“I was worried—” she started to explain when a wail pierced the air between them, fraught with memories of the night before. They bolted for the house.
“Eustace!” Cordelia screamed as she charged through thedoors behind Gordon. She should never have left her sister on her own, she scolded herself, last night or this morning. He stopped short, and she skirted around him. Her sister’s back rounded in the hall light.
Eustace turned, her face a convoluted tangle, streaked with tears. In her arms, a bundled mass of sticky orange fur, foul-smelling and lifeless.
Cordelia stared. “What is that?”
“A vixen,” Eustace said. “I found her in the library. She’s alive, but barely.”
She killed the animals,the nurse had been quoted in the article about Morna.They were her pets. Loved ’em like her own children. But she killed them. And drew unnatural things with their blood.
“It washerscream that woke us,” Eustace said. “It’s her blood.”
The three of them rushed the animal to the kitchen. Gordon spread flour-sack dish towels across the granite island. Eustace deposited the fox, its body a limp jumble of fur and ick. A large slit ran up the middle of its belly, caked with blood. Her breaths were scarcely perceptible.
Eustace was frantic, gathering towels, water, and herbs. “I need the vodka from the bar in the next room,” she told Gordon. “Hurry.”
Cordelia stood dumbly to one side, not sure what to do. It seemed preposterous that her sister would treat this animal herself, and yet she knew that look of determination Eustace wore. “I’m sure Gordon knows someone we can call about this. A wildlife rehabilitation place or something.”
Eustace glanced up. “She doesn’t have that kind of time. We need to close the wound and prevent infection. She’s lost a lot of blood. A transfusion would be ideal, but I’ll have to come up with something else.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Cordelia asked softly. “This is a mortalwound. You can’t generate more blood for her. It would be kinder to end her suffering.”
“I know I can save her. I have to try,” Eustace replied, earnest.
Cordelia didn’t like seeing an animal in pain any more than the next person, but this would take a miracle, even for a professional. She was caught in a bad dream, barefoot and bloodied, struggling to grasp what was happening.
“Watch her while I run down to the basement. There are supplies down there I can use.” Eustace headed for the door, bumping into Gordon with the vodka.
Cordelia took the bottle from him. “Follow her. I don’t want her down there alone.”
He nodded, and trailed after Eustace.
She turned back to the island. The vixen lay perfectly still, pumpkin and sable, a mouth rimmed in sharp teeth. With trembling fingers, she stroked a black-tipped ear. The golden eyes fluttered open, long dark whiskers quivered near the nose. A winsome little martyr—she held no hope for it to survive.
Eustace returned with Gordon, arms full of supplies. She threw a long, curved needle down on the table, and another S-shaped one beside it.
“Where did you get these?” Cordelia asked, studying the needles as Eustace began unwinding a spool of silk thread.
“Remember all those instruments we saw? I have a feeling Great-great-aunt Morna did her own taxidermy. Those birds in my room were probably pets first. As were all the other strange creatures around here.”
Had their aunt killedallthese animals? Wasn’t that an early sign of psychopathy?
Eustace held up a jar of green and brown bits with a dusty label. “Hawthorn leaf. For the swelling. And oregano oil to fight off infection. Turmeric and honey will help with both, as well as with the pain.”
“And the blood loss?” Cordelia asked.
Eustace pointed at a dried bunch of leaves. “Stinging nettle will help her generate more red blood cells; I should be able to harvest more on the property. Now, put those oven mitts on. If she tries to fight, though I think she’s far too weak, you’ll have to hold her down.”
Cordelia did as she was told, but the vixen only twitched as her sister cleaned the wound. Eustace hummed as she worked—an indistinct tune that focused her, the fox stilling beneath her hands.
When the wound was closed, Eustace made a poultice with the honey and herbs. “She needs water. There’s a turkey baster in that drawer. Do your best to get some fluid in her until I finish with this.”
Cordelia pushed the baster into the fox’s mouth, its jaw working against the intrusion, just far enough back to let the liquid slide down her throat.
“Again,” Eustace told her, and Cordelia repeated the steps a few more times.
“We’ll need more chicken and eggs,” Eustace told Gordon. “Some berries and apples too. And a really good blender.”
