“All the more reason to watch him,” she said.
“We did nothing wrong.” I tried to walk away, across theschoolyard to the patch of withered grass where some of the other girls stood.
“He won’t see it that way,” Martha called after me. “He’llwant someone to blame it on, and demons won’t do. You’d better watch out. He’llblame you. You’re so perfect, everyone will want to believe it.”
◊
On the night Emmalyn died, the three of us chased a demoninto the depths of a swamp. It laughed at us, flashing its eyes behind a coverof cattails and slapping the murky water with its tail. Demons can’t speakaloud, but they can talk inside your head and tell you what they want you toknow. Sometimes they’re nasty, flinging insults that stick like thorns tocalloused skin. But sometimes they try to sound sweet, like a dead mother or awould-be steady, and that’s a whole lot worse.
We were all scared that night; only Martha acted brave. Shepropped her bowie knife on a mangrove tree, stretched her arms up heavenward,said, “You want a taste? I promise it’ll be the sweetest thing you ever got ahold of.”
Emmalyn didn’t like when her sister taunted the monsters.“Martha, c’mon,” she said. “Let’s not lure it out.”
“She wants to get killed, we might as well let her,” I’dsaid, even though of course I had my gun cocked and loaded and I’d shoot thebeast dead the second it emerged from the water. No use in waiting. Marthaliked to wrestle with the creatures, but she could never have beat themfighting alone.
“I’ll be all right.” Martha looked back over her shoulderand smiled at Emmalyn. That’s all I can think of sometimes, that little promisefolded in a smile. As soon as her focus shifted, the monster made a low, thicksnarling sound and lunged out of the swamp, sleek amphibian legs unfurling andbody crashing down into the shallows. I fired two shots that glanced off thecreature’s skin, but didn’t aim well enough. The demon grabbed Martha and tookoff, galloping unsteadily over the fen and up through the birch trees.
We chased the creature without stopping. She screamed loudenough to make us sure she was still alive, yelling in high, eerie caterwaulsthat echoed through the trees and down into the marshes. I ran as hard as Icould, but Emmalyn got ahead right away. She let the thorns yank her goldencurls so she could fit into crevices where I wouldn’t dare to go, trompedknee-deep through swamp muck, stumbled over a moss-slicked log and cried inpain and still got up again. I never saw anyone like Emmalyn Blanchard.
We found the demon in the treeless patch of sunken earththat everyone called White Throat Holler, slamming Martha down on the dry grassagain and again so she would stop fighting and lay still. I paused when I sawthe sheer size of the thing, tall even hunched over, but Emmalyn never stoppedmoving. She shot five rounds, flinching as kickback shuddered down her spine,yelling for the demon to let go of her sister. It rose up on its hind legs,abandoning Martha, and roared from the back of its throat as Emmalyn’s bulletshit their marks. She thought she’d won. That was her mistake. Emmalyn didn’thave any bullets left when the demon reached her, grabbed her by the back ofthe neck, and hauled her uphill, out of the holler, into the darkness. Beforeanyone could stop them, they disappeared.
There was some uncanniness in the way they sank into thetrees, as if they had never even been real. I knew somehow that I would neverfind them even if I chased after them. That had never happened before. I wasbreathless when I knelt beside Martha. It was stupid, but I said, “Are youdead?”
Martha laughed, spat out of a bloodied mouth: “I wish. Iwish I was.”
◊
For a while I thought maybe we could salvage things—if not inPryor, at least at home. One night when the purewater man vanished someplace orother and likely wouldn’t be back ‘til dawn, I browned some beef and mashed afew potatoes. The gravy had just begun to simmer when Daddy stomped through thescreen door, home from another prayer service for another dead mother. Hesighed to see that I still lived inside the skeleton of our house and laid hishead down on the table.
“They doubt me,” he said.
I did too, but knew enough not to say so. “They’re justscared, is all,” I said.
“I stayed awake from dusk to dawn last night, praying forthis town’s salvation. That we would be delivered. That we would know God’s mercyand not only his wrath.”
Something in the stoop of his shoulders, the weary grate ofhis voice, made me impatient. He was like one of those olden-day monks,flogging himself in the town square to feel holier. I said, “Maybe this town isonly made for wrath, not mercy. Sometimes I think we ought to cut our lossesand leave for good.”
He lifted his head to look over his shoulder at me like I’dspit blasphemy. “You think we’re here for our good health, Esther Grace? Youthink I mean to be happy here?”
I stirred the gravy so hard I slicked the sides of the pan.“If you mean to be miserable, you’re doing a fine job.”
“Doesn’t matter what I am. Pryor needs a preacher.”
“What do you owe them?”
“I don’t owe them nothing. It’s not a transaction.”
“What is it, then?” I was thinking of finding my mother hungamong the trees, of laying daisies over her at the funeral. The morticiandriving to our house and frowning as he said he was so full up that he couldn’ttake the body until next Tuesday. But she wouldn’t stink, he promised; he’dstill do the embalming.
“Gravy’s burning,” my daddy said.
“What is it, if it’s not a transaction?”
Neither of us said anything for a while, not all throughdinner. Then he laid his silverware down with a clatter and said, “It’s asacrifice. Someone’s gotta be the one gets burned.”
◊
I didn’t like to hunt by myself, but Martha refused to comeout with me after the unpleasantness between us in the schoolyard. And Icouldn’t put off going forever.
