want to ask you out, but I don’t know how. I just know that I want to do it right, and it freaks me out thinking how easily I could mess it all up.”

  The ache in Violet’s chest transformed into a warm, incredulous rush of affection. Her mind rushed through the last few months, and for the first time, she told herself a different story. One where two people slowly let down their walls for each other, even though they’d been through enough heartache to last a lifetime. One where they figured out how to heal. One where they were both scared, but all that meant was that this mattered to both of them.

  “I have an idea,” she whispered, “for how you could do it right.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah.” Maybe someone else would have played it coy, but Violet had never been particularly subtle. And if Isaac was going to date her he would have to deal with that, so there was no point in trying to hide it. No point in trying to pretend to be anybody else. “You could stop freaking out and just kiss me.”

  Isaac’s mouth widened into a sharp, incredulous grin. “Well. If you insist.”

  He leaned across the piano bench. The kiss was a slow, gentle thing at first; Violet felt the tension in both of them, the fear of doing it all wrong.

  The past few months in Four Paths had been a time of endings, of letting go. And in the wake of everything, Violet decided that she was tired of being scared. Of guarding herself from happiness.

  So she gave herself permission to sink into the moment, his hands on her back, her arms curling gently around his neck, as, all around them, the room filled with the warm golden light of the sun setting behind the trees.

  It was time, at last, to start building something new.

  They met at the lake, which Harper supposed was fitting, even though it was early December and the weather was not cooperating. The water was beginning to freeze over, a thin crust of ice forming at the edges of the lakebed that wouldn’t thaw until spring. But outside was preferable to the Carlisle cottage. Slowly but surely, things were improving with Harper’s siblings, and she was overall glad she’d come back. However, one of the things Harper really hadn’t missed about home was sharing a bedroom. Privacy was a complete impossibility in there, and she refused to have this talk with Justin in front of her siblings, who had a terrible habit of making kissing noises at them.

  “Too important to text me, huh?” The tip of Justin’s nose was already turning red from the cold, and a giant gray scarf was wrapped around his chin. Harper was still grateful, every time she looked at him, that the silver veins and iridescent tears were gone.

  But today looking at him didn’t make her feel relieved—it filled her with dread.

  She took a deep breath and spat the words out. “I got in.”

  Harper hadn’t been expecting it so soon, but when she’d gotten home from school that afternoon it had been waiting in her inbox. Early admission to her top-choice SUNY—and a hefty merit aid package to boot.

  Justin’s face transformed immediately. He grinned, wrapping her in a hug. “That’s amazing!”

  “It is,” Harper agreed, drawing back. “But I’m going to accept. And it means…”

  His face changed. “It means you’re leaving this summer.”

  She nodded.

  It had been a strange few weeks. She and Justin had mutually agreed to simply focus on their own families in the immediate aftermath of the Gray dissolving. It had been necessary in order to survive the increased scrutiny of the town, and Harper had been determined to keep her promise to Seth and Mitzi to be an actual part of their lives.

  The town knew what had happened now. She had braced herself for infamy again, but to her surprise they seemed more stunned than anything else. The fact that the original founders had lied sent shock waves through all of Four
Paths, and Harper had noticed the changes not because of how they treated her and her friends, but how they treated the town itself.

  The founder portraits in the town archives had been put in deep storage, the lobby placed under renovation. A new sheriff was appointed, one with no connection whatsoever to the founders. Mayor Storey had sponsored a cleanup effort where people helped clear the debris from the woods, now that it was no longer contagious. A copse of trees still grew around the founders’ seal, their roots slowly breaking apart the stone. Everyone seemed too frightened to try to move them.

  Harper had watched all of this with the full knowledge that she was letting life happen around her, that she wasn’t grasping the freedom she’d fought so hard to earn. And then Violet and Isaac decided to start dating, and college decisions happened, and she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer.

  “The thing is,” she said now, “I know it feels like a long time away. But I also know that you’re staying.”

  Justin nodded. “I can’t leave May and my mom.”

  “I know,” Harper said. And hesitated.

  She wanted him and he wanted her. That much was clear; that much had been clear for a long time. But Harper was also very tired of Four Paths. She’d been thinking for the last few weeks about how good it would be to leave all of this behind, now that it was actually possible. It was over now, and she was ready to go. To find out who she was in a world without founders and beasts and blood.

  She could not do that if she was dating Justin Hawthorne. He would always be as much a part of this town as the tree he’d been named after, and she would never ask him to be anything else. But she would not make herself someone different for him, either.

  And although she knew they had an expiration date, that kissing him now would only force them to have this conversation in the not-so-distant future, part of her wanted to do it anyway.

  She steadied herself and thought again of how much they’d both survived. It was better if they did this now, before it could hurt even more than it already would.