Major Detours Read online

  Copyright © 2021 by Zachary Sergi

  Interior and cover illustrations copyright © 2021 by Karl James Mountford

  Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  Running Press Teens

  Hachette Book Group

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  @RP_Kids

  First Edition: September 2021

  Published by Running Press Teens, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Running Press Teens name and logo is a trademark of the Hachette Book Group.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBNs: 9780762471416 (hardcover), 9780762471386 (ebook)

  E3-20210715-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PART ONE: WANDERERS CHAPTER ONE AMELIA

  CHAPTER TWO CHASE

  CHAPTER THREE AMELIA

  CHAPTER FOUR CHASE

  PART TWO: COUPLED CHAPTER FIVE AMELIA

  CHAPTER SIX CHASE

  CHAPTER SEVEN AMELIA

  CHAPTER EIGHT CHASE

  PART THREE: REPENTANT CHAPTER NINE AMELIA

  CHAPTER TEN CHASE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN AMELIA

  PART FOUR: SWORN CHAPTER TWELVE CHASE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN AMELIA

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  DISCOVER MORE

  READING GUIDE

  PERILLIAN CORNER SORTING MATRIX

  THE FOUR CORNERS

  PERSONALITY PROFILE WORKSHEET

  THE PASSION EMPRESS

  THE WARRIOR EMPRESS

  THE ENTHUSED EMPRESS

  THE WISE EMPRESS

  PERSONALITY PROFILE WORKSHEET

  THE CRUSADER EMPEROR

  THE SCHOLAR EMPEROR

  THE CATALYST EMPEROR

  THE COUNCIL EMPEROR

  To Mom, Dad, Kyle, Louis, Amanda, & Everly, unconditionally.

  To Grandma Florence, forever flo.

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  This novel was written for two kinds of readers:

  Those who love control and those who love to lose control.

  So, go ahead, read every page like a novel straight through if you want;

  this was written with you in mind.

  However, if you really want the full experience, follow the interactive brick road and honor your choices while reading.

  You might just find following the rules is the fastest way to break them…

  Either way, this story now belongs to you.

  INCLUDED IN THE back of the novel is a Reading Guide to help keep track of your most important decisions. You can easily read without using this guide, but it’s there for you if you need it.

  Once your Reading Guide is complete, you can also use it to compile two Character and Tarot Personality Profiles. These determine what kind of reader you are and sort you into your unique tarot corner.

  PART ONE

  WANDERERS

  CHAPTER ONE

  AMELIA

  SODA BUBBLES FIZZLE on my tongue and french fry salt coats my fingertips. Vintage Mariah plays on the stereo and white lines fly by underneath the van. There’s nothing around but steep mountains and open road and my three best friends in the whole world.

  The next two weeks stretch ahead of us like a highway, the last two weeks before we all head off in different directions. The best two weeks of our lives, we promised. I can already feel how good it’s going to be now, just two hours in, with junk food in my gut and a sugar rush buzzing in my veins. With my eyes set on the vivid blue sky and the dry green brush, on the puffed white clouds slung above the red hills.

  Blue and green, white and red. The colors of the tarot. Or at least the colors of this tarot, our most prized possession. I really shouldn’t be holding it with my fast-food fingers, but I want to keep it close. This tarot deck, well-worn and beloved, was the inspiration for our road trip. It contains multitudes: histories and memories, mysticism and mysteries—the exact kind we hope to solve on this trip.

  “Amelia,” Chase says.

  I know what he really means: Don’t touch the deck with grubby fingers. I may have inherited the cards from my grandma, but they mean just as much to Chase.

  “Is that thing really going to beep for the entire trip?” Logan asks from the driver’s seat.

  “That thing has a name,” Cleo answers from the front passenger side. “And Toky is our official trip mascot, so you should learn to love them now.”

  Cleo dangles her keychain beside Logan’s face and the rainbow-glitter egg nearly brushes his cheek. She got that Tamagotchi back when we were freshmen, when she cracked it open and configured it to live forever. Cleo never met a rule she didn’t love to bend.

  “You’d better give Toky a kiss before they throw a tantrum.”

  “Now, now, I thought we agreed tantrums are only allowed in Charvan on Wednesdays,” I say, watching Chase bristle. His parents gifted him this ancient Volkswagen van when he turned sixteen, and he has since meticulously transformed it into our happy place. We both decided to name this mobile headquarters Charvan, after the tarot’s Chariot card. Chase would prefer we keep Charvan curbside forever, but I’m thrilled we finally get to take it out on this long-overdue adventure.

  “Remind me why I agreed to come on this trip again?” Logan sighs.

  To answer that, Chase leans forward and kisses him on the side of his neck. At first glance, it’d be easy to question how buttoned-up Chase and athleisure Logan go together, but they’ve been the perfect couple for years.

