Page 32 of The Devil Knows Her Name

He paused, looking a little apprehensive. “Uh, do I?”

“Well, if you don’t, don’t open the freezer.”

He seemed to take that as a dare, shaking the excess water and soap from his hands to open the freezer door. He slammed it shut again quickly. “Holy shit!”

“Told you.”

“Where do you get all of that?”

“Roadkill, mostly. There are places that supply whole rats to rehabbers, and sometimes I have to get those if I have a lot of predators in.”

“But what do you need the heads for?”

“Predators need the whole shebang—ears, eyes, fur, brain.”

He went back to washing dishes, and I occupied myself doling out meds and vitamins into the pill dispenser I almost never used—usually I didn’t have time to fill them, and instead spent twice as long getting individual tablets from a dozen different bottles at mealtime.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked after a few minutes. “Like you have a live deer in your living room, but there’s a frozen head in there.”

I mulled over my answer, rattling vitamin D in the pill counter. “Sometimes it does,” I said. “Sometimes I wish I could keep them all with me and never have to turn them loose. But they’re not pets, and dealing with the predator meals—well, it’s a good reminder. It’s not like buying a steak at the grocery store, where you can just pretend it’s a thing that showed up in the package.”

“Do you eat meat?”

“Not anymore,” I said, then added, “not if I can help it.”

We went on for a while in companionable silence after that. I sensed his eyes moving over the space, taking in the bundles of plants and the little collection of polaroids—undated—I stuck in the battered metal cabinet where I kept the vitamins. I didn’t take photographs of the animals anymore, resisting the modern world’s urge to document everything, committing it to social media rather than memory.

“What are these plants for?” he asked finally.

“Lots of things—healing, pain relief, sleep. There’s a plant for almost everything. Whether or not it’s as effective as the modern medical equivalent can be a toss-up, but sometimes it’s just what the animals need.”

“So you really are kind of like a pioneer woman.”

“That’s not what I would call myself.”

“What would you call yourself?”

Ah-ah, I thought. Nice try. I didn’t really believe Zeke sent his son to spy on me, but his questions were tinged with a fascination that suggested he found me exotic, strange, maybe taboo. I couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t spill his guts out of guilt later.

“Self-sufficient,” I answered instead.

“I think it’s cool. It must be—I mean, it seems hard. But it must be sort of freeing. I wish I could do that.”

“You could. Just have to buy some land and get used to the idea of working every day and almost never buying anything new.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t buy a whole lot of new stuff anyway.”

I paused, unsure how to tread this delicate ground. “I’ve heard being a pastor doesn’t pay all that well—unless you’ve got a megachurch or something.”

“It’s not that. Pretty sure they have plenty of money. Mom gives me the whole ‘earthly riches’ thing, but I think Dad—” He broke off abruptly. “Never mind.”

I glanced over my shoulder from counting vitamins, trying not to appear too interested. “Hey, it’s not like I’m going to tattle. Sanctuary, remember?”

He laughed. “I think you’re thinking of confessional.”

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Same idea, close enough.”

He laughed again and went back to the dishes. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t continue, but he finally did.