PART ONE
THE SEVEN OF BRANCHES
CHAPTER ONE
All the most important moments in May Hawthorne’s life had happened beneath the tree in her backyard.
She had come into the world there sixteen years ago; her mother, too stubborn to admit she was in labor until it was too late, gave birth all on her own as night faded into dawn on a blistering summer morning, then drove herself and her newborn daughter to the hospital.
May had touched the Deck of Omens for the first time beneath that tree. Challenged her older brother to see who could swing themselves up into its branches more quickly. Whispered a thousand secrets to the knot in the center of the trunk, forever frozen in the shape of a half-shut eye. When sleep eluded her, she would sneak outside and curl up beneath the hawthorn’s gnarled branches on a bed of moss and fallen leaves. Its deep, steady heartbeat never failed to lull her into slumber.
It was the only place in the world where she felt safe, the only place where she didn’t have to be someone’s daughter or sister to garner attention. And now, after a century and a half of watching over her family, it was gone.
May rested a hand against the hawthorn trunk that had given her family its name, warm bark turned to red-brown stone, and listened desperately for a heartbeat.
“There’s nothing,” she said, panic turning her voice raw and scratchy. “It’s dead.”
“We don’t know that for certain.” Augusta Hawthorne, May’s mother, stepped out from the other side of the tree, her feathery blond hair slicked back from her forehead. She wore black silk pajamas and a matching pair of gloves, her feet shoved hastily into work boots. The weak light of dawn seeped in behind her, turning the dark circles beneath her eyes into cavernous pits.
The tree had called her, just as it had called May. Its cry for help had woken May at the break of dawn, her heart pounding in her chest. Her throat constricted in a silent scream as she shoved her curtains aside and stared out the window. The hawthorn’s branches were frozen and stiff instead of swaying softly in the early morning breeze.
The tree had not called to Justin, her older brother. May had found her mother in the backyard, then run to fetch him. But he’d refused to even open his bedroom door, and she’d realized that he did not—could not—care about this the way she did.
Her mother cared, though. They stood in the backyard together, May pretending she didn’t see the tears glistening in Augusta Hawthorne’s eyes as they both surveyed the hawthorn’s frozen corpse.
“We’ll have to handle this,” she said now. “Just us. No sense in burdening your brother.”
And for once, May wasn’t angry with her mother for letting Justin off the hook.
When a Hawthorne turned sixteen, they asked the tree to give them access to the powers that were their family’s birthright. These powers enabled them to protect the town of Four Paths from the monster that lurked in the woods in a lifeless prison called the Gray. But Justin had failed his ritual. Which meant there were powers he would never have—and responsibilities he would never bear. Keeping him around to watch them work would only have hurt him more.
It also gave May a chance to show her mother why the tree had chosen her over him in the first place. Because she could handle everything Four Paths threw at her. Even this.
“No one can find out,” Augusta continued, staring at the branches. “If the town discovers this attack on our family, the consequences will be catastrophic.”
“An attack,” May said, the words sour in her mouth. That was the right term for it, but it still felt dangerous to say. Because this attack hadn’t come from the monster they were supposed to be defending the town from. It had come from one of their supposed allies, someone she’d once considered a friend.
“This is Harper Carlisle’s fault,” May whispered. Harper, who was immensely powerful but had never known it—until now. “She got her memories back.”
Her mother nodded grimly. “It’s the only possibility.”
May stared at the hawthorn tree, its corpse turning more red than brown in the light of the rising sun, and thought of the past few weeks. The way the roots that connected Four Paths had split apart and woven themselves back together.
From the moment she flipped over Violet Saunders’s card a month ago, a passageway had opened up in her mind, roots tunneling down a path she’d never seen before. One where everything changed. She could have stopped it, let the roots wither. But instead, May had chosen to trust her brother and Isaac, chosen to give Violet Saunders her memories back after Augusta had erased them. She’d believed it had been the right thing to do to keep the town safe.
And Violet had kept the town safe—but surely she had realized that Augusta was capable of much more. That she had used her powers against other founders, like Harper. Violet must have figured out how to return Harper’s memories, too, leading Harper to seek revenge on the family who had taken them from her. Which meant that what had happened to the hawthorn tree was May’s fault. Guilt rose in her stomach, thick and bubbling, as she wondered how long it would take for Augusta to realize what she’d done.
May had been the perfect daughter to Augusta Hawthorne for the last seven years. But Augusta’s memory was long, and May knew that she had not forgotten the time before that, when her daughter’s attention and adoration was reserved solely for her father. It didn’t matter how well May behaved herself now. Augusta would never truly trust her. And if Augusta found out about what she’d done, it would shatter the fragile peace between them—possibly forever.
“How do you think it happened?” May asked, trying to keep her voice calm and methodical.
“The Saunders family,” her mother said immediately. May sagged with relief. “I was a fool to think I could change the old Carlisle-Saunders alliance. To be happy that June—” She shook her head and pressed a gloved hand to her mouth.
“Okay, so the Saunders family might have given Harper her memories back,” May said hastily. She didn’t like people paying special attention to her when she was overcome by emotion; she could extend her mother the same courtesy. “What do we do about it? How do we fix this?”
Augusta’s face twisted with fury. “If Harper Carlisle is truly the one responsible for this,” she said, “we will see to it that she sets this right, and answers for what she’s done.”
May let the word we kindle inside her—a promise. “Yeah. We will.”
Augusta nodded approvingly. “You know what you need to do next, I assume.”
May sighed, but she inclined her head. It wasn’t that she minded using her powers—it was just that Augusta never asked her for any help beyond her abilities. They were the only part of her daughter she seemed to care about. “You want a reading.”
“Yes.” Augusta gestured toward the hawthorn. “But I want you to do it for the tree itself. Is that possible?”
May stared up at the tree, her heart heavy in her throat. Normally the smaller branches would be bending in the wind, birds chirping from above as they nestled in the copper-and-yellow leaves. But the tree was stiff and still, the wildlife gone. Perhaps they had been scared away; perhaps they had been petrified, too, for May had spent the past three weeks with Harper Carlisle, and she knew by now that Harper had no mercy. Still, May understood that it was not in the branches where the true lifeblood of a tree lay, nor was it in the knot on the trunk or its yellowing leaves.