Page 2 of The Devil Knows Her Name

The meal was interrupted by a squawking cry from the nursery, and I got up quickly. “I’ll be right back.”

My house was not large, all rough-hewn logs and easy angles. The kitchen and living room were one space, and the upstairs loft contained only my bedroom. My washer and dryer were in the kitchen, so the only enclosed rooms were the bathroom and what the person who built the house may have planned as a nursery. I’d made it into another rehab space for the youngest and most fragile animals, while the adults were kept in the converted barn. There were a few indoor-outdoor pens that served as transition spaces, and once animals had recovered their full strength or gained independence, I released them into the sanctuary. The paperwork to register it as a proper nonprofit was sitting somewhere in my desk, half filled out and buried under a decade’s worth of junk mail, but it didn’t matter; my land was a sanctuary in the truest sense.

The cry in question had come from one of the litter of squirrels. Their eyes weren’t yet open but they were starting to become mobile, and this one had squirmed and wriggled its way off its pile of siblings and out of the makeshift nest.

I opened their bin and gathered the little lost adventurer carefully in my hand, feeling velvet skin and soft bones roll beneath my fingertips. I deposited it back into the nest and its squeaks ceased as it nosed its way among its siblings, who were still sleeping off their latest meal.

Squirrels were one of the few animals with young at this time of the year, so the nursery was otherwise empty save for one young raccoon who had come in so weak and emaciated I’d had to tube-feed him. He was strong enough to eat on his own now, and was still nibbling away at his breakfast.

I went back out to the kitchen and washed my hands. My guest had finished eating, so I cleared his plate and took down two mugs for coffee. “Cream or sugar?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

“Just black is fine.”

I set the mug in front of him and settled back into my own chair, and we talked and joked about nearly nothing for a while. I could never truly feel at ease with him, wolf that he was, but I could pretend well enough.

In a lull, he asked, “Are you worried about them getting suspicious?”

I paused, taking a sip of coffee to stall. The devil kept his eyes on the white candle in his hands and didn’t look at me, which was one of his tells; he knew when his eyes would betray too much intensity.

“Who?” I asked.

He made a vague, impatient gesture in the general direction of the village. “Your neighbors. The town. Everyone. You used to expand the sanctuary every year.”

My defensiveness rose again and refused to be brushed away this time. “Yes, I used to grow it every year, and now I have to maintain everything I’ve taken responsibility for. If I keep taking on too much too fast, the magic won’t hold.”

“So it has nothing to do with them, then?” Again that dismissive gesture toward the town. “You’re just not strong enough?”

There was a long, tense beat of silence. My hands were white-knuckled around my mug; I dropped them into my lap, stretched my fingers, reached for my magic even though it would surely fail against him.

“Why?” I asked. “Why do you care?”

He dragged his hand through his hair, pinched the bridge of his nose—an incredibly human gesture of frustration. “You know why, Tess. I want to help you.”

“But for a price.”

“Not more than you’ve already paid.”

“But more than it’s worth. You want me to give up the sanctuary, my home, just to have the burden of protecting it off my shoulders? Where would I go?”

“I enjoy your company, Tess—you could stay with me. I could make this a real Eden, and you could be its caretaker.”

“Until you get bored, or resentful, or someone else makes you a better offer.”

“That’s an unkind assumption.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So I should rely on your benevolence?”

He inhaled as if to reply, but I saw the smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. He glanced away, catching his bottom lip in his teeth to keep from laughing, and despite the tension knotting my shoulders, I found myself staring.

At last he stood. I rose with him automatically, trying not to lose ground even though he was a head taller than me. “Thank you for breakfast,” he said. “Apples are my favorite, you know.”

“I know.”

That made him smile, and some of the tension eased from me until he said, “I’ll be around, if you change your mind.”

He left, making his way back down the stone path and out into the meadow, and I watched until he disappeared into the woods.

The sun was setting when my friends began to arrive, and I’d put the devil and his offer out of my mind. My table groaned under the weight of baked squashes, homemade bread, platters of grapes and berries, pumpkin pie, and bottles of wine and cider. I’d lit almost every candle I owned—some of them with runes scratched into the wax, some of them dressed in knotted thread—and the entire house glowed against the gathering gloom of night and winter. My mother and grandmother always made this night feel truly magical, and as desperately as I’d tried to re-create that feeling after they passed, I never managed to do it until I found friends.