Page 48 of The Devil Knows Her Name

“Friends, thank you for coming here today,” the pastor began. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Zeke Abdee, the new pastor of this church. This is quite a turnout, and it brings me joy to see how many of you are invested in your community—how many are willing to come together to fight for it. It brings me hope, because make no mistake, we will have to fight for it.”

A murmur circled the room. There were a couple of chairs placed off to the side of the stage, and I saw there was only one person not watching Zeke with rapt attention: David. Tension tightened his jaw, and there were ink-dark circles beneath his eyes. He was watching me through the forest of other bodies, and when our gazes met, his swollen tongue slid from the corner of his mouth and crawled up his cheek toward his eye.

I looked away before the belladonna twisted his skin inside out, and returned my attention to the pastor. In that short time he’d been warming to his cause, and the hard lines of his face had melted away—eyes wide, brows lifted, mouth supple and expressive. He was like a stage actor stepping into character, drawing power from his audience.

“Friends, as I mentioned, my family and I are new to Burrsville. We came because I felt God was calling me here. It’s only been a short time, but we’ve been welcomed with open arms, and I started to wonder if this was God’s way of giving me a nice little retirement.” He chuckled at this, and everyone else laughed too, polite and sycophantic. “But,” he added, and his face morphed again, deep furrows working into his brow, “I was wrong.”

The tittering cut off abruptly, the light mood dissipating. People leaned forward in the pews, gazing at him with concern. Even the people standing around me tipped toward him as if drawn by magnets, and I became conscious of my stillness, the gaps it created with my neighbors, the way it made me stand out.

“Burrsville is the kind of place you don’t see much anymore,” he said. “A quiet town full of good, hardworking people. It’s not full of breweries or yoga studios or tourist traps, the way so many other little villages are—you have everything you need and nothing more.”

I glanced at Evelyn, wondering how this would sit with her given all the years she’d spent trying to lure breweries and yoga studios to Burrsville, the times she’d stay up all night perfecting grant proposals for artists’ collectives and co-ops for heirloom vegetable growers. But she looked untroubled, serene, as if her entire life’s work hadn’t just been dismissed.

Perhaps it’s easier for her, I thought, given that she ultimately failed.

“And it’s a beautiful spot,” Zeke went on. “At least a few of you have heard me tell you about when we first came up over the west hill and looked down at the valley, and how I was struck by the glory of God’s creation.”

I remembered him saying the same thing the night of Paul’s going-away party. My friends remembered too; I saw them nodding away, along with a scattering of others in the assembly. They didn’t hear the envy, the possession in his voice.

Or maybe they did, and they simply didn’t care.

Fear skittered across the back of my neck like a spider.

“Burrsville is a place I want to call home for the rest of my life. My family’s home. When my son is old enough to get married and start his own family, I want it to be here. I want generations of my family to live here and be neighbors with all your families. I want our children to stay here, to be planted like seeds in this valley, to anchor it and make each other strong.”

Some people were yawning in the heat, bored with these apparent niceties. Other people could sense the “but” coming, and Zeke paused, letting them wait for it. He held the pause, staring out over the congregants until the old farmers were shifting in their hard wooden seats.

“But there is darkness in this place,” he said finally. “Darkness has made its home here. And it will chase us out or bind us and devour us if we let it.”

A murmur went through the crowd, more people glancing between each other. It felt like all I could see were eyes, Zeke’s shining with passion, David’s fixed on me. Eyes everywhere, eyes flicking silent accusations, eyes showing their whites, eyes watering and bulging and popping like boils, a huge, lidless eye glaring from the circular window near the peak of the roof—

“I know you feel it!” he boomed suddenly, and the silence that followed was shocked, uncertain. I pulled my shirt tighter around me despite the heat, afraid he would see my heart racing from across the room. “You feel it when you go into town and see another business closed. You feel it when you have to go further and further away for a job. You feel it in every pothole and every broken sidewalk. The work of Satan is not so mysterious—it doesn’t always look like a horror movie. Sometimes it looks like a town slowly crumbling under the weight of poverty and hopelessness, its businesses closing, its places of worship boarded up, its church bells silent. Then again…”

He reached beneath the pulpit, and I knew immediately what he had. Once again, he took his time, drawing on the palpable anticipation of the room, letting the ice-cold dread in my heart ripple on and on. People sat up tall, craning their necks to get a clear view; one woman was perched on the edge of her seat, her wrinkled hands clutched like talons on the pew in front of her, nails lacquered scarlet. The belladonna caught hold of time again, and I felt as if I’d been there for a decade, watching this woman’s nails grow as we waited for the pastor to expose me.

I will never get out of here. The thought came from outside of me—it must have, because I had no thoughts inside of me, only liquid fear. I will never get out.

But it was only seconds later that the pastor held up a plastic baggie. More glances darted between pews. Light glinted off beads of sweat. Most of the elements of the hex bag meant nothing to these people, and the young squirrel skull was too small to make out clearly, but the blackthorn pentagram was recognizable for everyone.

“Taken separately, this is nothing much to speak of,” the pastor said. “A rodent skull, some bound twigs, some hair. But the devil often seeks to appear harmless.”

With that, he upended the baggie, dumping the contents onto the floor before the front pews. Everyone in the crowd jolted, taken by the drama of it all. Evelyn began to scream.

“It’s moving!” she cried. “Why is it moving?”

Everyone else jumped to their feet, murmurs of consternation filling the space. I didn’t know whether Evelyn’s reaction was genuine or if Zeke recruited her for this bit of theater, but Georgie—levelheaded, unflappable Georgie—was gray with terror.

“Don’t be afraid!” Zeke shouted, holding up his hands. “Don’t be afraid of it.”

Everyone quieted as he descended the stage, and in the silence I heard the crunch of the still-chittering squirrel skull beneath his foot. He went to Evelyn next, who was pale and shaking, and folded her hand in both of his. She sank back into the pew, and the rest of the crowd followed suit.

“I found this thing at my house,” he said. “It didn’t come to be there by accident. Someone doesn’t want me here. Someone intended to chase me and my family out of this town. Why do you think that is?”

Zeke released Evelyn and stalked the space in front of the pews, staring out over the crowd as if waiting for an answer. For the first time since he began, he looked at me. It was the briefest glance, the only acknowledgment a slight flaring of his nostrils. I felt the pressure of hands around my throat, a knee on my chest. I waited for the accusation.

“Because I wield the power of God!” he thundered. He reached up to the pulpit, swiped his Bible from it, smacked it into the palm of his hand. “I am a warrior of Christ! I will not be chased from the place God has called me by a few witch’s trinkets!”

The thud of the Bible reverberated like a drumbeat in my skull. I was desperate to get out of this place, the muscles of my legs twitching uncontrollably, but I was too terrified to move.