  “Oh, right, my brainiac boyfriend has me under his spell,” Logan says.

  Chase smiles, settling back into his seat. He then returns to his combination-lock journal, the little leather notebook that’s like his permanent appendage. No one, not even Logan, gets to read inside that locked journal, but I bet Chase is going over his plan for the front end of our trip. Personally, I’d rather see where the road takes us, but that’s why Chase and I work so well as best friends. He plans, I deviate. He thinks, I act. He writes, I talk:

  “Okay, I think the next junction is coming up pretty soon. Which means you all know what time it is.”

  Cleo groans from the front, but Chase snaps his journal closed.

  “It’s tarot time.”

  “I can’t believe we’re actually going through with this,” Cleo says, her short black hair swinging as she turns to face us. She sports a pair of sunglasses with green triangular lenses, one of my favorites in her legendary collection.

  “This is a perfect idea and you know it,” I answer. “Chase plans our general route, but we let the tarot cards decide the specifics. It’s perfectly balanced.”

  I reach my hand over and squeeze Chase’s. He is more like a brother to me than a best friend. Really, he
is my NRLP: my nonromantic life partner. Plus, a sometimes-maddening reminder of my complete lack of an actual romantic life partner. The two of us separating for college is still a thought I cannot process, so I focus instead on pulling the tarot cards out of their faded cardboard box. All these years later, they still have that fresh cardstock smell, with just a hint of lavender.

  “I researched two occult shops on the way out to Joshua Tree,” Chase begins, flipping through his journal. “They’re on alternate routes, so we need to decide where to stop.”

  “No, we need to let the cards decide,” I add. “Which reading configuration do you think we should use?”

  Chase furrows his dark brows, his brain thrumming like an engine.

  “Obviously we need one of the simpler configurations,” he begins. “I’d say the two-card Yin and Yang, but a classic One Card Pull will probably do.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” I answer, beginning to shuffle the cards.

  As usual, I can feel our added homemade cards brushing my palms, their laminated edges slightly thicker than the rest. Grandma’s deck has always been missing four cards, ever since she bought it at a yard sale years ago. This deck is full of gorgeous, seemingly hand-painted images, so when Chase and I were kids we crafted our own far-inferior replacement cards. We’ve been obsessed with the tarot for as long as we can remember, likely because Grandma taught us everything we know about it.

  One thing we’ve never learned, however, is where this deck really comes from. We haven’t been able to find any mention of anything like it online. Growing up, Grandma always said she’d take me and Chase on an adventure to find the missing cards once we were older, a kind of mystic road trip where the tarot would be our guide. Grandma might not be able to take that trip with us anymore, but when Chase and I were deciding how to spend the last two weeks before college, our answer was clear.

  “Any key differences between the two shops?” I ask.

  “The first is called Eastern Light Tarot and the second is Mother Earth Occult and Antiques. That gives us plenty to go off.”

  “Perfect. Cut the deck and draw the first card?” I say, holding out the stack toward Chase. “Everyone ready to see where the tarot takes us first?”

  “Am I the only one who finds this spooky?” Cleo asks, craning to watch.

  “Spooky or not, that junction is coming up in a few miles,” Logan says, glancing at the GPS. “Please let the tarot proceed with some speed.”

  Not wasting another moment, Chase pulls the top card from the freshly cut deck. He looks down at it and grins for a few seconds. When he finally lays the card down, I see why. I gasp out loud when I glimpse her green goddess eyes staring up at me.

  The Empress.

  “Well that couldn’t be clearer,” Chase says. “The Empress stands at a doorway to transformation, beckoning us to take action. But most importantly, The Empress is the Mother Nature figure. So, Mother Earth Occult it is?”

  I sigh. Chase always reads the cards like an encyclopedia, analyzing their symbols historically and isolating their meanings from context. It’s not that he’s wrong. It’s more that, deep down, I’ve always felt the tarot is more personal than that.

  Not to mention, it’s just like Chase to overlook the fact that The Empress is my personal tarot card expression.

  “Since The Empress is my card representation,” I say, “I think I should be the one to decide where we go next. She is a Queen in charge, after all.”

  Click here

  “I couldn’t agree more,” I say. “The Empress is Mother Earth. It’s the obvious direction based on the intention we set.”

  Click here

  “Is this how it’s going to be every time?” Chase whines. “I lay the foundation and you make the decision, like always?”

  “That’s not how it always is. The Empress just happens to be my card. And, for your information, I was going to choose Mother Earth Occult anyway.”

  I watch as Chase resists the urge to respond, especially since he got his way in the end. Sometimes I feel like he pushes back on purpose, just for the sake of arguing. Then again, I am indeed an Empress at heart. Spontaneous. Commanding. Demanding.

