Revenge and the Wild(62)

She backed out of the room, not waiting for a response, and closed the door behind her. She stared at the doorknob, wondering if she’d just imagined the whole thing and was about to walk in for the first time.

She took a breath, but as she let it out, a furious sob escaped instead. She brought her copper fist down on a side table holding a Japanese vase and watched the vase shatter to small pieces, then ran from the house.

Henry ran faster than ever before, as if he sensed Westie’s need for escape. She touched his long neck. You’ve always been the most faithful male in my life, she thought with bitter self-pity. When she reached the general store, it was locked up because of church services.

Punching through the door with her machine, she took an expensive bottle of aged Brave Maker brand whiskey, her favorite, from the top shelf. She didn’t crave the drink like she had before drinking Costin’s blood, but she missed how it made her feel. She just wanted to feel different than she did in that moment.

She rode Henry to the forest, not letting up until she reached the stretch of woods where Isabelle’s body had been found. If she couldn’t have her justice, Westie reckoned she could have a drink with an old friend’s ghost.

The blood on the rocks and trees was still there. Westie sat on a rock and opened the bottle. As soon as she smelled the thick, heady scent of the liquor within, she plugged the bottle with the cork and bent over.

An excessive amount of saliva filled her mouth as sickness twisted her stomach. The nauseous feeling kept her in a sick purgatory between keeping it in and giving it up. She wanted so badly to feel nothing once more, but it wasn’t going to happen. Her body might have been cured of its longing for alcohol, but her mind definitely wasn’t.

Westie had been sitting with her head between her knees, waiting for the feeling to subside, when she heard a strange yipping sound. She stood, the ill feeling temporarily forgotten as she went to investigate. A fire had swept through that particular part of the woods the summer before, after a lightning storm. It had left the trees bare except for a few stragglers.

Once she was closer, she realized it was a dog. It sounded hurt. Caught in a bear trap, she reckoned. Since Isabelle’s death, no one could step into the woods without a close call.

She regretted leaving her parasol back where she’d tied up Henry. What if she needed it to put the mutt out of its misery? She’d have to use her machine, she decided, though the thought of it made the muscles in her stomach quiver once more.

The sound was farther away than she’d thought. She’d gone well beyond the perimeters of the magic ward by the time she came to a clearing. The hot summer days had turned the field into yellow weeds. Grasshoppers bounced around with each step she took, like fleas on a dog.

The wind carried a scent, something rancid and decomposing. It was the smell of her childhood in Kansas with the Undying, a sweet and pungent finger down the throat, tickling the gag reflex. She slowed to a stop, looked around. In the middle of the field was a single tree, a manzanita untouched by the fire, with tiny white blossoms and smooth red bark. Tied to the tree was a dog—a shaggy black-and-white cattle dog, from the looks of it. Next to the dog was Olive Fairfield.

The wind grew stronger, for a moment relieving the odor. She looked around to make sure the other Fairfields weren’t lurking nearby, not wanting to seem a convenient meal. She didn’t think digestion would be a good look for her.

After a few minutes she moved forward. The girl’s back was to her. Olive held a willow switch high in the air above the cowering dog. Her blond ringlets were pulled back into an abalone shell clip. She wore a white knit, high-waisted day dress that was adorable next to her sun-kissed skin.

The smell of death was worse the closer Westie got to the tree. She had thought it was the smell of the Undying, but no, it was the been-dead-awhile. Strips of putrefied flesh were baking in the sun. Dead animals hung all over the lower branches, their smell warring with the floral scent of the manzanita blossoms. There were gray squirrels and baby raccoons without their tails, birds without their wings, frogs without their legs. Macabre ornaments for a gruesome summer Christmas tree. Standing there, in the middle of the stink and the city of flies, was a little tow-headed angel.

When Olive brought the switch down on the dog and Westie heard his painful howl, she cried out, “Stop that!”

Olive jumped nearly a foot in the air, eyes so wide they were like to fall out of her head.

“I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” Olive’s bottom lip shook. She went on to concoct a story about how the dog had attacked her where she played, and how she’d found the tree with the dead animals already hanging there and they just happened to all be within her reach.

Westie went to the dog. He slunk away from her touch. She cooed to him soothingly.

“It’ll be all right,” she said as she untied the knot around his neck. The dog was just a sack of bones, his fur sticky with blood. From the bite marks on the red bark of the manzanita, and the shit all around, she reckoned he had been tied up for several days. “Shoo now, go on,” she prompted. The dog wouldn’t leave. He stayed beside Westie, keeping watch over Olive with accusing eyes.

If Westie had thought the dog was capable of retribution, she would’ve let him have his way with Olive. However, to Westie’s dismay, he showed no signs of malice. He just seemed happy to be out from under the switch. Westie stood from her crouch and rushed toward the girl, grabbing her by the collar of her dress.