It stopped the rest of them midsentence, turned all eyes to her. Harper pushed back her chair and stood up, her heart thumping in her chest.
She knew now what she wanted: the same thing she’d wanted before she’d gotten her powers back. Before her dad had ensnared her in his reckless plot. Before Justin Hawthorne had wormed his way back into her life.
She wanted to get out of this town and never look back.
But it was not as simple as running away. Her siblings—Seth and Mitzi, Brett and Nora, her baby brother Olly—all of them deserved to grow up somewhere safe. So she would have to make it that way, a town that would never hurt her family the way it had hurt her. If she left Four Paths with no loose ends, it would never have any reason to pull her back.
“I choose both of you,” Harper said calmly. “And I also choose neither of you. Sheriff Hawthorne, I want your training. You took my memories and sent me into the Gray because you knew I was powerful. So teach me how to use that power, but know that I’ll only use it for the town—not for you. And Juniper, if you’ll have me, I’d like to keep staying here for now and train with you as well. You both have things to teach me, and you both have reasons to use me—which means I might as well use you back. I want to help keep this town safe. I want to fix the hawthorn tree. But I’m not fighting for either of you—I’m fighting for myself.”
The two women looked at each other, both still frowning. But Harper didn’t care about them. She cared about the small nod Violet shot her across the table. And she cared about the smile stealing across Justin’s face, like a secret he knew he shouldn’t be telling.
“I think,” Justin said, trying and failing to contain his grin, “Harper makes an excellent point.”
“I agree,” Violet said primly.
Juniper’s lips twitched. “I suppose it is your choice.”
Augusta’s mouth was a hard-edged line, but when Justin nudged her with his elbow, she spoke. “Fine.”
And Harper felt victory course through her as Justin herded his mother away from the table and toward the Saunders manor’s front door.
Ezra Bishop hadn’t changed at all in the seven years since May had seen him last. He had the same graying blond hair, curling gently where it met his ears. The same dusting of stubble on his cheeks. The same lupine, sharply angled face, which was now turned toward her, assessing her like a puzzle he’d been trying to solve from behind his wire-rimmed glasses.
They’d exchanged awkward hellos at the entrance to the restaurant—a pizza place May had found a thirty-minute drive away from Four Paths, far enough that nobody would recognize either of them. Since then, they’d attempted small talk that had lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, May stirring too many sugar packets into her coffee, Ezra simply watching her. She wasn’t sure what either of them was waiting for. She was starting to wonder with every second that passed if this had all been a terrible idea.
“I’ll confess, I’m not quite sure how to do this,” he said at last, from across the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”
His words were casual, but May could feel the undercurrent of despair in them.
“Funny,” she said. “Since the last time I saw you, you promised to come back.”
He winced. “I know. And I assure you, I had every intention of keeping that promise.”
“So what changed?”
Ezra wrapped a large, square hand around his own coffee cup, looking uncomfortable. “I was told that if I came back, I wouldn’t be wanted.”
May didn’t have to ask who had told him such a thing.
“Of course she said that to you,” she said sharply. “Why on earth did you believe it?”
The words rang out a bit too loudly across the mostly empty restaurant. The only other patrons—an older couple with matching baseball caps—turned their heads.
“You and Justin were very young when I left,” Ezra said, lowering his voice. “It was painful, but I knew that when I was around your mother, we brought out the worst in each other. It didn’t seem healthy for you both to see us acting like that. So as the years passed, I grew convinced it would be best for us all if I left the three of you alone.”
“You mean you gave up,” May said hollowly. This wasn’t the father she remembered—this sad, quiet man who was looking at her now with shame in his eyes.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “I suppose I did.”
May hadn’t anticipated this, but it made a strange sort of sense. Ezra had left town for good because Augusta had finally driven him away. But Augusta had made a critical mistake: She hadn’t considered how May would feel, or what she’d want.
May reached into her purse and pulled out one of the old photographs she’d kept in her box. It was the only one she had of just the two of them. She was maybe four or five, wearing pink overalls and a gap-toothed grin. Ezra’s hands were wrapped around her waist, lifting her up so she could grasp the bottom branches of the hawthorn tree.
She slid the picture onto the table and tapped her father’s smiling face.
“Maybe you gave up,” she said. “But I didn’t.”
For a moment, there was silence. Ezra stared at the photograph, and May did not let herself breathe, did not let herself hope. Then Ezra smiled in a way that May had almost forgotten—teeth bared and wide, a smile identical to Justin’s creasing in his cheeks.
It was a smile that meant the man she’d come here to find was still in there.
“You said you needed my help,” he said slowly, and May nodded, hope flaring in her chest.
She had contacted Ezra for reasons beyond simply wanting to reconnect. He’d been a PhD student at Syracuse University, doing research for a dissertation on local theological movements, when he’d met Augusta Hawthorne during her undergrad years. She didn’t know how he’d wormed the truth about Four Paths out of her mother, only that he’d become just as fascinated with the town as the founders were. One of her most prominent childhood memories was Ezra’s multiyear attempt to catalog the founders’ archives in the town hall.
“I don’t know if you abandoned your research when you left,” she said. “But there’s something dangerous happening in Four Paths, and if you’re willing to brave Mom’s wrath, I think you might be able to help me stop it.”
Ezra leaned forward as she explained the corruption she’d seen to him, detailing the strangeness of it, the way it had disappeared, and her determination to get to the bottom of it. His face was alight with interest.
“I know you’re scared to come back,” she finished. “But I really do need help. So what do you say?”
Their waitress appeared at the table, sliding two slices of pizza toward them before silently backing away. Ezra eyed the half-congealed cheese before him with distrust before meeting her gaze. His gaze was thoughtful and solemn.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
May nodded, satisfaction flickering through her. “Good.”
She tried not to think about the other reason she wanted him to come back. The secret she’d kept for a long time, about just how much Ezra had uncovered during his research. He could help her understand exactly what she’d done beneath the hawthorn tree. He could help her figure out this new dimension to her power.