Morgan is speechless for maybe the first time in his life.
“Now will you please—” I begin to say calmly, right as a dog darts into the road. I scream at the top of my lungs: “Stop!”
Morgan slams on the brake, tires squealing. “What? What is it?” My heart pumps furiously, so dizzy with adrenaline that the back seat of his car wavers in my view. He stares anxiouslyaround, unclipping his seat belt. Just behind us, sitting utterly still in the ruby glow of brake lights, is…not a dog, I don’t think. It might be a coyote, with something jammed over its head.
“What is it?” Morgan looks at me.
“I don’t know.”
“But you told me to stop. Why’d you tell me to stop?” He runs his hands over his face, distressed. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“I didn’t want you to hit it.”
“Hitwhat?”
“That!” I point.
He throws up his arms. “I don’t see anything.”
I fling open my car door.
“What’re you doing? It’s dark. We’re in the woods. Don’t—”
“The poor animal has a piece of fence stuck to its head, I think. It isn’t leaving for a reason; it needs our help.” I close the door, cutting him off.
There are no streetlights out here, surroundings as black as the depths of Jacob’s Well. In the shoulder, long grasses whisper against my legs as I steady myself. There’s a deep ditch to my left, no guardrail to keep me from toppling over.
“It’s all right,” I croon, creeping as slow as I can manage, offering my palms. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Morgan rolls his window down. “Please tell me it isn’t a skunk. I am not letting you back into this car if you get sprayed. You didn’t mean what you said about not being a witch, right?”
“I’m not a friggin’ witch,” I hiss. “And does this look like a skunk to you?”
“I don’t see anything.” He tries to open his door, but it clunks into a tree. “There isn’t enough room for me to get out.”
“Stay where you are. I don’t want to scare it away.”
The animal’s ears twitch in different directions, toward me and then Morgan, then back to me. Its eyes are set closer together than a coyote’s, more oblong, but its snout definitely resembles a coyote. “It’s all right,” I whisper. “I only want to help you.”
I reach out, slowly, slowly, trying to get a grip of the thing on its head, but frown. The thing has a velvety texture, and I can’t find a way to pry it loose because it’s become…fused…to its skull.
I draw back, staring.
This coyote hasantlers.
The animal stares at me, and I stop breathing as I lower to my knees, taking in the weird shape of it all. Short fur, a longer neck, like a greyhound. Definitely paws, not hooves—and then, of course, the impossible antlers. They’re short, bunchy ones, shaped like two small pieces of coral. Has somebody glued them to him? I’m reminded of P. T. Barnum’s “Fiji mermaid,” which was just a fish and monkey skeleton sewn together, and my heart breaks for this poor baby.
The animal turns in a circle. With its head bent close to the taillight, I can make out exactly where the growths protrude from its scalp, the fur surrounding it a gradient of copper to gray to black. The fur on its long, bony tail is as short as the furon its snout, skin molded so tightly to its vertebrae that it looks vacuum-sealed.
“Did you pull the fence off it yet?” Morgan asks.
“I…” My voice cracks.
Morgan tries to climb across the seats to get out through my door, elbow bumping the loud horn on his steering wheel.Beeeep!Before I can react, the coyote-with-antlers shoots off, switchgrass rustling, and is swallowed by the woods.
I move forward. And from somewhere in the trees floats a soft female voice:“The clock of…”
I freeze. “Hello?”
