Page 45 of The Devil Knows Her Name

She did, staying so near my leg that I bumped her several times. One by one, I shut the other animals outside to give their stalls a thorough cleaning, hoping that a few hours of work would sweat out the remaining belladonna, and the fawn showed the other animals only the most cursory interest. She sniffed their water bowls and food dishes and toys, and once she picked up the stuffed bed I left for one of the raccoons and flapped it about, but there was no sign of the flat, predatory glare I saw the night she bit me. Of course, I had bigger things to worry about now, but I was doing everything I could to distract myself.

It was only when I tripped over the lip of the door and found myself on hands and knees in the aisle that I remembered I hadn’t eaten or drank anything that wasn’t poison in more than a day. I was too exhausted to stand, so I propped myself against the wall to rest for a moment, finally registering the shaking in my limbs.

Not for the first time, I wondered when I had become so weak, when the whole world of magic had narrowed to hinge on a single person who opposed me. Also not for the first time, I wondered if I’d made a mistake refusing the devil’s offer.

But then it would be his, I thought. He wants to own it, just like the pastor does. You would save the sanctuary just to lose it.

I pressed my head back against the wood to ward off the looming prospect of the sanctuary’s destruction. Nothing had happened yet, and I was not helpless; whatever was coming, I could still stop it. I hadn’t resisted the devil just to lose to a man.

When I’d recovered a little strength, I heaved myself up and went slowly to the house. The fawn followed me inside, and without any energy to spare, I didn’t protest. I had no appetite—another side effect of the poison I’d forgotten—but I forced myself to drink a mug of water and eat a slice of bread. I stank of sweat and smoke, and blood rimed the inside of my nostrils and the back of my teeth.

After a few minutes, I realized the kitchen stool was even less comfortable than usual, and I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my phone. There was a hairline crack in the corner of the screen and the battery was completely dead, so I fumbled for the charger and plugged it in. Moments later, it began to buzz almost nonstop, and a flood of delayed voicemails came through.

Colors fuzzed at the edges of my vision as I fought back overwhelmed tears. My barn was nearly full already, and I was in no fit state to drive or handle stressed wildlife. And yet, the last thing I needed was to give Chief Broder a reason to go running to the board about my negligence or come snooping around on the pretense of a welfare check.

There were sixteen voicemails. I refused to think about the implications for the future, that this would simply be my entire life if I didn’t find a way to fix what was broken, and focused on each one individually. I hoped some of them were only questions, but as I went through them, I found they all wanted me, in person. The tone of the calls was different too—I’d always had my fair share of entitled suburban mothers demanding that I come down immediately to get rid of whatever creature had intruded on their white-picket paradise, but many of them were concerned for the animal’s wellbeing.

These voicemails, though, all had the same theme: I needed to resolve this issue or remove this pest or help with this nuisance before they called an exterminator. I had no choice but to go down the hill with a set of traps. As I stumbled down the porch steps, I thought about calling Christine to come drive me; my depth perception was variable at best and I was still seeing things that weren’t there. But of everyone in the friend group, Christine was the one least likely to let the matter lie, and she’d probably insist on taking me to the hospital instead.

I drove myself, creeping down along the winding road with my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel and cold sweat bathing my neck. There were a few times when all the earth seemed to fall away from the road, leaving nothing but a narrow ribbon hovering in midair, and I had to stop and wait for the hallucination to pass. When I got into town, the road remained still in favor of the houses sliding away and then toward me like game pieces on a tipping board, but that was easier to ignore.

I kept hoping the belladonna would relinquish its hold on me, but as I went on to the rest of my calls, it became clear that it wouldn’t go lightly. I dug a battered old baseball cap out from behind my seat to help hide my eyes and pulled on a pair of gloves to hide my berry-stained fingers and thorn-scratched wrists, but there was no disguising that I struggled to follow the simplest conversations.

“Look, it says ‘wildlife relocation’ right there!” one man said, thrusting his phone at me. I flinched away from the brightness of the screen, my mind racing to remember what we were talking about. I’d given him my spiel about exterminators, but that felt like it was a hundred years ago.

“They all say that,” I answered, even though I feared I was repeating myself. “They just drive them outside of town and dump them. The animals can’t find food or water, or they get attacked by the animals who already live there. They don’t stand a chance.”

“I don’t see how that’s my problem.” With that, he stormed back up the steps into his double-wide.

I ended up having to make four more trips up and down the hill, each time with a new animal. That brought my total count to twenty-five, and as I carried my last new charge into the barn—a woodchuck who’d been attacked by a dog—I realized I’d already filled every available space, except one. The door to the fawn’s stall was wide open, and I remembered I’d taken her to the house and left her loose and unsupervised.

Cursing my own stupidity, I worked a hasty sleep spell over the woodchuck, just enough that I could get her wounds shaved down and treated with feverfew, then arranged her comfortably in the fawn’s empty stall with food and water nearby. I hurried to the house, almost tripping up the stairs when the whole porch seemed to recede in my vision.

The cabin was undisturbed. It was a complete mess, of course; I’d had neither time nor energy to clean it. But all was quiet, and the fawn had commandeered my jacket for a bed, curling up in its flannel lining and sleeping deeply. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her, and some sense of purpose returned to me, soothing my harried soul like a balm.

It was short-lived. No sooner had the tension eased from my shoulders than my phone rang again—a borderline hysterical woman who had just fished a rabbit out of her in-ground pool. There was nothing to do except drive back down.

Chapter

14

After three days, the landscape stopped receding and encroaching as I looked at it, but I began to see eyes in every circle—clocks, plates, lids from jars. Time dripped like cold honey, and I became convinced I was losing minutes or hours as I washed my hands or sat in the truck. Those three days brought new animals who needed my care, and I quickly had to start splitting up stalls and pens. On one hand, these new demands on my time helped keep me distracted as the belladonna worked its way from my system, but the exhaustion only extended the length of time I felt its effects.

With so many new arrivals, my existing supply of food pellets and antibiotics quickly dwindled. The medication I had to order through a vet, but the food I could get from Georgie. My stomach twisted in a knot at the prospect of seeing her.

I hadn’t heard from any of my friends since my encounter with Evelyn at the library, and the silence was loud. The group had had its fair share of little spats and ruffled feathers over the years, but I couldn’t recall any of them getting iced out—Christine was always the mediator, always bridging the gap and patching things over. She would insist on the group getting together as usual, and we’d all pretend nothing was wrong until finally, one day, nothing was wrong.

But not this time, apparently. She hadn’t called, and if there had been any group get-togethers, I hadn’t been invited.

They were never your friends, the belladonna whispered. You had them snared in your magic, and now they’re finally free.

I didn’t want to listen, because the belladonna was also making me think eyeballs were popping out of the stove dials, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the truth. Maybe Georgie would tell me.

I took pains to clean myself up before I saw her. My fingers and tongue were still stained black, but I washed my hair and cleaned the dirt from beneath my nails. My arms were a crosshatch of scratches and welts, so I found a shirt with sleeves just a little too long. I considered the newly sharp cut of my cheekbones and the dark circles under my eyes, but a hat would likely only draw more attention. On the drive to the store, I avoided my own reflection in the truck’s rearview mirror and tried not to look at the eyes swimming in the hubcaps of other vehicles.

Georgie’s store was empty except for an old woman buying birdseed, and Georgie raised her eyebrows when she saw me. “Well, what do you know—she lives.”

For a moment, it felt like nothing had changed, and I suddenly realized how much I’d missed her. I was taken with the strange and sudden urge to win her back—from whom, exactly, I didn’t know.