But it wasn’t just about control. It was about the Hawthornes controlling her. Harper didn’t trust them, didn’t trust any of this. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure she had any better options.
And there was that part of her that still kindled when she thought of him. A foolish, terrible part of her that was impossible to completely ignore.
“I’ll think about it,” she said slowly, and got to her feet.
May had stormed straight home from her encounter with Harper Carlisle, determined to make her mother understand why this was a potential threat. Why May deserved to be listened to.
Unfortunately, Justin had managed to worm his way in first. He’d called Augusta and told her whatever poisoned, twisted version of the truth best suited him. Which meant that May had returned to a furious parent who was pacing outside the reading room, collecting her thoughts before she came inside to yell at them.
May wanted to scream. She wanted blood under her nails and dirt on her fingers. She wanted to reach across her family’s scarred wooden table in the reading room and rip the smug smile off her brother’s face.
Instead, she forced the emotion out of her voice until there was only ice left.
“You gave Harper her memories back,” May said to Justin. It was not a question. “She turned our tree to stone, and you’re still crawling back to her.”
Justin flinched. “My personal life is none of your business.”
“It is when it leads to a direct attack on our entire family,” May said, shaking her head.
“What our mother did was wrong,” Justin said hoarsely. “I wanted to fix her mistake. Isn’t that what you wanted to do with Violet?”
He gave her a pointed look, and panic swept over her. She’d hoped that he had missed Harper’s allusions to what she had done during their argument, but clearly he hadn’t.
The door creaked open before May could respond, and Augusta swept in, her gigantic mastiffs trailing behind her. Brutus’s black jowls quivered as he let out a sharp, accusatory bark in her direction, and May felt a stab of hurt. Even the dogs were pissed at her.
She turned to Augusta, horror dawning on her as she saw the disappointment in her mother’s gaze—directed not at Justin, but at her.
“You told her,” she breathed, rounding on her brother. “You told her—”
“Enough yelling,” Augusta said calmly, sitting beside both of them. “Yes, May, your brother told me that it seems there’s some kind of rumor going around that you were the reason behind Violet’s memories returning. Is that true?”
Faced with direct confrontation, there was nothing May could do but nod, ashamed.
Augusta’s jaw twitched. “Very well. Yet again, you’ve both deceived me. Justin—you’re grounded, effective immediately. No cross-country. No parties. And certainly no patrols.”
Justin tensed, but he nodded. “And what about Harper potentially joining us?” he asked, jutting out his chin.
“Juniper Saunders and I will be meeting shortly to discuss the situation. You are invited to participate, if you wish. Now.” Her gaze turned toward May. “Leave. I need to talk to your sister.”
This was barely a punishment, May realized. Justin was getting rewarded for his transgressions, as per usual, while she was about to be eviscerated for hers.
She met her mother’s eyes and waited for the ax to fall.
“Oh, May.” Augusta’s face was so similar to May’s, and yet May still struggled to read it—she had mastered control of it long before May was even born. “The future of this town has rested on my shoulders for a long time. Soon it will rest on yours, and I need to know you’re capable of holding it all together.”
May heard the unspoken doubt behind those words. It was the same undercurrent of distrust that ran between her and Augusta constantly, because she would never be her mother’s first choice, and neither of them would ever forget it.
“I am capable,” May said, exhausted.
“You didn’t tell me you could override my powers.” The words were soft, dangerous. “Why?”
May hesitated. There were so many reasons why she’d kept her ability a secret, and none of them felt safe to say aloud.
“I wasn’t sure I could,” she said at last. “Violet was… a test. And after everything that happened with her, I wasn’t sure how you’d react to the news that I was behind it.”
This was a blatant lie. May knew her mother would react poorly to news of what she could do, because it would make her a threat to Augusta. Because she’d spent her entire life seeing how her mother dealt with threats. Because already, it felt like anything she did would be scrutinized and punished, and she did not want to give her mother any more reasons to watch her closely.
Her palms itched, and she was reminded yet again that her mother could never know what she’d done to change the future—or the secret that lurked beneath all her others, in the wounds on her hands that had long since faded away.
“I’m concerned about you, May,” Augusta said. “You’re fixating on this corruption you insist you saw in the forest and on Harper instead of focusing on patrol and damage control after the Church of the Four Deities incident.”
“What do you mean, insist I saw?” May’s stomach churned with unease.
“I sent deputies to the location you and Justin showed me. There was no evidence whatsoever of what you two claimed to have seen.”
“I have photos—”
“Enough.” Augusta’s voice left no room for a rebuttal. “I need some time to come up with the proper punishment for your deception. But for now, I want you to simply follow orders. Go on your patrols. No side missions—and no questioning. Understood?”
The word felt like a stone in May’s throat. “Understood.”
Back in her bedroom, May collapsed onto her pristine white bedsheets and released a strangled yell into her pillow.
“You’re all alone,” she whispered, curling into a ball on the bed. She hated how broken it sounded, how true it was.
No matter how hard she tried to be Augusta’s perfect daughter, she would mess it up. She would never make her mother happy.
Which meant she had nothing left to protect anymore. Nothing left to lose.
May sniffled and rolled over on her side, an idea coalescing in her mind.
Then she scrambled off the bed and tugged out the lowest drawer of her vanity, sliding away a false bottom. After her father had left, her mother had eradicated every trace of him she could find. The small box May had hidden in her vanity contained the few items she’d saved from Augusta’s purge.
Several photographs—her father hadn’t liked pictures, but May had managed to save a couple of faded snapshots of his blond hair and thin-rimmed glasses. A heavy silver watch. A folded flannel shirt, musty now, although May imagined that some remnant of her father’s whiskey-and-oak smell still clung to it.
And—scribbled in pen on a yellowed scrap of paper—a phone number.
Her father had pressed it into her hand the day he’d left, and she had kept it all these years, waiting for him to reach out.
She was done waiting.
May fumbled for her phone and dialed the number.