Chapter 17 #2
“I’ll just sedate her,” I said, but I hesitated. I’d sedated her yesterday, and two days before that. I couldn’t keep doing it. Besides, I was nearly done; all I needed was another hand so I could hold her still and finish the new bandage.
I glanced at David. He must’ve sensed my indecision, because he was still standing in the door, eagerness shining in his eyes.
“Listen,” I said. “No, stop smiling. Listen. If I let you help, you cannot tell anyone. Not your parents, not your friends. I could lose my license.”
“Okay.”
“No, no. I need to hear that you understand.”
“I understand, Tess.”
“Okay.” I readjusted my grip on the groundhog, abandoning the bandage and the strip of vet wrap and holding her steady with both hands. “I’m going to hold her still, and you bandage her up.”
“I don’t know how,” he said, coming forward anyway.
“I know you don’t; I’m going to walk you through it.”
For the next five minutes, our heads were bent together over the table.
His hands seemed huge to me, but his fingers were nimble, his movements surprisingly sure.
I told him where to position the wrap around her body, which direction to move his hands so they didn’t pass too close to her face and tempt her to bite, how tight to make the bandage.
He did everything I said, his lower lip drawn between his teeth in concentration, asking, “Like this? Like this?” at every juncture.
He seemed almost desperate to please me, and every time I said, “Yes, like that,” I sensed a spark go through him.
How well you listen, I couldn’t help thinking. How obedient you are.
I had meant it when I told him there was nothing he could’ve done to stop his father’s plans even if he’d known—it seemed clear that Zeke’s hope for a legacy was in his church, not in his son.
The only opinion that mattered to Zeke was his own, and everyone else could be with him or against him.
Any protest from his son would be dismissed as betrayal.
And yet this offering seemed too precious to pass up, as if a lamb had climbed upon my altar and put its own neck on the block.
Could I not find a way for him to help me?
Could I not make him feel useful? From that, perhaps real salvation could emerge—perhaps he would find the weakness that would allow me to triumph.
“Tess? Is that good?”
I snapped back to reality. “Yes, yes, that looks good. Take a step back.”
He backed away obediently, and I loosened my hold on the groundhog just enough to slide my pinky finger into the bandage and test its tightness. “Yes, that’s perfect. Go ahead and step out.”
When he was safely outside the stall, I released the groundhog; as usual, she was perfectly docile by this point, scuttling away without a sound of complaint now that the hard part was over. I folded up the table and left the stall, sliding the door shut behind me.
The aisle suddenly seemed narrower, or the pastor’s son larger, than a moment ago.
The sun was fully up now, the barn unseasonably warm, and all I could smell was clean, fresh sweat.
His face was a storm of emotions, desire and guilt and fear, all of it running with an undercurrent of knowledge, as if he had seen this precursor before, in his dreams.
“David—”
“Don’t.” He stepped forward, too close; I had to steel against the urge to push him back. “I know what you’re going to say, but you don’t have to say it. I understand. I just want to be—close.”
I looked up at him. Strangely, the fear in his face showed more when I met his gaze, and yet he didn’t step away. “Do you understand?” I asked.
“I do.”
But his gaze flicked down to my mouth, and his tongue slipped out to wet his lips. His hands flexed—I saw it in a small twitch of the tendons in his shoulders. I knew what would come next, if I did nothing.
I drew in a breath, hesitating.
Behind him, the old woman’s crow cawed harshly, a three-note warning.
David’s face screwed up suddenly, jaw and teeth and tongue all clamping down on a noise of pain. He reeled back, and I saw the fawn clinging to his right hand like grim death, her ears flattened against her skull and her eyes empty black pits.
I scrambled forward, trying to get hands on her, but he was pulling away.
I saw his free arm rise, fist clenched—I didn’t blame him, it was only instinct, but I couldn’t allow it.
I dove in again, finally reaching them, covering her with my body and jamming my thumb into the gap of her mouth where the teeth ended.
I pressed down on her jawbone through her gums and she released her prize, mouth working uncertainly as she scrambled backward out of my half embrace.
“Fucking hell,” I said, my voice shaking. “I forgot—I forgot she was even out here.”
David was fainting pale, holding his injured hand protectively against his chest, and I saw with horror she had drawn blood. “Fuck. Sit down, sit, sit.”
I grabbed him by the arm, supporting him as he slid down against the wall. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just—she just startled me. Why did she bite me?”
Because she’s broken, I thought. She’s wrong.