Page 34 of The Devil Knows Her Name

“Can you just—I’m pretty sure my dad already got the parents, the squirrels. But I think there’s more babies up there.”

“You want me to bust in and tell your dad I’m taking them, come hell or high water?”

“If you went tomorrow morning, it would only be my mom. Dad always goes to the church office first thing Monday morning to start working on his next sermon.”

“I’ll do my best. You take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will.”

He jogged off, sticking to the choppy sidewalk rather than cutting through yards like a neighborhood kid would’ve done. I pulled a U-turn and went back the way I’d come, just in case.

When I arrived home, David’s squirrel was dead.

Chapter

11

The pastor and his family had to go, that much was clear. David seemed clueless about the deed to the land, but that didn’t mean Zeke was. I didn’t know why he wouldn’t have made a move already, sent a letter through an attorney telling me to vacate the property, but I didn’t trust it. Even if he didn’t know, even if Norman had taken the secret to his grave, it was still safest for me and my sanctuary to send the family packing.

If it had been my mother in this situation, she would’ve turned herself inside out to placate him. She would’ve made them bread, taken the pastor’s wife her precious silk thread and claimed it was extra, offered to weed their garden, all to prove she was no threat. She would’ve made her charms as well, braiding agrimony and rosemary into tight little twists, asking only for the pastor’s disinterest.

My mother, for all her fear of the future, would’ve been at one with the so-called witches of today. Witchcraft was in fashion, made innocuous by those who did not understand power. You could’ve found these witches anywhere, deeply concerned with the aesthetic value of their altars and writing long missives about the harmlessness of witchcraft, the ones who would’ve made us all sweet and mischievous keepers of houseplants and house cats.

“The women who were burned as witches were nothing more than midwives and healers, educated women whose knowledge threatened the patriarchy,” they said. “There’s nothing dangerous about witchcraft.”

They were right about one thing: the women who burned at the stake were nothing more than midwives, powerless to help themselves. Had they really been witches, things might have turned out differently. But these women like my mother, like these modern practitioners, were so eager to take the teeth out of the craft. They were desperate to reassure the masses we could do them no harm, not realizing that a lack of teeth only meant they could kill you more easily.

But my craft had teeth, and I would not hesitate to use them. I was not so eager to be harmless.

I felt some guilt over David, who would have to move again his senior year, and who deserved better than the parents he had. He would have to be an unfortunate sacrifice, but I reasoned that he didn’t want to stay in Burrsville anyway, and perhaps Zeke would simply move his family back to where they’d come from.

The next morning dawned dark, iron clouds smothering the sun at the horizon, and everything felt very still, as if the entire sanctuary knew what I was about to do and was holding its breath. I moved quickly and quietly through my chores, and none of the animals in the barn emerged from their hiding places when I brought their breakfast; it was only after I’d walked away that I heard stirring in the bedding.

All the better, I thought grimly as I returned to the house.

As I considered where to do my work, I reached instinctively for the web of magic and felt its ghost pass through my hands. I’d never realized how often I did that, making contact just for reassurance, a mental patting of my pocket. Now I felt a sick swoop in my stomach every time I did.

Rather than the clarity I needed, my unfettered rage returned. Anger made me careless, callous, and instead of going out to the yard or into the cellar, I dropped my supplies in the middle of the living room floor and got to work.

The hex bag was a nightmare thing, a pentagram of blackwood set with the bones of David’s squirrel, dotted with my blood, and bound in a bag tied with my hair. I concentrated all my fury and disgust and grief into it, and the intent I bound to it was to force them from the house.

If the web of old magic had still been intact, I would’ve been more careful with my creation. With that much power, a thing of that malice could have had truly monstrous, unintended consequences. Without it, I was free to pour all of my hatred into the curse, although once I began, I found it was a well that would not empty.

The fawn watched me as I created it. I’d taken to letting her roam loose through the house as long as I was there, and she still spent much of her time curled in the safety of her pen, waiting for meals. If she left it, she usually stood at the gate of the rehab nursery, ears and nose twitching at the various sounds and smells the baby squirrels emitted. Today, though, she came to where I was working on the floor and stood beside me, eyes bright and ears pricked, scenting the air.

I almost risked breaking my concentration to pick up the hex bag and move away from her. She was too young to be near something so dark, her being still too impressionable, but the simple barrier I’d created of salt and iron should’ve been enough to keep her safe. I tightened my focus, blocking any thought of her from my mind as I infused the sticky green wood with my intent. The squirrel skull rattled as I placed it at the head of the pentagram, the miniscule leg and tail bones twitching in their bindings; the animal spirit didn’t linger, but the universe recognized the significance of my choice nonetheless.

When the curse completed its formation with one last, sucking grasp at my energy, I sat back on my heels and rested my hands in my lap, allowing tension to ease from my shoulders. The fawn’s cold, damp nose touched my arm, and I nudged her away absentmindedly. When I’d created hex bags in the past, the working of the spell had left me feeling hollowed out, scraped raw and empty. This morning, though, I felt taut as a bowstring and filthy.

The fawn nudged my forearm again, so lightly I barely registered it, my elbow moving automatically to push her away. When Rachel invited me in to remove the rest of the squirrel nest, she’d take me to the attic, but to be the most effective, the hex bag should be in the deep parts of the house—near their water supply, if I could manage it. I racked my brain, trying to remember if I’d seen a basement door anywhere, or if—

Pain lanced through my right hand, sharp and shocking. I was so stunned I couldn’t even scream, a gasp aborting in my throat like I’d been plunged into icy water. I tried to yank my hand away before I even realized it was the fawn latched onto it—biting with her full mouth like a dog would, her lips pulled back from the ghastly row of teeth, her liquid brown eyes suddenly flat and empty.

My attempt to pull my hand free was pure instinct, bypassing the brain entirely and accounting for nothing except the desire to make the pain stop. The fawn hung on with a gameness bordering on desperation, a determination I’d only seen in starving carnivores, animals who were accustomed to battling for their meals. Her hooves skidded through salt and iron nails, sending them flying and shattering the barrier I created around the hex bag.

At last, my brain kicked back in. I ceased the panicked attempt to yank away; I was not the prey animal here. The fawn’s teeth were still sunk into my skin, but for all the shock of it, she was still so small, so fragile. I drew a deep, calming breath through my nose and closed my fingers, wrapping them around her lower jaw. I didn’t pull, not yet, but her ears immediately flicked with uncertainty.

When I lowered my face to hers, our foreheads nearly touching, the awareness of a prey animal sparked back into her eyes, and the flat, predatory drive receded. “Let. Go.”