  One of the first things Grandma taught us was how to find our expressions in the Major Arcana, adding up the digits in our birthdays and combining the sum. Mine is August 1, 2001, which equals twelve. With a number that low, I then had to choose to keep twelve, The Hanged Man, or add the one and the two to make three, The Empress. For little-girl me, this choice was easy. Chase’s own birthday is October 27, 2001, which brings his final sum to four, making him The Emperor.

  It seemed so fitting back then, proof that we were the perfect complementary pair. However, the older we got, the more we realized this really meant we were more like balanced opposites.

  “The Major strikes again,” Cleo says. “Not that you two tarot wizards care about third opinions, but I agree with Mother Earth Occult as the outcome.”

  “Then it’s unanimous,” Logan adds, “because that one is closer and I really need to pee.”

  I can feel Chase bristling once again at Cleo’s comment, but he keeps quiet. Amelia and Chase, The Empress and The Emperor. Major Amelia, named after the bold and chaotic personalities of the tarot’s first half. Minor Chase, named after the precise and numbered second half, structured like a traditional deck of cards.

  Grandma always believed what really makes the tarot so universal is the way it draws strength from two opposing halves that make up a whole. Thankfully, Chase and I have always understood that our differences only make us stronger.

  At least, most of the time.

  Click here

  Chase smiles, hearing me agree. Part of me wants to challenge him with an opposing interpretation just to keep things interesting, but we have many more miles—and many more readings—to go.

  “The Empress leans into her giving side, resisting the urge to become possessive,” Chase adds. “Pulling your card is a very good sign we are exactly where we’re meant to be.”

  “Sounds like round one goes to The Minor,” Cleo says, a devilish smile on her face. Poking at any underlying tension is a never-ending source of amusement for her.

  Amelia and Chase. The Major and The Minor.

  Grandma gave us these nicknames, way back when. Major Amelia, named after the bold and chaotic personalities in the first half of the tarot. Then there’s Minor Chase, named after the numbered and precise second half of the tarot, structured like a traditional deck of cards.

  Grandma believed what really makes the tarot so universal is the way it draws strength from two opposing halves that complement a whole. She also believed it’s what makes the bond between Chase and me so unbreakable. Lucky for Chase, when his instinct is to be the commanding and authoritative Emperor, I embrace the thoughtful and nurturing side of my Empress essence.

  Still, that’s only half the story.

  Click here

  “Okay, it’s four p.m. sharp,” Logan says, pulling my attention. “You know the drill. You all get five minutes of phone time before they go back into the box.”

  I try to restrain myself from immediately reaching for my phone like some rabid animal. It was Logan’s idea to keep everyone’s phones in a shoebox during the trip so that we all remain present. The idea of detoxing off the grid for a couple weeks actually sounded lovely at first, but that was before I knew we’d be making a special stop in the hometown of my number one crush of all time.

  Chase hands out our phones and, once I get mine in my grip, my thumb scrolls furiously through the stacked notifications. I hold my breath until, finally, I find the exact DM I was hoping for.

  I swipe right and Anwar’s chiseled face lights up my screen. Everyone always says he could be a model, the tall-dark-handsome hybrid of Zayn Malik and James Dean. But Anwar is much too serious to ever consider modeling. His nose is always in a philosophy book or underneath the muscle car he restored himself. At least, that’s what social media le
ads me to believe.

  I had the biggest crush on Anwar growing up, but he moved up north before high school. I nearly fainted the first time he DM’d me this year, commenting on one of my stupid stories about watching horror movies. Since then we’ve become kind of like social media pen pals, flirt messaging about our favorite horror classics. At least, I hope we’ve been flirt messaging. The line had been pretty blurry up until a few days ago when Anwar suggested we swing our road trip through his town for an in-person visit.

  At first Chase balked at the idea of deviating from his preciously calculated plan. However, when I reminded him that he’s the one in a stable, intimacy-filled relationship and I haven’t even kissed anyone in… well, far too long, he finally agreed to find room for the added stop.

  As I read the latest messages from Anwar, my heart begins to pound.

  I see your road trip has started. Which means we get to hang soon.

  Hope you packed a sweater, it gets colder here at night than you’re used to.

  And we have lots of seaside star-gazing to attend to.

  I immediately picture Anwar lying on a blanket in the sand beside me, the sound of waves crashing in the background. Just the two of us and the salt spray and the stars. His steady hands pointing out the constellations, his shirt unbuttoned just enough to see the curves of his tan chest. Me staring at his full, round lips when he talks, the lips that would eventually connect with mine.

  I snap myself out of this daydream, however, because time is short and I need to write a response.

  I never get to see enough stars back home. Or the ocean for that matter.

  Click here

  Why would I pack a sweater when I could just use you for body heat?