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 her 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.