“I have a Vitamix at the carriage house,” he said. “I use it for protein shakes. I’ll get it now. The rest I can get in the morning.” He slipped out through the solarium.
Eustace stood over the fox like a mother shielding her baby. She continued to hum, a rumble behind pinched lips, as she tended her patient with the care of a nurse and the gentleness of a midwife.
“I dreamt of Mom,” Cordelia told her. “Isawwhat happened—I saw it all. Like I was there.”
Eustace peered at her. “Did you see who?”
She shook her head. “It was dark, but… what they did, it ended her.”
Eustace took a sharp breath in and looked back down at the fox, now blank as stone. “No, no, no.”
“You did your best.” Cordelia knew a lost cause when she saw one.
But Eustace wouldn’t let go. She pressed her hands against the animal’s wound, sobbing, humming, until her whole body was pulsing. Light and heat began to build around her like she was drawing it from the fixtures and the plants in the solarium, the sun outside, and channeling it through her hands. The bulbs flickered in their sockets, sparks crackling from a nearby outlet.
Cordelia could feel the heat like the cast of a hearth fire. And so could the fox. Within moments, her chest began to rise and fall again, her legs and ears stirred, her eyes fluttered. She picked her head up, and Eustace’s hands were thrown off by the energy she’d created. She stumbled back, shaking them like they’d been burned.
Cordelia rushed over to the sink and ran a dish towel under some cool water, pressing it to one of Eustace’s palms and then the other.
Her sister shook her off, backing away. “I’m fine,” she said, wiping her hands across her shirt as if they were covered in blame. But she was suddenly glowing, her complexion radiant in the kitchen light and her hair full of silver luster. Her cheeks were like two blushing apples, and the whites of her eyes seemed brighter, her lips and hips fuller.
The fox was lying on its belly, legs tucked carefully underneath, head raised, ears alert, eyes bright and watching Eustace’s every move.
“Holy Neroli…” she muttered with awe.
“What was that?” Cordelia pressed.
“I–I don’t know? I just wanted so badly for her to live. And I was touching her. It was so warm.Shewas so warm. And for a minute… for a minute, Ibecameher.”
Cordelia shook her head as if she could dislodge those words, keep them from burrowing in.
Eustace was beaming like a strip of neon. “I know it sounds crazy. I slipped into her or… we slipped into each other. And there was so muchlight.” She stroked the fox between the ears.
Worry festered under Cordelia’s skin, hot and itchy, and yet her sister looked better than she ever had in her life. The fox was alive and awake. And Eustace could explain none of it.
Gordon barreled through the door, blender in hand, when the fox stopped him in his tracks.
“Don’t move too quickly,” Eustace instructed. “You’ll scare her.”
He made a wide circle around the island. “How is that possible?”
“Eustace did some vet tech training after high school,” Cordelia lied, thinking on her feet. “She has a way with animals.”
“I just brought the blender to be nice. I didn’t think she’d actually make it,” he admitted.
He wasn’t the only one.
Gordon held up a brown grocery sack. “Change of clothes, toothbrush—the essentials. I’ll camp out in the parlor if it’s okay with you for a night or two. Make sure whoever did this doesn’t come back.”
“I’ll clean up the blood.” Cordelia grabbed a mop and filled a bucket, dragging them to the stair hall. She mopped the floorboards, scrubbing them with an old towel on hands and knees until they were shining and only the rubber and chlorine scent of tap water remained. But she couldn’t wash the image from her mind—the crooked cross splashed wickedly before her, the glint of chandelier light on fresh blood, the sagging fox now lying in their kitchen.
She climbed the elegant stairs in wet, bare feet. She wouldshower and change. And she would pick a fireplace in the house and burn her T-shirt. And she would check in on her sister and the miracle fox. And then, once she’d managed to eat something and clear her head a bit, she would figure out how to fight back.
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTHEACCIDENT
CORDELIA WASN’T PREPAREDfor company. She was jumpier than usual after their grisly morning, the harrowing night of overturned candles and kisses stolen in the dark. They had just gathered to sit down to lunch when the knock sounded. She froze, posture stiffening.
Eustace cocked an eyebrow. “Expecting someone?”
