Page 59 of The Devil Knows Her Name

Finally, the fox’s hunger won out over his thirst, and he darted into the carrier. I knew he would try to snatch the tin and bolt, so I wouldn’t get another chance. I pressed the button on the remote and the door flew closed.

It was as clean a capture as I could hope for, but there was a brief second where the fox’s tail was caught by the door. I didn’t think it even pinched, the bottlebrush tail simply sliding through the wire, but it was enough. The fox immediately began to thrash and yowl.

I ran to the carrier and planted both hands on top to keep it steady, wincing as his body thudded against the plastic sides. The sardine smell intensified, and I knew he’d splashed them all over the carrier. He would probably smell like fish for a week.

It took a few minutes for him to give up, and all the while my heart broke for him. He didn’t understand his situation was about to improve drastically; he thought he was fighting for his life and losing. Even when he stopped flailing, I could feel him panting through the carrier, his distress palpable.

Christine and Max were already hurrying down the front steps to meet me as I took the carrier to the truck; they must’ve been watching through the kitchen window. “Will it be all right?” Max asked.

There was a time when I would’ve been reassuring, giving them the most hopeful outlook, and now I wondered if perhaps I’d coddled them. Perhaps I’d made them think I was invincible, and that’s why they’d so easily chosen to work against me.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “He’s in pretty bad shape. I’m going to do everything I can, though.”

“Okay,” Christine said. “Can you keep us updated on how he’s doing?”

“Sure. Just do me a favor and don’t mention this to Evelyn. She’ll go running straight to Chief Broder, and he’s already up my ass about animals he’s randomly decided are dangerous, so unless you want this guy put down for arbitrary ‘public health’ reasons, it should probably stay between us.”

“Tess, she wouldn’t!” Christine said reproachfully.

“She would.”

“Tess.” Christine laid a firm hand on my arm this time, and I resisted the urge to yank it away. “You need to talk to her. Whatever happened between the two of you, she’s really hurt by it. She thinks so much of you. She’s the same Evelyn she always was; she wants to help, but sometimes she goes about it the wrong way.”

I rounded on her, bewildered. “Between the two of us? It doesn’t feel like the two of us—it feels like something happened between me and all of you. The only reason I even knew about that town hall meeting was because I stopped down to see Georgie, and lo and behold, there’s a projection of a megachurch built over my house. You didn’t even seem surprised. And not a single one of you has called to say you don’t want to see my sanctuary turned into a parking lot.”

Christine heaved a bone-weary sigh, and for the first time in a decade, she looked exhausted. For a moment, I glimpsed what it must be like to be her—her heart and soul thrown into a town that gave her nothing back, the volunteers for the harvest festival dwindling every year, the other retired teachers leaving until there weren’t enough to staff the after-school programs, the superintendent not bothering to submit the grant applications she slaved over. How must she feel to see Zeke march into town and suddenly galvanize the same people who ignored her pleas for years?

Relieved, I thought. She’s relieved.

“I don’t expect you to be enthusiastic about a church, Tess,” she said. “Frankly, I don’t think another church is in the top five things this town needs most, and I certainly don’t think it has to be where your sanctuary is. I know Zeke will offer you a fair price, but if you don’t want to sell, that’s your right. You’ve put years of work into that place.”

I flinched, hid it with a restless movement of my arm. Of course it seemed simple to her—she thought I had the option not to sell. She thought the best of me, and of Zeke, and believed we could be civil about it.

“But no matter where this church goes, I’m going to support it. I’ve been trying for years, years, to get these people invested in their town, and maybe if they can care about a church, they can care about their school, or their library, or their downtown. If you don’t want to sell, and you don’t want to support it, I understand. That sanctuary is your life, but this town is mine.”

Christine meant the words as a bridge, but to me, they were a blade, severing the last threads of my hope. I had never considered that the good of my sanctuary and the good of the town could be diametrically opposed. I had never believed Christine and I could end up on opposite sides just by holding true to what mattered the most to us. I couldn’t even explain myself, couldn’t tell her why without unburying the ugliness of the past, the ways I’d deceived them, the deals I’d made.

“I see,” I said hollowly. “I’m sure that will make Evelyn happy.”

“Tess, you have to talk to her.”

“No, I don’t. She clearly thinks I’m a monster, and every time she opens her mouth, it’s a new accusation.”

Christine hesitated, and her eyes shifted away from mine, but something hard settled into the planes of her face. “She’s not the only one accusing you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Rachel—Rachel told me you left that thing in their house. The thing with the skull and the sticks. Did you? Did you want to scare them off that badly?”

It was not the apprehension and disappointment in her eyes that made me lie, but the abject failure. If it had worked, I would’ve claimed it, but I couldn’t bear to take responsibility when it had ended up some impotent trinket trotted out for show-and-tell.

“Of course not,” I snapped back. “You believe her?”

“Tess, tell me the truth.”

“I am.”

I felt like a teenager again, telling my mother I had not spoken to Norman in the woods, I had not raided her stores of vetiver roots for perfume, I had not stolen a razor to make my legs clean and smooth. My mother had never believed me, and I could see Christine didn’t either.