Chapter 22
Chapter
I awoke the next morning to a grinding, shrieking crash. I was out of bed before I’d peeled open my eyes, adrenaline flooding my system. I dragged on a pair of jeans and a shirt as I ran down the stairs, only taking the time to do up a couple of buttons.
The fawn was on high alert in the living room, legs splayed out and ears pricked. It was yet another departure from a wild fawn, which would curl itself into the tiniest ball possible at the first hint of danger. She was ready to run, or perhaps fight, and she flew onto the porch alongside me.
I ran out onto the driveway barefoot, heedless of the gravel. The grass was thick with dew so cold it was nearly frost; dawn was still an hour away, and there was no light to see by.
Except for the cluster of headlights at the bottom of the driveway.
For a moment I thought this must be a nightmare—there was no way bumbling Broder found evidence enough to link me to the pastor’s disappearance so quickly.
But then one of the vehicles pulled within the taillights of another, and I saw the lettering on the side was not the Burrsville PD but the Department of Environmental Conservation.
There was another long creak of metal, followed by a crash and a shout: they were trying to rip the gate down, but it was holding.
Hold another moment for me, I pleaded.
There was no time to reconsider. I scooped up the fawn and fled into the meadow, toward the forest that rose blacker than the night itself.
As I reached the trees, I heard one last scream of metal and then a boom as loud as thunder.
I pressed on, my heart in my throat, seeking the shelter of the deep woods before the questing headlights found their way up the drive.
It was just two nights ago that I was here, fighting to navigate the four-wheeler through the trees, but already the forest seemed to have changed. It was never the same at night, and it seemed all the more hostile now, as if I were the threat. As if I brought the threat.
I am a threat, I thought. By making this choice, I’m putting the sanctuary even more at risk.
But the choice was made. The choice was made when I didn’t press Sarah about her bandages, and made again when I chased Mac away.
It was made when the fawn bit me and made when I forgave her.
It was made again and again, every second that passed when I stared down the barrel of the gun and failed to pull the trigger. I could not unmake it now.
The rose thicket found me, or allowed me to find it.
It was still blooming, and the flowers were mere pale smudges in the dark, haloing a perfect little hollow where a fawn could hide.
I didn’t trust it—it let the devil in to tempt me when I was at my most vulnerable—but I had precious few friends now.
I thrust the fawn into the hollow, fighting the urge to simply press her to the ground. “You need to stay here,” I whispered to her on a trembling breath. “Can you stay here and hide? Can you be good, for once?”
Perhaps she sensed my fear, or perhaps this drastic break in our routine had rattled her.
Perhaps the instinct of a prey animal finally overrode whatever strange, unnatural inclination ran through her.
Whatever the reason, she dropped to the ground and curled up, like a leaf shriveling in the frost.
Tears burned behind my eyes. I dropped to my knees and elbows and planted a kiss on her head, breathing in the wretched, grave-dirt scent of her. “I won’t let them take you. I’ll be back. Just stay here.”
I went, cautiously at first, expecting to hear the minute crunch of her cloven hooves behind me. When I didn’t, I began to run again; I couldn’t abandon my other animals.
By the time I reached the meadow again, my feet were cut and bleeding, and my jeans were so wet with dew I looked like I’d been swimming.
There were trucks and SUVs parked in my yard, my cut flowers crushed to mud, my barn and house laid bare by flashing lights.
Interior light poured from the barn, and through two of the windows I could see the mange-stricken fox and one of the skunks pacing anxiously.
The wards were at work; it was only because of them that the gate held as long as it did, and now that the intruders were inside I felt the magic trying to expel them.
There was no sign of coming dawn on the horizon, the dark so thick that there were tendrils of it like mist, and the voices of the invaders and the lights from the trucks were muted, as if the air itself devoured them.
Unnatural shadows curled in the corners and at the edges of every pool of light.
Every DEC officer I saw was wide-eyed and shiny with sweat, their movements stiff with nerves.
I could feel their hearts racing, their necks prickling with an animal instinct they’d almost forgotten.
They kept glancing at each other, waiting for someone else to acknowledge it, but no one did.
