Page 38 of The Devil Knows Her Name

“Abnormal teeth development,” I said finally. “Pretty boring.”

“Okay, well, if you need anything else, you know where to find me.”

Other than a few one-off lines about deer becoming omnivorous when food was especially scarce, none of the books mentioned anything about eating meat. I turned to the encyclopedia of diseases, reading through them carefully for any mention of teeth abnormalities, biting, or even vampirism, but nothing I saw felt like it could be the answer. Biting itself was a normal behavior; it was the way she’d bitten me that was abnormal, especially for a grazing animal. Even predators didn’t bite that way unless they were intending to maim.

You’re trying to find a natural cause for an unnatural thing, the voice in my head said. You’re not going to find one.

I pushed the thought aside. Perhaps my barrier around the hex bag had failed—it could’ve been affecting her more than I’d realized, and she either wanted it gone or it drove her to abnormal behavior. I’d trusted that my barrier had prevented the influence of the hex bag from spreading through the house, but it had been a long time since I cast one. If I’d failed to properly activate the salt or there had been a gap in the iron, some of the negative energy I’d meant to pour into the hex bag could have escaped, and the fawn had been standing at my elbow almost the entire time.

For the hell of it, I turned to the computer and repeated my search. My query about teeth brought up mostly fanged deer, a variety of species across Asia that grew something close to tusks. There were also some gnarly jawbone malformations in adult whitetails, but nothing about fawns growing adult teeth at just a few days old.

I switched my search to meat-eating and found more. There were multiple recorded instances of deer, elk, and moose eating meat, everything from snakes to live goslings to human remains. The behavior seemed isolated and the theories around it vague; some articles suggested calcium deficiency while others proposed it was the beginning of an evolution toward a generalist diet. The one thing every account agreed on was that it was weird and unsettling. There was, once again, no mention of the behavior in fawns.

I was just clicking away from a photo of a doe apparently eating roadkill when I sensed someone stop behind me. I hurriedly closed the browser and spun in my chair like a teenager caught looking at porn. Evelyn was standing behind me, her expression uncertain.

“Hi, Tess,” she said stiffly. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

I guessed from her tone that she had a bone to pick with me; the last time she’d spoken to anyone in the group with anything but her fluttery enthusiasm, it had been to Georgie about dropping out of the Main Street committee, and that spat had lasted more than a month. I stood so I didn’t have to stare up at her while she berated me.

“Hi, Evelyn,” I said evenly. “How are things?”

“Good, good,” she answered. “Paul made it to Virginia in one shot, if you can believe that. I hate long car trips without a break. I’d rather take my time and enjoy the ride, you know?”

I didn’t know; by the time I’d been able to get a driver’s license and buy a vehicle, I’d already been tethered to the sanctuary. “He seemed pretty anxious to be gone and close this chapter,” I said, thinking of the downed apple tree behind the house. “I guess I’m not surprised.”

“I was hoping right up until the end that he’d change his mind. It’s not like he had to farm if he didn’t want to—he could’ve done exactly what his parents are doing. Everyone wants a barn wedding these days, and that property is so beautiful.”

“That’s true,” I answered, guarded. She was taking her time getting around to what she wanted to say to me, which only made me warier.

“Well, no point in going on about it now, I suppose. How are things with you?”

“Pretty much the same as always—more calls than usual, but nothing I can’t handle.”

“That’s good. Hey, listen—”

Here it comes, I thought grimly.

“I know that we’re decades past women always being expected to marry, and I know you’re an independent girl who’s not afraid to buck tradition, and I’ve always admired that about you. You’re a girl after my own heart, and I wouldn’t change a thing about you, but I just wanted to—wanted to remind you that around here, that’s still seen as kind of, you know, rebellious. People pay more attention to what you do, you know? And they’re always more willing to be critical; I know that better than anyone. So just something to be aware of.”

I paused, utterly confused. I knew why Evelyn should know this better than anyone; she’d never married, and ever since she’d started hitching rides with Georgie, there had been rumors about them. I had nothing so scandalous in my life, save the devil.

“Okay,” I said finally. “What is this about, exactly?”

“Nothing specific, really. Just, you know, in general. Especially when we have new folks in town, we want to put our best foot forward.”

“I don’t disagree with you, but it’s kind of hard to make sure I do that when I don’t know what I did wrong in the first place.”

“Well, I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Evelyn,” I snapped, my patience at the breaking point. “Will you just fucking say what it was?”

There was a breath of unbearable silence, the weight of yellow books pressing down on us. Evelyn’s face tightened, her mouth drawing into a sour little pucker that reminded me of Rachel.

“David Abdee,” she said. “The pastor’s son. Someone saw him getting out of your truck.”

“ ‘Someone’? And also, is that illegal?”

“No, Tess, it’s not illegal, and like I said, I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong. But it doesn’t look right. You’re a young, unmarried woman who lives alone, and if people see a boy like that getting out of your vehicle, they’re going to make assumptions.”