But they didn’t stop. They kept moving, kept taking my animals, kept stuffing them into trucks.
I stormed into the yard, my fury so potent that I was no longer afraid or exhausted. I saw one of the SUVs was already full, stacked to the ceiling with crates of my animals. Just before the truck closed, I heard the caw of the old woman’s crow.
One of the many anonymous, logo-jacketed DEC officers bumped into me, and I reacted without thinking, shoving her face-first into the muddy ground.
“Hey!” she cried, a high-pitched distress call like a wounded bird, and I felt the predator urge to clamp down on the thing until it stopped its squeaking.
But the commotion around us stopped, all eyes turning on us.
It seemed all eyes were always on me now, always drawn by a scream, always bright with horror and judgment.
I turned in a slow circle, looking for a face I recognized.
“Who the fuck is in charge of this bullshit seizure?” I snarled.
Another couple of figures detached from the chaos of the barn, and finally Shim Paulk emerged into the glare of the lights, his long, thin face set in an apprehensive grimace.
Shim was the county DEC rep, which meant Broder had gone running to the biggest dog who would give him the time of day.
I’d never liked Shim—always thought that farming whitetails should’ve precluded him from working at the DEC—and it had only taken a few phone conversations with him before I wrote his name on a slip of paper and burned it over a Beltane fire, whispering a spell of forgetting.
But that spell was long dissipated, and he was here now, taking my animals. He was a small man—I would’ve towered over him even if I didn’t intend to, but I did intend to, and he took a step back to lessen the angle of his neck.
“I tried to call you, Tess. Wish you would’ve picked up.”
“I don’t take calls from little pissants like you,” I spat back. “I don’t pick up for anybody less than your boss, and I’m sure she’ll be dying to hear about this.”
An uncomfortable little murmur went through the rest of the DEC officers.
The fact was, I had no idea whether Kathy, the state DEC rep and Shim’s boss, had signed off on the raid, but they clearly didn’t either.
No doubt they were looking at my clean barn and my well-cared-for animals and wondering what could’ve possibly warranted this seizure.
They were wondering if the unease they felt in this place was because they shouldn’t be here at all.
“Kathy’s not the only person in the state office,” Shim said loudly, for his officers’ benefit as much as mine. “She just has a soft spot for you, and I went around her.”
“Oh, she’ll really love that. Sticking your neck out a little far, aren’t you, Shim? Somebody must be making it worth your while. My money’s on Broder.”
“That’s enough,” he said, even louder this time, and I knew I’d hit close to the truth. “I’m not here to argue agency politics with you. Your wildlife rehabilitation license has been revoked due to noncompliance of local regulations that are in place to protect public safety and health.”
“ ‘Local regulations’? What a fucking joke—”
“Where is the fawn?”
I paused. Some of the officers had started to wander away, but the ones who were still watching glanced at each other and shrugged.
“What fawn?”
Shim made a noise of frustration behind his tightly pursed lips. “Don’t play dumb, Tess. It’ll be better for you if you cooperate. We have multiples sources that reported a fawn here.”
I spread my arms wide and gave him a knife-edged smile. “Well, you’ve got the run of the place, Shim. Do you see a fawn?”
I knew what I must’ve looked like—hair wild, shirt half-open in the October wind, jeans soaked, feet bare and bleeding.
Shim probably wanted to have me arrested, and he knew Broder would be only too happy to do it, but I was right when I said he was sticking his neck out.
He knew this seizure would be under scrutiny, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to add wrongful arrest to the mix.
“Ken, Mike, and Jaime, you come with me and search the property. Everyone else, keep emptying the barn.”
One of the three he called on balked. “The whole property? That’ll take half the day.”
“Then as much as we can while the rest are being loaded,” Shim snapped. “If I have to come back and search the whole fucking property, I will. That fawn is coming with me.”
The officer who protested shut his mouth, and they split off in pairs—two heading down the driveway, and Shim and the remaining one going toward the meadow.
I instinctively lurched to follow Shim, but I couldn’t; if I did, he’d know he was headed in the right direction.
Instead, I watched him as he moved behind the halo of lights and murmured every curse I could think of under my breath.